Quote Hello all,

My current editing laptop is about 6 years old, and giving me tons of issues. I am looking to make a purchase here soon for a new editing laptop. In your experience, is there anything you recommend that is "must have", when considering which laptop purchase to make.

thanks!

There are a lot of variables here. Firstly, will this laptop be primarily used for video editing? I have PD18 loaded on my laptop that is used for a combination of things, including video editing. I have an i7 CPU, plenty of RAM, and a good Nvidia video card. PD 18 works very well on my system, but because my GPU drivers are gaming drivers rather than studio drivers, my GPU only does about 25 percent of the work during rendering. I'm perfectly happy with that compromise, because the gaming component is of equal importance to me. My render times in PD are typically about 50 percent of the duration time of the project. I'm fine with that. So, in the end, it comes down to budget and what you'll be using the laptop for. I would say that if you're looking for a computer that is dedicated to video editing, get a tower rather tha a laptop.

Any "gaming" laptop that doesn't have the option to disable the Intel iGPU will not be able to make use of the NVENC hardware accelerated encoding from the nvidia video card.
Just a waste of money.

Here is an overview of what I'm thinking about maybe getting....this laptop is primarily for video editing, and nothing else. **Thanks for your input all, I appreciate it**

Windows 10 operating system

Windows 10 brings back the Start Menu from Windows 7 and introduces new features, like the Edge Web browser that lets you markup Web pages on your screen. Learn more ›

15.6" OLED InfinityEdge display

4K UHD (3840 x 2160) native resolution. Antireflective finish reduces eyestrain.

9th Gen Intel® Core™ i7-9750H mobile processor

Powerful 6-core, twelve-way processing performance. Intel Turbo Boost Technology delivers dynamic extra power when you need it, while increasing energy efficiency when you don't.

16GB system memory for intense multitasking and gaming

Reams of high-bandwidth DDR4 RAM to smoothly run your graphics-heavy PC games and video-editing applications, as well as numerous programs and browser tabs all at once.

Solid State Drive (PCI-e)

Save files fast and store more data. With massive amounts of storage and advanced communication power, PCI-e SSDs are great for major gaming applications, multiple servers, daily backups, and more.
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 graphics

Backed by 4GB GDDR5 dedicated video memory for a fast, advanced GPU to fuel your games.

Quote
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 graphics

Backed by 4GB GDDR5 dedicated video memory for a fast, advanced GPU to fuel your games.

Like I said, if that is a gaming laptop with GTX trough iGPU, that GTX would be useless in PowerDirector. Wasted money, you are better off by buying one only with the Intel graphics, because those have some encoding acceleration.

Since you didn't give the actual name, I can't say more.

Quote PD 18 works very well on my system, but because my GPU drivers are gaming drivers rather than studio drivers, my GPU only does about 25 percent of the work during rendering.

If you could post a link or any data substantiating that statement, it would be appreciated. I've not seen any PD difference with WHQL or Studio drivers. I really doubt that is the reason for any percent utilization observation on your laptop.

As SoNic67 pointed out, your GPU SIP block will do no rendering, the GPU may do decoding or OpenCL for Fx though, usually not a reason for purchase cost though vs just CPU power.

Jeff

It really doesn’t matter which driver is installed according to one review last year that I found: https://www.thefpsreview.com/2019/08/12/nvidia-studio-driver-vs-geforce-game-ready-driver-performance/ . Gaming fps is exactly the same and graphics bench testing score is 2% better at most. That would not really be noticeable to most users.