PC laptop for music production

[Offshore_Banker]

Best friend wants to buy a new PC laptop : Max budget 2000€


I Advised him to get a Macbook Pro, explained the benefits of M chips vs Intel and Core Audio vs ASIO.

He DO NOT CARE AT ALL, doesn't have a strong opinion about PC vs Mac, he just doesn't like MacOS and he WILL NOT BUY A MAC.


Context :

Apart from sampled vocals, he is not using any samples, acoustic instruments or hardware synths and he is not tracking vocals.

He produces sound design heavy electronic music.

He doesn't have a treated room dedicated for music so he doesn't want to use studio monitoring speakers.


The Windows laptop :

The brand and the model chosen is the DELL XPS 15

Does someone have hands-on experience with the DELL Precision and can make a strong case for it over the XPS ? It was supposed to be the better choice for a workstation but the consensus seems to be that there is no performance advantage over the XPS when using the same specs.

The biggest question to which I couldn't find an answer would be :

Which one have the better cooling profile ?


There are 3 options for the XPS as part of a sale operation until the end of the month on the Dell official European website :

Configuration 1 :

CPU - Intel® Core™ i7-13700H 13th generation (24 Mo Cache, 14 Cores, 5,00 GHz Turbo)

OS - Windows 11 Family

GPU - Intel® Arc™ A370M

RAM - 16 Go, 2 x 8 Go DDR5 Memory, 4 800 MHz

Drive - SSD M.2 PCIe NVMe 512 Go

Screen - 15,6" InfinityEdge FHD+ (1 920 x 1 200) Non Tactile, Anti-Glare, 500 cd/m²

Price - Retail : 1 599,00 € / Sale : 1 449,36 €



Configuration 2 :

CPU - Intel® Core™ i7-13700H 13th generation (24 Mo Cache, 14 Cores, 5,00 GHz Turbo)

OS - Windows 11 Family

GPU - NVIDIA® GeForce RTX™ 4050, 6 Go GDDR6

RAM - 32 Go, 2 x 16 Go DDR5 Memory, 4 800 MHz

Drive - SSD M.2 PCIe NVMe 512 Go

Screen - 15,6" InfinityEdge FHD+ (1 920 x 1 200) Non Tactile, Anti-Glare, 500 cd/m²

Price - Retail : 2 129,00 € / Sale : 1 879,36 €



Configuration 3 :

CPU - Intel® Core™ i7-13700H 13th generation (24 Mo Cache, 14 Cores, 5,00 GHz Turbo)

OS - Windows 11 Family

GPU - NVIDIA® GeForce RTX™ 4050, 6 Go GDDR6

RAM - 32 Go, 2 x 16 Go DDR5 Memory, 4 800 MHz

Drive - SSD M.2 PCIe NVMe 512 Go

Screen - 15,6" InfinityEdge FHD+ (1 920 x 1 200) Non Tactile, Anti-Glare, 500 cd/m²

Price - Retail : 2 249,00 € / Sale : 1 999,36 €



If my friend choose the 1st configuration he will install x1 16 Go Memory to meet his 32 Go RAM processing power goal.

This configuration is appealing as it cuts the price down BIG TIME due to the GPU being cheaper, I don't think you need a more powerful GPU on a audio laptop, If you feel different please educate me.

The idea of cracking a laptop open straight out of the box is pretty restrictive and annoying but will save money.

Important questions :

Will there be a second RAM slot for the upgrade installation ? (I believe so since the lowest spec is 2x8 Go)

Is 2x8 Go compatible with 2x16 Go upgrade ?

Is having 32 Go RAM compatible with Intel® Arc™ A370M ?

Is Intel® Arc™ A370M enough for audio ?



If he choose the 2nd configuration, he will not have to open his SLAPPING BRAND NEW COMPUTER to make any modifications.

Important questions :

Is there any advantage to have a NVIDIA® GeForce RTX™ 4050 in Audio ?

Will this more powerful GPU, with a different architecture, introduce DPC latencies ?

Is DPC Latency even an issue when you do not track vocals and only work in the box ?



3rd configuration, just more drive space, wich he doesn't need as he backups all his projects on external hardrives and cloud services. As said before, he doesn't use any samples libraries so he doesn't need the extra space. Only an OS, a DAW, VST's and the audio interface drivers will be installed on this computer.

Important question :

Is there Any advantage of having a bigger "headroom" with a 1TB SSD for writing/deleting operations that could benefit the RAM given that the 500 Gb will already be mostly empty ?



In Conclusion :

Does Intel® Core™ i7-13700H 13th generation (24 Mo Cache, 14 Cores, 5,00 GHz Turbo) have great performances compared to other i7 chips models ? (especially single-core)

Should my friend wait a few months to get the same computer with the new 14th gen i7's that just came out in an effort to better future-proof his investment at the cost of a 250€ discount ?



What is the most intelligent choice to make (Chip and configuration) in your opinion ?



Thanks for helping !

I did my best to research the subject and help my friend but I lack technical knowledge in the PC world as I am working on Mac.

I just don't want him to make a costly mistake and any help from someone that has the "edge" in PC audio laptops specs is greatly appreciated !



Cheers and have a nice one

THANK YOU !

