Optimal windows laptop configuration

For Lightroom Classic, much of it depends on the kind of editing you do. It might be possible to get a $1200 laptop to do basic editing if it has a recent generation CPU, at least 16GB of RAM, and a decent discrete GPU of at least 8GB VRAM. By “basic editing” I mean edits like exposure, contrast, color, cropping.

However, if you want to take advantage of all of the features that have come out in the last 18 months or so, the laptop I describe above is no longer enough. If you want to frequently use features such as the popular AI-powered Denoise feature, the great new Adaptive Profile, reflection removal, Lens Blur, GPU-accelerated previews, AI masking, etc. it is strongly recommended to have the most powerful GPU and the most VRAM on it that you can afford. Those features hit the GPU pretty hard, and run very slowly (or not at all) if they can only use the CPU. Having a powerful GPU to speed up those features is even more important if you want to apply them as a batch edit to large shoots. Just that discrete GPU requirement alone can push the budget over $1200.

On top of maximizing your GPU, for optimal performance it will be good to get as much RAM above 16GB as you can afford, although you probably won’t benefit from over 48GB RAM. The 32GB I have works very well most of the time.

I currently have a Dell Inspiron 14 Plus with 16GB DDR5, 1x 8GB onboard + 1x SoDIMM 8GB, 4800MHz, an Intl i7-12700H (2.30 GHz) processor;  a NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 graphics card,  and 512GB M.2 PCIe NVMe Solid State Drive.

I am upgrading to take advantage of advancements in components.  I don't want to spend more than $1,200 and ideally less.  

By @Newmarket2

The idea of a $1200 limit to get a computer that works well with LrC seems like a flawed idea to me. These days, Lightroom Classic needs a strong CPU and a strong GPU to run well. Without these two key peices of hardware, LrC will be slow to unusable when you choose the AI features. And CPUs and GPUs designed for laptops will never be as powerful as CPUs and GPUs designed for desktop computers.

No responses.  Not a single one..  Very surprised.  ChatGPT was extremely helpful, but I'd be more comfortable with the recommendations of a human who knows a lot about this space.  And Adobe's chat support was also disappointing...poor English and only very general responses.