Macbook Pro 13" Touchbar 2017 or Razer Blade Stealth (8th Gen) or XPS 13 9360?

AndrewWilliam26

Commendable
Jul 10, 2016
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So im planning to get a laptop for high school and my choice is either the 13" mbp with touchbar, the razer blade stealth or the xps 13 9560.

Im planning to use the laptop for light video editing in premiere pro (or final cut if i were to buy the mbp) too.

the mbp have the 7th gen i5 whilst the XPS and blade stealth come with the 8th gen i7
Spec Choice:
MBP 13" (i5, 8gb, 512gb, dual-core) $1999
Blade Stealth (i7, 16gb, 512gb, quad core) $1599
XPS 13 (i7, 16gb, 512gb, quad core) $1699


 
Solution
No, not really. Video encoding is purely a CPU process. But there are 4 exceptions:

#1 - The video encoding software you plan on using is able to use nVidia's CUDA cores to accelerate video encoding. But the laptop will needs to have a nVidia dedicated GPU.

#2 - The video encoding software is capable of using AMD's Radeon dedicated GPU to accelerate video encoding; I think it is called VCE or Video Coding Engine. The laptop will need to have an AMD Radeon dedicated GPU though.

#3 - The video encoding software supports Intel's Quick Sync technology. If it does, then the Intel HD Iris Plus 650 should provide better performance than the Intel HD 620 due to more graphic cores and slightly higher clockspeeds. I am pretty sure the CPU will...
Video encoding is very CPU intensive so the MacBook as idea as the others.

It's basically between the Dell and Razor. Both are good and the price difference is only $100. Both are great laptops so I just suppose it depends on which one of the two you prefer since they have similar specs.
 

AndrewWilliam26

Commendable
Jul 10, 2016
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1,510



will the iris plus 650 (macbook) impact video encoding compared to the intel uhd 620 (i7 8550u)?
 
No, not really. Video encoding is purely a CPU process. But there are 4 exceptions:

#1 - The video encoding software you plan on using is able to use nVidia's CUDA cores to accelerate video encoding. But the laptop will needs to have a nVidia dedicated GPU.

#2 - The video encoding software is capable of using AMD's Radeon dedicated GPU to accelerate video encoding; I think it is called VCE or Video Coding Engine. The laptop will need to have an AMD Radeon dedicated GPU though.

#3 - The video encoding software supports Intel's Quick Sync technology. If it does, then the Intel HD Iris Plus 650 should provide better performance than the Intel HD 620 due to more graphic cores and slightly higher clockspeeds. I am pretty sure the CPU will have some small role in the process. Therefore, in the end the performance may end up being pretty similar because of the quad core i5-8250u in the Dell and Razor laptops.

#4 - Certain special effects (such as particle effects) added to the video may be accelerated by the graphics core. Outside of that a quad core CPU will transcode the video much more quickly compared to a dual core CPU.
 
Solution

severinsen70

Prominent
Oct 15, 2017
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710
Perhaps take a look at: https://www3.lenovo.com/us/en/calstatelaepp/laptops/ideapad/ideapad-700-series/Lenovo-IdeaPad-720S-14IKB/p/88IP70S0833

I've got the 720s i7 8550u, and it's awesome. Also has a dedicated GPU (MX150). $1200 gets you i7-8550u, 16gb ram, 512gb ssd and MX150 graphics. Also it has a similar small bezel display like the XPS (I love this, it packs a 14" screen in a 12.5" chassis, and at 0.6" thick this thing is extremely portable) not to mention the metal build quality is solid.