Looking for a laptop to run After Effects + others

[artescaper]

Hi, I've searched around the web for a while and can't seem to find anything specific and was wondering if anyone on here could help me.

I'm looking for a laptop that is capable of running After Effects (no crazy stuff just simple special editing), as well as premiere and Photoshop, (although i assume if it can run After Effects it can run the other two.)

The closest thing I could find online to something that might work was the Dell Inspiron 15-inch 7000, but i've read some reviews saying it's not good.

I'd also like to be able to run certain games like Borderlands 2, (though again I assume if it can run AE, it can run most games.)

I'm not really too concerned with battery life, as it will be plugged into a source most of the time. but I would like a 15 inch screen.

I'm hoping to stay within the, less than 1000$ price range, but I mainly just want some help to find a laptop that can run AE. Windows is also preferable.

Thanks a lot!

[Bill_Gehrke]

Well there are lots of many, many different models of the Dell Inspiron 15 7000 Gaming laptops but with your price point you will have to make some concessions  .  Here is a good starting point that will work somewhat but you can easily add the missing items later if you need improvements

DELL Inspiron 15 i5577-7342BLK 15.6" Intel Core i7 7th Gen 7700HQ (2.80 GHz) NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050...

1. Any good AE computer needs lots of memory and this unit will take 32 GB for your future expansion,  The CPU was chosen for the 3.8GHz Turbo speed
2. Also even though this computer has a 512GB SSD boot drive you really need two storage devices for Adobe editing software.  This model has an internal SATA III port so you can either add one right now or buy a good USB 3 portable SSD like a Samsung T5 drive like I use
3. And of course it has a CUDA drive for those items that can be GPU Accelerated,  Wish I could get a GTX 1060 6 GB GPU but that was a budget buster.
4. Any OEM computer has a lot of garbage processes and programs that automatically start when you boot up.  So tune this computer so you can get maximum CPU power for your editing.  When you get this and want to check how well it is setup I have a Premiere Pro BenchMark (PPBM) which can test CPU, GPU and storage so you can get maximum Performance

[fedes_gl]

You can also consider Asus ROG.

I bought one last year with similar specs than that Dell, and also following Bill's advices.

Just to give you a reference, the laptop model is GL553VE-DS74 and the hardware inside is:

Intel i7-7700HQ, 16GB DDR4 2400Mhz (can expand to 32gb), GTX 1050Ti 4GB GDDR5, 256GB SSD M2 (SATA III chip) and HDD 1TB, plus optical drive.

As is, it works pretty well for Premiere Pro.

I'm not a big user of After Effects (yet), playing around with it I can say it runs just fine for simple things but noticed it uses much more RAM, so the 32GB expansion I assume is gonna be needed.

The only fact I consider having optical drive is not because you need it but I find good to replace it with a caddy to put the HDD there (so you can keep the big storage capacity) and at the same time add a SATA III SDD for performance (as Bill stays in point 2)

I would also consider the cooling system, i saw the new model from Asus,having the same CPU and GPU, uses bigger copper heatsinks and runs two coolers (mine has only one), but that model has no optical drive.

[Bill_Gehrke]

fedes_gl  wrote

You can also consider Asus ROG.

I bought one last year with similar specs than that Dell, and also following Bill's advices.

The only fact I consider having optical drive is not because you need it but I find good to replace it with a caddy to put the HDD there (so you can keep the big storage capacity) and at the same time add a SATA III SDD for performance (as Bill stays in point 2)

I do have an ASUS ROG and love it and would prefer it to a Dell.

Be careful on pulling the optical disk because in many cases it is only a SATA II port

[fedes_gl]

Be careful on pulling the optical disk because in many cases it is only a SATA II port

Good point... anyway I don't think there would be a noticeable speed difference for a spinning HDD, correct me if I'm wrong. (And now I'm courius, I'll try to check that with hwinfo or a similar tool tonight).