Lightroom Classic: Laptop price / performance sweetspot

[Immy_1]

Hi all - Happy Holidays 🙂

I use LR Classic on my aging desktop PC (i7 2700K (quadcore), 24GB RAM, SSD, GPU Palit 1660 6GB) with a catalogue of about 40k images. I have dual monitors - one 4k and one FHD. I shoot RAW with my 5D iii and X100F.... and some occasional gaming on Forza. But its really starting to struggle. While I could get another desktop, the performance from laptops today should easily meet my needs when docked, and I gain portability. From my research I might end up spending more on a desktop even when re-using my existing GPU.   

I like the look of the Lenvo Legion 5 pro below (£1500) - its got a reasonable screen, plently of power and I can expand the memory and add another SSD in the future. Although the battery life is not amazing.

My question: Are there other better value options out there I should look at? XPS/Alienware/ASUS all seem to be more expensive for the same spec...

Legion 5 Pro 16"

AMD Ryzen 7 5800H Processor
RAM: 16 GB / Storage: 1 TB SSD
Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 8 GB
Quad HD screen / 165 Hz IPS 100%sRGB

Thanks!

[dj_paige]

If you are getting a laptop with a screen that is less than 4K, you can get away with a much less expensive GPU, and never notice the difference with Lightroom Classic. (Of course, if you are going to play games, or use other software on this laptop, then perhaps you do need this GPU). If you can save on the GPU, then you can get a higher performing CPU, if you want, although this CPU seems pretty good; or if you want to stay with this CPU, just save the money and get a less expensive GPU.