New Laptop Recommendations for Premiere Pro and After Effects?

[johnt53984649]

Alright, so I'm looking for a laptop with at least the following specs:

Quad Core Intel i7 2.6GHz or more processor

NVIDIA GTX Mobile Graphics Processing Unit

1920 x 1080 resolution (at minimum)

Ten-key pad (this is crucial, I really really need this).

128GB SSD for bootup and program files (or more)

1TB 7200 RPM HDD (or more)

3 USB ports (the more the merrier)

1 HDMI out port

Windows 8, 8.1 or 10

16GB of RAM (the more the merrier)

When it comes to the SSDs and HDDs, I am the most flexible, but the operating system absolutely must be installed on an SSD.  If the computer just has one 1-Terabyte SSD, for example, I would be okay with that.

I'm sure that there are a lot of computers that meet these specifications, but I want to hear your recommendations based upon your own experiences.  I also want to hear if you recommend anything else for laptop editing.  Some of the editing that I do includes:

Rendering 60fps 1080p multi-track (layer) videos between 5 and 12 minutes (h.264 codec) (25-30 mbps bitrate) out of Premiere Pro CC 2015

Rendering 60fps 1080p 10-20 track (layer) videos around 2 minutes out of Adobe After Effects CC 2014 (for multi-threaded performance, since CC2015 doesn't) (mxfOp1a codec)

I want to hear your recommendations for specs I should look for in a laptop and I also want to hear what specific laptops you would recommend for what I render.  My price range is between $1000-$3000, but I'd prefer it to be on the lower end of that spectrum.

[magneter]

I'm looking for a similar laptop so I'm anxious to hear what the experts will say. What's your budget?

[Bill_Gehrke]

Very ambitious AE processing, AE needs all the memory you can throw at it.  Also in this day and age why specify a hard disk drive, get modern and go SSD.  Even a SATA SSD is almost three times faster than the disk drive and of course the new PCIe Gen 3 x4 SSD's are about ten times faster.

[johnt53984649]

Truthfully, when it comes to data storage, I'm not sure if I would notice any benefit from a PCIe SSD over a SATA III SSD.  Whenever I render, I usually get to 100% cpu usage, so are the SSDs really acting as a bottleneck?  My 850 Pro SATA III is super fast in comparison to what I'm used to, so I can't imagine noticing any difference (when I'm rendering and working on videos in Premiere) with a PCIe SSD.  What are your experiences with them?

[Bill_Gehrke]

wastingyourlifeaway wrote:

Truthfully, when it comes to data storage, I'm not sure if I would notice any benefit from a PCIe SSD over a SATA III SSD.  Whenever I render, I usually get to 100% cpu usage, so are the SSDs really acting as a bottleneck?  My 850 Pro SATA III is super fast in comparison to what I'm used to, so I can't imagine noticing any difference (when I'm rendering and working on videos in Premiere) with a PCIe SSD.  What are your experiences with them?

The real advantage is while 2-3 years ago it was necessary to have 3-5 hard disk drives to get the necessary bandwidth to have a good smooth editing experience with high complexity codecs, now everything can really be done on a single M.2 SSD.

[johnt53984649]

So would I notice any difference between a M.2/PCIe SSD compared to my SATA III 850 Pro SSD when I'm editing and exporting?  That's my main question.

[Bill_Gehrke]

Not if you have smooth editing right now.  But if you move into more complex and higher resolution codecs and more layers it should make things continue to playback and edit smoothly.  If you already have the 850 Pro then stick with it but if you are buying new and have the opportunity to get an M.2 equipped computer it definitely will extent the life of your system.

[RoninEdits]

there has been lots of recent threads on laptops, you can look thru for discussions. Hardware Forum Search: Laptop

these are some good recent ones,

Hi spec editing laptop - PPRO, PS, AE and AI?

Budget Asus laptop work at home video editing

some hardware primers:

i7-4xxxxx is last gen intel cpu, i7-6xxxxx is current gen. the second number being 7 or 8 will be the higher end cpu for laptops, like a i7-68xxxx.

current gen benchmarks similar to last gen, so current gen is just more for features like m.2, usb 3.1, and thunderbolt.

if current gen features aren't of interest, last gen can be a fair amount cheaper as many models are being priced out.

thunderbolt won't be on all current gens, so check carefully if you want that feature. it may be good for future proofing as many devices can use it, including eGPU's.

m.2 is for the new pcie ssd that bill mentioned. make sure it says "pcie" or "x4" m.2, or specifically says it supports samsung 950 pro.

nvidia gtx 965m is good for low gpu effects use, gtx 970m or 980m are better for alot of gpu effects.

msi and asus laptops seem to have several laptops with all of these new features, but many come with older ssd's.

custom laptops can be built for exact needs, like 32gb memory, samsung 950 pro m.2, and/or samsung 850 pro sata ssd.

some laptops offer different amounts of storage devices, like two m.2 slots and two sata ssd bays.

some custom laptops have desktop hardware that can be slightly faster, like an i7-6700 and gtx 980 (without the "m").

here are some custom laptop sites bill recommend

1. Eric at ADK specializes in video editing computers and ADK gives lifetime technical support
2. Xotic PC have a dazzling array of customizable laptops.
3. Sager is another laptop customizer.

[EveryNameIsRejected]

I would AVOID nVidia GTX970M .... I have an MSI laptop with this card, and it has been a finnicky nightmare. It worked for a while before Windows to Updates, then stopped working. I have a service call with MSI, who are now claiming that the 970M is not compatible with Adobe products for video editing.

This laptop renders at 1/2 the speed of my 5 year-old HP generic laptop.

I can't get any help from Adobe on this, and MSI claims it's not their problem. $2000 laptop runs like an under-powered cheal tablet.

AVOID the nVidia, unless you realllllyy like headaches.

Go to a good computer store, and get them to recommend something, and get their commitment to take it back if it does not work 100% to your satisfaction.

[RoninEdits]

have you seen multiple nvidia laptop issues to make such statements? if so you can make a new info thread and post all the problems you have seen and help others avoid those problems, adding this info to an old thread just gets lost. however i suspect you have a one-off problem with some hardware failure or windows problem. if you are running windows 10 you could do a clean install as some of the updates cause problems. you could also see if msi will accept any other software, benchmarks, or stress tests as proof of computer problems, to get around them claiming its an adobe problem and ignoring the poor performance.

[naibyArezao]

Hello,

i bought a ThankPad T570 labtop, windows 7, Prosessor: Intel(R) Core (TM) i7-6600U CPU, installed memory Ram: 8GB, System Type: 65-bit. i am useing Adobe premiere pro cc and it is not working very well, i dont know why and what is the problem. anyone have any idea please?

Thanks

Are

[RjL190365]

Are,

There are several problems with that laptop:

1) That i7-6600U CPU, despite the i7 branding, is only a dual-core CPU. And no dual-core CPU, even with hyperthreading, is as powerful (performance-wise) as even a mediocre quad-core CPU which lacks hyperthreading.

2) Your laptop has only 8GB total of RAM - the absolute minimum amount that's required to even run Premiere Pro CC (2015 or later) at all. You need to add more RAM for Premiere Pro to run at an acceptable clip.

3) Your laptop appears to lack a discrete GPU (or, more specifically, you failed to specify which GPU it has).

4) You need to add an external USB 3.0 drive in order for Premiere Pro to run acceptably smoothly. No truly single-disk system runs this rather disk I/O-intensive software adequately.

Randall