Working a lot on the road - Laptop that is better han my Mac Pro 2012? Resolve/Premie

[Eirik Nicolai Heim]

Hi,

I already have a thread about upgrading my Mac Pro 2012 5,1 or go windows.

I am now considering to go for a powerful windows laptop and only use that for all my work. Are there laptops out there that will be better than:
Mac Pro 5,1
2 x 6 core 2,4 Ghz
40 GB memory
Nvidia GTX 680 4 GB of memory

I am a lot on the road and stays for periodes different places. I find my self often in the situation; if I only had my Mac Pro..
Originally I was considering to upgrade the Mac Pro or sell it and buy a windows box. Now I am wondering if it is better to buy one super high end laptop and sell both my Mac Pro and 2013 MacBook Pro retina top specded.

Any thoughts? I know you will get much more power in desktop computers, but are there any laptops that will be enough for me? I am a cinematographer and colorist mainly. Work in Premiere/Davinci. Have a Red Epic W and shoot most often with that.

[Mandela Gregoire]

Hello Eirik,

I have an EpicW and I am using the new MacBookPro 2016 (2.9 Ghz Quad, 2 TB, 4GB graphics card).

I am very happy with the performance in REDCINE-X. I typically playback footage at 1/16 quality just because it's easier.

I have had some issues with Adobe Premiere crashing, not sure what the issue is yet (others are having similar problems)

I am editing in Final Cut Pro using 4K ProRes422 files.

I personally can't imagine having any other laptop right now. The built in USBC is amazing with the new Red Station.

I would recommend getting this Mac, but google a bit about this graphics card glitch.

[Eirik Nicolai Heim]

Hi Mandela,

I would love to continue with MacOS, but I just do not think that the new MacBook Pro is powerful enough and I do not edit at all in Final Cut Pro X. I am looking for something to run Davinci and Premiere. I have a MacBook Pro Retina from 2013 and even that machine can run my Epic W footage at 1/16. I can not understand that my 2013 MacBook Pro has the same amount of memory as the new MacBook Pros. Yeah, I know that the new has faster memory and faster CPU and all that, but still. It is 3 years in between. And my machine has Nvidia card, not AMD. Davinci and Premiere likes Nvidia and Cuda.

If I just somehow new that Apple will come with a new and much more powerful MacBook Pro in sometime in 2017 I would wait for it.

[Olivier Madar]

i am very very happy with my clevo 870DM2. (now, you can buy 870DM3 with non mobile 1080 GTX single or SLI). That is my 4th generation with Clevo, and i don't regret at all the mac.

4 kg
980 GTX desktop edition
64 G RAM
6700K proc
9 T SSD
5 USB 3
3 screen output
2 dysplay ports
What would you nedd more ?

[Eirik Nicolai Heim]

Sounds like a beast for sure!

I see that you can even get laptops now with 1080 SLI, and even a better CPU than with your specs Oliver.

If I go with the highest spec i7 CPU and 1080 SLI and 64 GB of ram on my laptop. Would not that be enough for kind of everything I do?

I do color in up to 4k timelines in Davinci and some lightweight After Effects. I do not to 3D or VFX.
And I edit up to 4k timelines in Premiere.

Will Davinci Resolve or Premiere benefit much with more cores like with a xeon processor?

[Rich Rogers]

Hey Eirik, Are you concerned about the weight at all?

[Olivier Madar]

Will Davinci Resolve or Premiere benefit much with more cores like with a xeon processor?

It depends. When you render your film, you need more core to be able to continue to use the laptop. with the clevo, i render at 100 % of the proc and can't do anything else (just use a web browser). But for scrubbing in the timeine, the ssd, GPU of the clevo are better than my 24 core edit PC. I can't tell you the difference in real life between a 980 GTX and a 1080 GTX

[Eirik Nicolai Heim]

Ok, Leaning a bit against one laptop to rule em all.

Rich, I am not super concerned about the weight. I totally understand that I can not expect this kind of Laptop in a MacBook Pro design. I am used to carry a back pack with a lot of stuff, and some weight and size is OK. Using my F-stop Sartori and Shinn for my camera + laptop almost all my time on the road.

But I guess that new 21 inch Asus or was it Acer that has been shown at CES is too much!

I find it hard to find the perfect match. I see that MSI has a monster that looks promising with a bad ass i7 CPU, 1080 SLI and 64 GB of fast memory, but then just 1920 x 1080 resolution?
The Lenovo P70 which seems to have it all, but then quadro 5000 card?
Another tempting alternativ is the Razor Blade Pro, but it has "only" the regular 1080 and 32 GB of memory.

Are there a machine like the MSI with 1080 SLI, fastest i7 CPU, 64 GB of memory and a 4k Display?

[Alberto Guglielmi]

what about the new dell xps that the boss mentions on his FB?
https://www.facebook.com/jarred.land

[Eirik Nicolai Heim]

Alberto: Looks like a nice machine in it would be a nice replacement for my MacBook Pro when it comes to better specs, but not really sure if it is a one machine to do all that I need. But if I went for both a new better desktop and a laptop this could be an alternative, but then I would also be looking at the Razor Blade Pro. This dell has not the 1080 GPU or 1090 SLI, neither 64 GB of memory.