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need to buy laptop for CS5 possibly CS6 – spec difference?
Hi all, I’ve been researching spec to buy a laptop for editing (currently on CS5) of HD .mov files and I was wondering if I need to consider CS6 spec before purchasing incase I upgrade one day. Is there in fact any difference in spec requirements? I’m especially concerned with getting a CUDA supported card for hardware acceleration but not sure if that’s even what they’ve done with CS6 or not?
I was planning on configuring something like this:
https://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/notebooks/Voyager/
but using 2x 7200 drives, 8gb 133mhz ram, maybe the i7 2860 processor as it’s got 8mb cache (is this required or is 6mb ok?) and then I need to choose card. The geforce GT620m and GT530M are the only ones listed but they’re not on the minimum spec list for CS6 and that is exactly what prompted me to ask this question..
I’m ready to click buy today I just need to confirm all the spec first to make sure I’m not making an error. The laptop will really only be used to chop files up, not complete the editing (adding effects, colour grading, etc) that’ll take place on a desktop.
Thanks a lot in advance
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10 Replies
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If you want the effects acceleration benefit of CUDA, make sure you buy a laptop with a video card on adobe’s approved list.
https://www.adobe.com/products/premiere/tech-specs.htmlThe video card’s benefit is mostly limited to effects (and specific effects at that.) If these aren’t important, don’t sweat the video card.
Best,
Jeff I. Greenberg
Editor/Author/Speaker/Consulting
My NAB seminar schedule, contact info and more -
does the card not get involved in a lot more than certain effects then? I always found my editing desktop hugely improved when I added a supported card and I hardly use any effects.
It seems there are not many mobile gfx cards on the supported list so it’s going to be tough if i need to stick to that.
I suppose I could use the hack to enable the gfx card as long as it’s got 1gb of memory.. if that applies to laptops in the same way it does desktops?would love some clarification on this, i’m really keen to buy asap but i’m stuck on this gfx card thing
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As I understand it, no, it doesn’t help non-effect driven playback. Now, I’m never 100% sure of this (and I hope Todd Kopriva from Adobe will chime in).
On the NVidia page (which the adobe page points to) – all the examples have an effect; except the multicam which is delivering 16+ streams. I’m not sure what’s going on there.
But if you’re getting an off spec card that supports CUDA, and you’re not doing effects? You should be fine, at least as I understand it.
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Todd was kind enough to email to me directly.
Version 5
some effects (the accelerated ones)
scaling (items dealing with the Motion built in effects, including time remapping)
deinterlacing
blending modes
color space conversionsVersion 5.5
Film Dissolve
Additive Dissolve
Invert
Directional Blur
Fast BlurVersion 6
Open CL (certain video cards for imacs and macbook pros) and the the Push transition.So, technically, it’s mostly effects, but it’s also PAR/interpolation, color space, and the scaling for multicam.
Could you go off spec, that’s definitely up to you.
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I appreciate your replies Jeff and thanks to Todd for emailing directly.
Ok so it all comes down to off spec graphics card or not now.. the issue is I can’t find any laptops with the cards on the supported list. I find a lot of 3 digit cards, for example 540M but all of the M cards on the supported list (I assume the M stands for mobile – not sure) are 4 digits, for example 5000. I can’t find a single laptop with one of these 4 digit supported cards in it (in the UK anyway)
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I have recently found out that you need to avoid the laptop having Optimus Technology (an Nvidia thing) to get GPU acceleration in most cases and all of the laptops on the site I was looking at have this..
This search is not going to be easy by the looks of it.
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What did you find out about the Optimus Technology? I mean, I know what it does – why wouldn’t plugging it in make a difference?
Optimus was designed for better battery life; nVidia is who you go to for the gpu accerlation (Via CUDA.) There are some third parties that license cuda as well, but I’m told the performance isn’t as good as nVidias. I’d assume they do the same thing on laptops.
Best,
Jeff I. Greenberg
Editor/Author/Speaker/Consulting
My NAB seminar schedule, contact info and more -
From a very knowledgeable source on the subject:
The video cards themselves don’t have the Optimus Technology, it is the laptop that will have the Optimus Tech built in to support the NVidia video card. When a laptop manufacturer supports the NVidia graphic cards, they add the Optimus Tech to the laptop so when the customer plugs in the NVidia video card the Optimus Tech will be in place.
So when you buy a laptop, check to see if it has Optimus Technology.
Laptops come 4 ways:
1. The laptop will come with BOTH a NVidia video card and a integrated video card. Most of these have Optimus Tech.
2. The laptop will come with just the NVidia video card chipset built-in to the laptop and there is NO other integrated video chips. These don’t have the Optimus Tech.
3. The laptop will come with the built-in integrated video card chipset and you can upgrade the video to a NVidia video card. These generally do have the Optimus Tech.
4. The laptop will come with an integrated video card chipset and you can NOT add any other video card to the laptop. No Optimus Tech here.
As far as what video card to recommend that will depend on the laptop specs.
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hot off the press, this saves my bacon, hope it does for someone else too
https://www.studio1productions.com/Articles/Nvidia.htm
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I am sorry your thread is kind of old… so this might be for people looking at it now. I have CS5.5 and CS6. A video card is really important! I had one desktop with a supported video card and one without. The supported computer could smoothly playback 1080i the other could not. I upgraded the video card and now both can playback 1080i.
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