Best mobile CPU for Photoshop/Lightroom/After Effects/3DS Max?

So I'm thinking that my next laptop will be an HP Envy 14 once it becomes available in Canada. Going off of the US HP site there are a few options for the CPU. From what I've read the i5-520m is a better option over the i7-720QM for battery life and the i7 would be slower for single threaded apps. But this advice seems to apply more to people who are looking to play games. I'm not going to play games but rather spend most of my time editing RAW photos in Lightroom/Photoshop as well as doing some work in After Effects and a little 3DS Max on the side. Longer batter life is always great but I'm usually plugged ins so it's not at the top of my list.

So now I'm trying to figure out if the same CPU options are available for Canada, if I should stick with the 520m as it seems like the best value for most people or if I should look into the higher i7s like the i7-740QM or the i7-840QM.

Thanks.

 

i5-520M, and use the money saved to upgrade more RAM or SSD

 

I use Max a lot myself, so I can understand your predicament.
If it were me, I'd choose the higher end i7 because most of the apps you mentioned will be optimized for multicore cpu's.
Or if you can wait a bit, hang on until newer revisions come out by the end of this year and see what's on offer.

Max would benefit most from having actual 4 cores and loads of RAM ... as woud PS, After Effects and Lightroom.

 

Yea for editing you are much better getting 4 cores. If you can afford it the 840qm would be an amazing processor for your needs. The 740qm will be right up there almost as fast and a much better value overall. If your professional work is critical and time = money for you then it may be worth getting the 840qm the 740qm wont be much slower though and will save you 100's of dollars you could use to invest in an ssd or 8GB ram which you will want working with that kind of stuff. Most likely though you will need alot of HDD space so you may want to wait till fall/winter to get your SSD Gen 3 intels will be comming out and they will have at least 320GB ones myabe 640GB ones. If you need alot of space and 320GB SSD wont be enough then your next best choice is the 500GB seagate hybrid drive with the 4GB read cache SSD.

All depends on your budget. If you are going for value/performance I would suggest the 740qm 8GB of generic 1333mhz DDR3 ram or even 1066MHz ram if you find a very cheap deal as the mhz difference will hardly be noticeable in any real life scenarios and the 1066 has lower latencies making the dsifference in speed between the 2 negligible and the 500GB seagate hybrid drive.

If you are going for all out performance regardless of price I would go for 840qm 8GB of kingston hyper x ram 1333mhz. And if you need the SSD now go with the 256GB RealSSD c300 if thats not enough space go with a regular hard drive that comes with the laptop and get a 320GB Gen 3 Intel SSD when they come out this fall/winter in q4 2010 might even have a 640GB intel SSD but thats not 100% the 320GB is almost for sure.

 

Thanks for the info guys. I will wait to see what options HP makes available here in Canada. Local storage isn't that big of a concern to me as I tend to work off of external drives. A mix of USB 2 drives and eSATA drives, or work locally and then copy over to an external when done. If I can find a good deal on an SSD then I can always upgrade myself.

Are the i7 740QM and 840QM newer then the 720QM? Or is the i5-520m the newest of that batch? It seems from what I've read the i5-520m has some abilities that the i7's don't, although when reading about them I can't see then effecting me in what I do.

 

The 740/840/940 is the gen2 line refresh, they are the same chips just with slightly higher clock speeds. And the only thing that i5's can do that i7's cannot is use optimus/hybrid gpu tech - since the envy uses an ATI card anyway, you aren't missing anything.

 

the i7 x40's series just recently came out. They are the exact same chip as the i7 x20's except they have a tiny increase the the clock speed (i think they are mostly 130mhz faster). They are nothing to write home about. They seem to be selling for the same price that the x20's sold for so if you dont have a laptop yet you might as well get the x40's unless the x20's are offered at a nice discount then they would be a much better value.

 

I still dont see a need for a quad. I do all of those fine with my i5-540M. Just get more ram and an ssd.

 

It depends on how complex the editing processes you use are and how big the file sizes are. I would go for the 840QM if you can afford it. If you need to decide I would spend the money in this order

1. SSD
2. Take RAM to 8GB (or more)
3. Upgrade from i5 to i7

I rank the SSD above the Ram upgrade as i've found that the SSD is so fast that you barely notice when you run out of memory compared to a conventional drive.

 

If you're interested in editing your attention should be focused primarily on the system that gives you the highest GPU you can afford. After that, it goes without saying that you'll need to max out the RAM. Although a good CPU is also important.

 

I would choose (if available in Canada like the US):
i5-520M
6 or 8GB RAM
500GB 7200RPM HDD
1GB ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5650 switchable graphics

I chose the 500GB HDD because you would need the space. If you want an SSD, I would buy one enough for your Win7 and programs. But save everything else to an external.

 

If you own or plan to purchase Adobe CS5, only Nvidea is compatible with accelerated graphics.

 

Good to know. At the moment I am using CS3, although I may be able to get a cut of CS4 from work. Upgrading to CS5 may be a ways away.

As for editing, I'm not going to be doing video editing just to be clear. I will be doing some After Effects work but nothing major, at home any way. This laptop will spend most of its time running Lightroom 3 and processing RAW files from my 7D.

I do want an SSD but I may upgrade to that at a later point in time.

 

i would do similar except for that i would get it with minimum RAM and upgrade myself later to save money.. same for HDD and i would get a Momentus 500GB XT... as for CPU , just get an i7-620m.. in this way u can sell old parts and save money and get much more stuff cheaply..

 

Note that CS5 onlu uses GPU acceleration for the video and 3D bits. Photo editing is still processor, memory and disk access influenced.

 

after effects is a beast to use. im not sure about cs4 but AE cs5 and almost all cs5 programs are multicore aware. an i7 quad will speed up rendering significantly.
if you plan to do a lot of video editing and rendering (in cs5) in HD i suggest you get an i7 840qm as the bare minimum. if you are planning to do video editing and rendering in cs4 forget as premiere pro and after effects in cs4 are one of the worst coded programs and even a dual quad desktop will have issues running them smoothly.
also get the fastest drive you can afford. if you cant afford an ssd or need more space, try looking into the hybrid drives like the momentus xt (im sure more will come out soon).
however if you will be doin more photo editing work, then the i5 and a nrmal hdd would suffice.
in cs5, a gpu helps speed up previews, but it is still the (multicore) cpu that does most of the work.

 

You analysis is like saying you need a high performance car to get from A to B. In fact, it's a gross exaggeration and only necessary with the most complex editing suites. In addition, your statement about the performance of CS4 is a personal opinion and you should present it as such.

Fact is, all editing hardware comes in level, and even the manufacturer state that their software CS4/5 is operable (albeit at a lower level) with components much below those which you suggest.

 

everyone who has used ppro cs4 knows what im talking about. it is the opinion of almost everyone who has done hd video editing with cs4.
you can go with lower specs for sure but trying using after effects and premiere pro and do a couple of dissolves and transitions and pips and rototscope and lets see if your happy watching your video preview at 2 fps or taking forever to render.
cs5 is multicore aware and using a quad or i7 will make a diffrence especially in rendering speed. so get a good cpu first and foremost and then get a fast drive, 2 if possible. more memory next and a good gpu last.
edit:
a core2quad would be good too for both ae and ppro cs5

 

ah i missed out on the post regarding not doing video editing!
totally my bad.
in that case your specs would be ok for photoshop/lightroom/ae photo editing. but maybe get an nvidia cpu for cs5 gpu acceleration.

 

Even without utilizing that particular function, the best GPU is still necessary for enhanced performance within applications like Photoshop and After Effects and others.