Solved! Choosing laptop for video editing (Dell XPS 15 9570?)

[Sandraos]

Hi everyone,

I am deciding on buying a new laptop for my video editing work.

I mostly work with 1080 and 4K videos (could be proxies) and often have Premiere, After Effects and sometimes Photoshop all open at the same time. The most important part for me is to be able to watch the videos in real time, without having to render them before.

My budget is around $2000, but I could go up a little bit if it would really show a difference.


I'm currently looking at the Dell XPS 15 9570 at these specs:
- 8th Generation Intel® Core™ i7-8750H Processor (9MB Cache, up to 4.1 GHz, 6 Cores)
- NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 1050Ti with 4GB GDDR5
- 16Gb DDR4-2666MHz
- M.2 512GB 2280 PCIe Solid State Drive
- 1920 x 1080 Non-touch IPS 100% sRGB
- $1,759.99
- https/www.dell.com/en-us/shop/dell-laptops/xps-15/spd/xps-15-9570-laptop/dycwb1647h

I still have some budget left to upgrade one of the components, and I'm thinking about different options:
+ 1TB PCIe Solid State Drive & 32GB RAM ($1,949.99)
or
+ 8th Generation Intel® Core™ i9-8950HK Processor (12MB Cache, up to 4.8 GHz, 6 cores) (~$2,109)



So basically, the question is - is it better to invest in additional disk space and RAM memory OR a better processor?

I would like to use the laptop for at least 5 years and since both the SSD and RAM can be changed and updated later when I have more money, is it maybe better to go for the better processor now?

Or do you maybe have some other laptops that you would recommend?

I am switching from a 7 years old HP Probook 450G0, with a two core i5-3230M and 8Gb RAM, so I believe that the upgrade will be huge in any case.

I would really appreciate your help and recommendations. Thanks a lot!

 

[hang-the-9]

I would get the best CPU you can afford, along with 16 GB of RAM. The disk size you need to pick since you know how much storage you need for files and programs.

 

[tom.fota]

I just went through the same process last week and picked the same system as you from Dell. However, two days after I ordered it I saw a deal at Costco for the same laptop, but with 32GB DDR4 2666MHz RAM, the 1TB M.2 PCIe SSD, and the 15.6" Touchscreen InfinityEdge Anti-Reflective 4K Ultra HD (3840 x 2160) Display for $1850, $450 off. With tax, it came to just over $2000. I contacted Dell and got a no-cost return label. The first laptop arrived, I put the return label on it and took it to UPS. The second one is scheduled to arrive Friday.

This is the one that I bought, but unfortunately it's now $2000: https/www.costco.com/Dell-XPS-15-Touchscreen-Laptop---Intel-Core-i7---4K-Ultra-HD---GeForce-GTX-1050-Ti.product.100418639.html

If you're editing 4K video, shouldn't you get the 4K display? Or can you run a 4K external monitor off the NVIDIA GPU?

 

[Sandraos]

I just went through the same process last week and picked the same system as you from Dell. However, two days after I ordered it I saw a deal at Costco for the same laptop, but with 32GB DDR4 2666MHz RAM, the 1TB M.2 PCIe SSD, and the 15.6" Touchscreen InfinityEdge Anti-Reflective 4K Ultra HD (3840 x 2160) Display for $1850, $450 off. With tax, it came to just over $2000. I contacted Dell and got a no-cost return label. The first laptop arrived, I put the return label on it and took it to UPS. The second one is scheduled to arrive Friday.

This is the one that I bought, but unfortunately it's now $2000: https/www.costco.com/Dell-XPS-15-Touchscreen-Laptop---Intel-Core-i7---4K-Ultra-HD---GeForce-GTX-1050-Ti.product.100418639.html

If you're editing 4K video, shouldn't you get the 4K display? Or can you run a 4K external monitor off the NVIDIA GPU?

Tom, that sounds like a great deal you got! I'm not in a big hurry, so I'll maybe wait for something similar to appear again. I would love to hear your impressions when the new laptop arrives, especially if you are doing some video editing as well. About the display, I have an external 4K monitor and will be connecting it to the laptop when I'm at home.