Resolve Laptop Comparisons
Posted: Wed Aug 29, 2018 2:16 pm
I have seen several posts related to "which laptop should I buy" or "will this laptop run Resolve" and thought I would provide some brief feedback and results from a recent laptop switch that might be helpful to someone.
I'll preface this by saying that I do have a proper tower with a GTX1070 8GB graphics card as my main editing and grading machine, however I travel frequently for projects and like to use a laptop on the road for basic edits and project drafts.
Until this week, that travel laptop was a previous-generation Razer Blade 14 with a Quad-Core i7, 2.2GHz, 16GB RAM, and a NVIDIA 1060 6GB graphics card. It had lots of power, but was not without its quirks, so this week I tested the new Dell XPS 15 9570, Hexacore i7, 2.2GHz/4.1GHz boost, 16GB RAM and a NVIDIA 1050 Max-Q 4GB graphics card. I was hoping that the Dell would be a more stable machine overall, plus it has a better 4K touchscreen display.
My concern was that the lighter-duty graphics card wouldn't be up to the task with Resolve, but I was wrong. I have tested projects this week consisting of 4K ProRes 422 footage from my Ursa Mini, HD ProRes 422 footage from the same camera and H.264 footage supplied by clients, and the Dell has been up to the task. Playback is smooth at nearly full FPS right from the get-go, and full FPS playback after just a few scrubs back and forth.
Most astonishingly, I imported a film project that I had been grading on my main PC - a 15 minute documentary, 4k footage scaled down to an HD timeline, mostly in ProRes 422 with some odd b-roll, and a utility LUT and primary color corrections on all clips. Exporting the project to an H.264 master on the Razer took just under 7 minutes (6:59.72). The Dell, with its extra cores and weaker graphics card, exported in just over 6 (6:07.87). Playback on both machines was nearly identical.
I'll preface this by saying that I do have a proper tower with a GTX1070 8GB graphics card as my main editing and grading machine, however I travel frequently for projects and like to use a laptop on the road for basic edits and project drafts.
Until this week, that travel laptop was a previous-generation Razer Blade 14 with a Quad-Core i7, 2.2GHz, 16GB RAM, and a NVIDIA 1060 6GB graphics card. It had lots of power, but was not without its quirks, so this week I tested the new Dell XPS 15 9570, Hexacore i7, 2.2GHz/4.1GHz boost, 16GB RAM and a NVIDIA 1050 Max-Q 4GB graphics card. I was hoping that the Dell would be a more stable machine overall, plus it has a better 4K touchscreen display.
My concern was that the lighter-duty graphics card wouldn't be up to the task with Resolve, but I was wrong. I have tested projects this week consisting of 4K ProRes 422 footage from my Ursa Mini, HD ProRes 422 footage from the same camera and H.264 footage supplied by clients, and the Dell has been up to the task. Playback is smooth at nearly full FPS right from the get-go, and full FPS playback after just a few scrubs back and forth.
Most astonishingly, I imported a film project that I had been grading on my main PC - a 15 minute documentary, 4k footage scaled down to an HD timeline, mostly in ProRes 422 with some odd b-roll, and a utility LUT and primary color corrections on all clips. Exporting the project to an H.264 master on the Razer took just under 7 minutes (6:59.72). The Dell, with its extra cores and weaker graphics card, exported in just over 6 (6:07.87). Playback on both machines was nearly identical.