New laptop purchase hard to match video card reqts

[rob5423]

I started by trying to fit the requirements in

Adobe Premiere Pro System Requirements

to a new laptop purchase (for under ($1K) but it was too cumbersome looking up the video card and finding it unlisted in the the system reqts for premiere pro. I did this for 20 laptops all with i7 processors and a base speed of at least 2.5 ghz with sufficient ram and memory. But they had cards that were not in the list.

My old Toshiba had Intel HD graphics card but cant find the exact number. I find several prospects with Intel HD Graphics 620 but this is not on the reqts list.

I'm wondering if there is a better way of finding the right match..........or if it's going to cost too much to buy a computer that can use Premiere Pro.

[Jim_Simon]

I think your best option is to build a desktop.  Laptop screens are uncomfortably small for this type of work.  You can't install enough internal hard drives.  And the keyboards are generally horrible.

[rob5423]

I will look at desktops. The Toshiba was my first laptop and I really enjoyed the portability. It worked great for my purposes using PP.

[Peferling]

Look up refurbished/off lease Dell Precision laptops.  Might find a gem, or even new old stock with good specs for under $1000.

[mandicreally]

The requirements list is way out of date.  The GeForce GTX 10xx series cards are available in laptops and would be good for Creative Cloud work also. 

I personally have been considering picking up a laptop for on the go work.  I prefer editing on my workstation I built just for it, but when I'm traveling I cannot haul my 60+ pound computer around.

My budget was also under $1000.  I was looking back before Christmas so I cannot locate the deals I saw then now.  The one I was most looking at was this one:

-Lenovo IdeaPad 720s (Intel i7 7th gen 7700HQ, 15.6" 1080p screen, 8GB ram, and a Geforce 1050ti graphics card) - On Sale on Lenovo's site for $999

More memory would be nice but you can likely add that later.  And it only has a 256GB SSD in it.  So you'll likely want some external drives to work off of and back up to.

Unfortunately a good yet affordable video editing laptop is a hard sweet spot to find.  If I can think of the other ones I found I'll try and return with them.

[rob5423]

Thank you for identifying the GeForce GTX 10xx series cards as video cards that work even though they are not on the list. These were found on a couple of my first searches. Please let me know if you have other cards that would work. How do you know this (experience with a lot of computers?).

At this time, I may be willing to buy a laptop that may work with PP knowing there is a risk it wont. I am a seldom user who creates family videos.

[mandicreally · Accepted solution]

I'm an experienced computer user/builder who builds his own desktops. You can still find new and refurb laptops with Geforce 9xx series graphics cards too (also not on the list). Those are last generations cards. If you aren't doing constant heavy editing those should be fine as well. Nvidia quadro  are good too. But those are more expensive so if you find a laptop with one it's probably so out of date it won't fit your needs.

AMD has been lagging in the graphics card division for a while now. And Premiere is more optimized for CUDA acceleration which is an Nvidia thing. So stick Nvidia in that 9xx/10xx series.

A desktop is going to be better. I just built one for myself that is in your price range. It's absolutely great for editing but it doesn't have the portability. If you aren't a power user doing heavy editing work (lumetri color, warp stabilizer, etc) you should be good with a laptop.

[Warren Heaton]

What type of work will you be doing Premiere Pro?

In general, if the laptops is good for gaming it'll be good for editing; however, you'll find that you'll need more like $2,000 to $3,000 for that.

And for responsive performance with strong display options, you can easy go into the $4,000 range (as I'm sure you've noticed).

-Warren

[Peru Bob]

Moved to the Hardware Forum.