[Offshore_Banker]

More Context (VST's and DAW used)


DAW
Ableton Live 11

Synths
Serum - Xfer Records
Spire - Reveal Sound

Drums
Microtonic - Sonic Charge
Kick 2 - Sonic Academy

Multi Effects
Shaperbox 3 - Cableguys
Infiltrator 2 - Devious Machines

Reverbs
Raum - Native Instruments
Vintage Verb - Valhalla
Plate - Valhalla
Shimmer - Valhalla

Delays
Replika XT - Native Instruments
Delay - Valhalla

Chorus / Flanger / Phaser
Choral - Native Instruments
Flair - Native Instruments
Phasis - Native Instruments
Übermod - Valhalla

Multiband distortion
Saturn 2 - Fabfilter
Thermal - Output

Equalizers
Pro-Q3 - Fabfilter
SmartEQ 4 - Sonible

Compressors
Pro-C2 - Fabfilter
SmartComp 2 - Sonible

Multiband Compressors
Pro-MB - Fabfilter
Multiband X6 - Devious Machines

Limiters
Pro-L2 - Fabfilter
SmartLimit - Sonible

Filters
Volcano 3 - Fabfilter
Filtershaper XL - Cableguys

De-Essers
Pro-DS - Fabfilter
SmartDeess - Sonible

Gate / Expanders
Pro-G - Fabfilter
SmartGate - Sonible

Pitch / Correction
Auto Tune Artist - Antares
Pitch Monster - Devious Machines

Ducking / Sidechaining
Duck - Devious Machines

Transients shapers
DS-10 - XLN Audio
Spiff - Oeksound

Resonance suppressor
Soothe 2

Metering
True Balance - Sonible
True Levels - Sonible

Free
Dimension Expander - Xfer Records
Space Modulator - Valhalla

[chk071]

Best friend wants to buy a new PC laptop : Max budget 2000€


I Advised him to get a Macbook Pro, explained the benefits of M chips vs Intel and Core Audio vs ASIO.

He DO NOT CARE AT ALL, doesn't have a strong opinion about PC vs Mac, he just doesn't like MacOS and he WILL NOT BUY A MAC.

Totally understandable.

Also take a look at the ASUS Zenbook laptops.

[Offshore_Banker]

Thanks for the input

It was actually down to the Zenbook or the XPS and he prefered the XPS.
They're in the same ballpark, but the configuration options were more optimized at Dell and the sales allowed him to get sub 2000€ for the max specs so it took the spot

Still yet to pull the trigger though, he have about 2 weeks before the sale ends so we're relying on the experts up here to get more confident

[chk071]

Dell XPS is good too.

[Offshore_Banker]

Bump

[Shinizzle]

GPU will have no impact on daw performance however I would stick with Nvidia rather than Intel's arc in case or some odd driver issues.
14th gen intel is just over clocked 13th gen so likely runs a bit hotter.
With regard to buying one with 16gb ram and upgrading to 32, check the service manual you can definitely do this for the laptop chosen as the industry seems to be heading towards soldering ram on (usually the cheaper laptops and macs with Mac silicon) but check nevertheless.

Also my personal opinion but I hate Dell's BIOS's but that's just me

[Pictus]

Bump

I only using custom desktops and no notebooks.
I do not like notebooks for hard work.
Noisy/heat problems and less powerful.
I have zero knowledge about *any* modern notebook.
If I must choose one, I would look at some more rugged
model with better cooling solution and NO extra GPU.

Anyway, if the Dell model is the same as this video
http://tinyurl.com/3jk58xas
It is memory and SSD upgrade-able.
For audio workloads the Intel/AMD onboard GPU is better, less DPC
latency problems than NVidia.

DPC latency is always a problem, but some tweaks helps.
viewtopic.php?p=8820694#p8820694
But tweaks to lower the DPC latency are not good for the notebook battery.

[Offshore_Banker]

@Pictus Many thanks for the video about the upgrade-able RAM/SSD this is an important part of configuration 1 and if it wasn't user upgradable to 32gb we couldn't go for it.

@Shinizzle Thanks for the tips about the 14th gen Intel, don't want a hotter CPU in a laptop for a (negigible ?) performance boost.

Now we have to decide if it's better to go with eventual driver issues on the Intel Arc or eventual DPC latency caused by NVIDIA 4050

I don't think any option would be crippling in any way ?, not getting a NVIDIA 4050 means minus 430€ on the total price, driver issues on the Intel ARC is scarier than DPC latency though.

I know that's a silly question but just to get it of the way cause I still have a doubt, but surely, 500 Go SSD vs 1TB SSD don't mean better performance for someone that already has 450 - 400 Go of free space on the 500 Go one ? aka no big sample libraries installed

[mgw38]

What is the most intelligent choice to make (Chip and configuration) in your opinion ?

One of the most important but often overlooked points when choosing a laptop for music production is that the laptop should be able to run on battery in full performance mode for extended periods of time.

After all, if you have to plug it in all the time, what's the point of having a laptop. And on top of that, the most powerful configuration does not help if you need to throttle performance when on battery.

My recommendation would therefore be: no discrete Nvidia GPU (usually also reduced DPC latency), careful with the screen resolution (if you don't need 4k, then don't choose 4k), and the most power efficient CPU possible.

Max out memory and drive storage as much as possible. If you can avoid using an external SSD for samples, then you should. And sound designers usually have a lot of samples.

[kingozrecords]

You could make an i5 build with a rtx 2060 super from aliexpress (mlsse , not sure if I trust soyo; mlsse has samsung memory), liquid cool it with a kraken g12 with an asus rog aio, and use an arctic frozen magic 'scenic' 360 (watched 100's of reviews, is a tier2, close to tier1 with nice stats; good price) for the cpu, costing only 1300 with 32gb ddr 4/5 ram. I might even get a jonsbo d41 mesh to bring the price up to 15

Screenshot 2024-01-23 174426.png

[maanga]

I read it like a cooking recipe.