Is this a good time to upgrade?

m83

Just wondering is this as good a time to buy a new laptop or should i wait for windows 7?

I have a fully speced Dell XPS M1710 that I use for video editing and wouldn't mind a bit more oomph as it's now 2 years old. I was thinking about getting the XPS M1730 but if anyone can suggest something better i'd love to hear it.

Thanks!

Voodu Child

The M1730 is getting on a bit. Of course it's still very powerful, but it's based on the old Santa Rosa platform. So there's no support for more recent processors. It tops out at the T9500 (or the X9000 if you want to spend crazy money).

I'd want to know your budget and other needs before suggesting anything.

m83

Cheers voodoo. My budget is 2k, perhaps a little over that if I had to. Really will just be using it for editing. Don't need a huge hard drive because I only keep current jobs on my laptop and archive the rest externally. Performance wise I want to be able to render HD digital video files as quickly as possible.

I know a desktop would be more suitable but i need to be able to work on the move.

Voodu Child

What software do you use? ie does it support quad-cores, and GPU acceleration?

m83

voodoo_child wrote: »

What software do you use? ie does it support quad-cores, and GPU acceleration?

I'm using Adobe Premiere CS4 which does support quad core and GPU acceleration.

Another critical factor would be a fast HDD, like 10,000 RPM would be ideal but maybe not possible on a laptop. Mine is 5,400 RPM now.

Overheal

Market wise its not a bad time to buy but then its not a great time either. In about 4-5 months we'll see the release of Windows 7 though and from all first hand accounts it would be worth waiting for.

Voodu Child

If GPU is important to render times (im not sure how important), it might be worth your while giving it a month or two, Nvidia and Ati are both releasing new high-end cards. Ati's new line-up will offer excellent performance and value...Nvidia's new line-up is about the same as the old one, but again, hopefully with better value.

Anyway, just off the top of my head, I have seen this:
http://www.elara.ie/products/detailsfullat.asp?productcode=ECE1624278#spec

That is an extremely high-end mobile processor (QX9300). Just to put it in perspective, that CPU is a €1150 upgrade in the Alienware M17. That laptop also has dual hard-drives, so you could *possibly* (need to confirm) set up a RAID configuration for higher-performance. The GPU is good, but not tier-one, so again, im not sure how that would affect render times.

m83

Thanks for all your help Voodoo. I guess I'd be better off waiting a few months.

aberry9036

one thing you might want to look at, if it's just the encoding that's lagging, is this:

http://www.adstech.com/products/RDX-160/intro/RDX-160_intro.asp?pid=RDX-160

It's a usb encoding engine, with a specialist processor built in, when it was reviewed some time last year it was doing the job several times better than the onboard processor. If you're after more, like the power to do 3D rendering, etc, then you'd be best off looking for a new lappy. Like the above person mentioned, wait until windows 7. I've used the beta myself and it is very, very good, especially when compared to vista (which in my opinion is worse than xp). Once it comes out, start looking. Maybe try looking at Asus, they make very solid laptops with a two year warranty and at very good value, but their product cycles seem to be a bit sluggish, and their prices don't change too much as times go on, so make sure it's a "just released" laptop you look at to get the best value.

Obsidian

I wouldn't bother waiting for Seven.
Have you seen the expected prices for the RC?
If MS do go ahead and charge that, don't expect to see Seven on any retail PC.
They are much more likely to stick with Vista for a long time yet.