Which laptop processor for editing? I use Adobe Premiere Pro

[Tim Kolb]

Functional power being the primary consideration, the P4…without a doubt. The 533 FSB is even a bigger tradeoff than the low power processor as far as speed is concerned. These low power laptops are absolutely great for general word processing and web surfing and general office stuff but video is just a load no matter what you do with it. The M processor wouldn’t be non-functional of course, but it would be significantly less powerful, not to mention that slower (4200rpm) C drives are usually an integral part of these power-conserving laptops.

The tradeoff of course is that a laptop that is good for video will run relatively hot, will have a severely reduced battery life, and will probably not be the lightest thing around. My GoBOXX is a hog, but the 17″ monitor and 3.2 P4 with 2 Gigs of RAM and 2×60 Gig RAID 0 C: drive rips through PPro and AE work (even HD) really nicely….of course I have to have a small deck with auxillary fans under it to supplement the three fans already in it…

TimK
Kolb Syverson Communications
Creative Cow Host
2004, 2005 NAB Post Production Conference Premiere Pro Technical Chair
Author, “The Easy Guide to Premiere Pro” http://www.focalpress.com
“Premiere Pro Fast Track DVD Series” http://www.classondemand.net

[Norman Lafranchi]

I have a Compaq Presario 3420CA with an AMD3400+ 64bit processor. It’s at least as fast if not faster for processing video than our 3.2Ghz P4 desktop.

In Canada, it’s cheaper than your other brand name P4 machine as well, and often comes cheaper with 1 GB of RAM.

[Tim Kolb]

Hi Norman,

I haven’t had a chance to use an Opteron laptop yet. How is it for heat? We have a dual Opteron here and the fans just about make the tower hover.

TimK
Kolb Syverson Communications
Creative Cow Host
2004, 2005 NAB Post Production Conference Premiere Pro Technical Chair
Author, “The Easy Guide to Premiere Pro” http://www.focalpress.com
“Premiere Pro Fast Track DVD Series” http://www.classondemand.net

[Brian Deviteri]

I have a Dell Inspiron 8600 laptop… it’s a Pentium-M 2.0ghz, 60gb 7200rpm internal hard drive, 1GB ram, 1680×1050 screen, running Win XP Pro with SP2, PPro 1.5.1 and a bunch of other “usual” video and audio programs (Audition, Encore, Photoshop, etc). I’m MORE than happy with the performance of this laptop. It easily competes with the P4 3.2ghz desktop I used to use daily. Since I’m traveling a lot more, I find that this laptop solution works great for my needs. Normal editing and daily functions are just as speedy as a desktop. I have found that rendering to MPEG-2 is about equal to a P4 2.8 or 3.0ghz. I usually let all those longer encodes go overnight or while at lunch.

[John Hartney]

M processors are a hybred of PIII and PIV design, taking the best of each. I’m working with one in a Dell 9300 and it beats my P4 3.0 northwood system. Most laptop hard drives are at least 5400 and there are several 7200rpm models. Dell offers a 7200 60 gig and 80 gig internal. The 9300 also can be purchased with a GO6800 card/256megs and DVI/s-video/vga out. I’m using the Dell 9300 with premiere and vegas without a hitch, even when capturing to an external dinky usbpowered 5400 60gig external drive while running DV-rack. I like the 9300 for the price.

John Hartney
werks.tv
Elgin, Illinois – Chicago area
847.608.1357

[Tim Kolb]

[John Hartney] “Most laptop hard drives are at least 5400 and there are several 7200rpm models. Dell offers a 7200 60 gig and 80 gig internal.”

I think “most” might be optimistic.

Most laptop drives outside of the high-efficiency segment may have 5400 rpm drives (though I don’t know that…), but most Pentium M’s and Centrinos have 4200s…it’s part of the low power demand package. Check the Dell website again and you’ll see that outside of the 60 and 80 Gig 7200s, every other drive offered as internal for the 9300 is 4200 rpm as far as I can see when I call up the grid…

At this point is there even another 2.5″ 7200rpm drive besides the Hitachi? I’m not sure…

Anyway, my point was to watch that spec carefully if considering one of these laptops. There is no question that they’re pretty impressive and can probably do DV stuff fine, and certainly are above a like-clocked P4 for on-the-chip performance, but the 533 MHz FSB is still a limitation.

These more portable, energy efficient laptops are the future of all laptop computing, even video…there’s no question. I just think developing a pipe to get the math on and off the chip as fast as the chip can process it will certainly help to realize the real media production potential of these systems.

Bottom line, if the system works, it works…how much headroom it has is a different story. I know I am happy to hear that most likely my next laptop has good potential to be a battery-preserving, non-lap-scalding mobile processor from the sound of it…

TimK
Kolb Syverson Communications
Creative Cow Host
2004, 2005 NAB Post Production Conference Premiere Pro Technical Chair
Author, “The Easy Guide to Premiere Pro” http://www.focalpress.com
“Premiere Pro Fast Track DVD Series” http://www.classondemand.net

[Aanarav Sareen]

Tim,
I would have to disagree with you regarding your statement that the Pentium M laptops are slower then Pentium 4 systems. I used to edit with a Pentium 4 laptop and it was a)heavy b)would get very warm. Due to these reasons, I decided to purchase a laptop with a Pentium M processor. My Pentium M processor easily beats the Pentium 4 system (3.4ghz w/HT) in terms of redering times and other processor intensive tasks. I am using the same amount of RAM (1GB)

[Bj Thomas]

Thank you, guys for the info. I was wondering why Dell wasn’t offering any P4 laptops, all the new top of the line ones are Pentium M. Take care.

Bj

[Tim Kolb]

[Aanarav Sareen] “I would have to disagree with you regarding your statement that the Pentium M laptops are slower then Pentium 4 systems. I used to edit with a Pentium 4 laptop and it was a)heavy b)would get very warm. Due to these reasons, I decided to purchase a laptop with a Pentium M processor. My Pentium M processor easily beats the Pentium 4 system (3.4ghz w/HT) in terms of redering times and other processor intensive tasks.”

Well, I’m not sure said that they’re slower in every way…

The benchmarking I’ve seen over the last year or so estimate that a Pentium M running at between 1.7 and 2 GHz should be able to hold its own with a 3.0 GHz P4…but there are other factors. I said that you want to be careful about what hard drives they have and the slower FSB is simply…slower.

Rendering taxes processors, but not data pipelines in or out of them…now previewing video effects and multiple streams of video depends first on harddrive speed and second on buss transfer speed to move the data. Theoretically, even with an equal or faster processor, a slower buss speed slows the data flow.

I suspect that editing DV doesn’t exactly emphasize the margin between the different systems, but HD certainly would…and HD is pretty much here.

I agree completely with the heat and weight and power consumption issues with desktop P4 processors and, as I said, these newer processors are definitely the future…the very near future even, but they’ll overtake the desktop Pentium processors for all uses when the internal plumbing gets at least as wide, if not wider than the current 800 MHz FSB in the P4 systems.

TimK
Kolb Syverson Communications
Creative Cow Host
2004, 2005 NAB Post Production Conference Premiere Pro Technical Chair
Author, “The Easy Guide to Premiere Pro” http://www.focalpress.com
“Premiere Pro Fast Track DVD Series” http://www.classondemand.net

[Aanarav Sareen]

Yes, you are right that the Pentium M processors of last year are equivalent to the Pentium 4 3.0 processors. However, the newer models use the Sonoma (sp?) chipset that have a 2MB cache and a 533mhz FSB (as you mentioned above).

Aanarav Sareen
Adobe Certfied Expert, Premiere Pro
https://www.asvideoproductions.com/video