Advice: Portable PC for Live + Amplitube with Touch

[Izbu]

Goal of this thread: Determine the best portable computer to purchase for live performance in Ableton Live, hosting a guitar effect VST such as Amplitube or Guitar Rig.

Current hardware: Zoom UAC-2 Audio Converter, Behringer FCB-1010 Foot Control Board w/ Custom Firmware

Desired features: Touch screen interface to play with VST on-the-fly while jamming or performing the same way I would with a physical setup, though with obvious limitations relative to a physical setup. 2-in-1 preferred so I can set it on a music stand.

Tentative selection based on personal research: Lenovo Yoga 720-15IKB w/ i7-7700HQ, (4 cores w/ HT, 3.4Ghz 4-core turbo) 8GB RAM. ~$1,000.

Questions:

1. Does anyone have experience using a touch screen with guitar effect VSTs like these? Is it as usable as you expected it to be?
2. Does the price, lower performance, or any other caveats of a 2-in-1 outweigh the usefulness of the touch screen interface, especially since I already have the FCB-1010? I understand this is subjective. Opinions welcome.
3. Is the i7-7700HQ a good enough processor for my most demanding potential use case? (At most: Hosting guitar effect VST, looping/one-man-band-ing with Live, [meaning more than one VST might be running at once] and rough recording live performance via FOH/BOH returns - all at once.)
4. There's a potential for this computer to become my main music rig due to a possible switch to Linux now that PCI passthrough in a VM is a thing for gaming. My 4790K never goes above 50% utilization for any of the concept work that I do. Will the 7700HQ be enough for this sort of thing? I don't want to have to micromanage a bunch of frozen tracks.

Any thoughts or opinions, especially about potentially unforeseen issues or caveats, are welcome in this thread.

[Daags]

[*]Is the i7-7700HQ a good enough processor for my most demanding potential use case? (At most: Hosting guitar effect VST, looping/one-man-band-ing with Live, [meaning more than one VST might be running at once] and rough recording live performance via FOH/BOH returns - all at once.)
[*] <snip> Will the 7700HQ be enough for this sort of thing? I don't want to have to micromanage a bunch of frozen tracks.[/list]

Any thoughts or opinions, especially about potentially unforeseen issues or caveats, are welcome in this thread.

I just ordered a laptop with the i7 7700hq .... and after doing a lot of research on different laptops utilising this same chip the one thing i discovered, no matter what model laptop I researched, was near ubiquitous heating/thermal issues. this chip, at least from what I can gather, runs hot in every mobile device ... now, granted, most of my research yielded data pretty much entirely from gamers more so than audio producers, so that might skew the data a bit but not necessarily to our benefit.

I expect that I will be opening up my laptop to apply my own 3rd party thermal paste to the cpu and gpu, apply/replace thermal pads in various other parts of the laptop. I will also undervolt the cpu.

ultimately, if you want to use the CPU to its maximum all the heating/thermal issues that come with that can be dealt with via some software tweaking & hardware maintenance/modding.

disregarding that .... in terms of performance i think the 7th generation i7, the 7700hq you specified to be exact, is much better for audio than the current 8th generation i7... the 8th gen takes a performance hit on the base clock speed (probably to deal with the heating/thermal issues i spoke about), but - if memory serves me correctly - makes up for it, marginally, in hyper-threading performance. For audio, you want faster base clock speeds for your cores (though some software takes better advantage of hyper-threading than others)... so the i7 7700hq is the clear winner IMO . I think it's a really good chip to buy right now for mobile audio.

that's just my 2 cent, there are people in the 'computer setup' sub forum (here: viewforum.php?f=16 ) who have a way more indepth knowledge of this topic if you wish to take your query there, I think you may get better or more detailed answers.

[Izbu]

in terms of performance i think the 7th generation i7, the 7700hq you specified to be exact, is much better for audio than the current 8th generation i7... the 8th gen takes a performance hit on the base clock speed (probably to deal with the heating/thermal issues i spoke about), but - if memory serves me correctly - makes up for it, marginally, in hyper-threading performance. For audio, you want faster base clock speeds for your cores (though some software takes better advantage of hyper-threading than others)... so the i7 7700hq is the clear winner IMO .

Yeah, my research is saying the same thing. I think this is going to be a boon for aspiring producers once the 8th gen takes off and prices drop.

EDIT: I read an article recently about the 7700HQ getting aggressively throttled (down to 800Mhz at one point) at 70C. TJ Max on most Core series processors is around 100C so this is pretty alarming. Still, I really don't think anything I'm gonna do with audio will load it up like that.

[Daags]

EDIT: I read an article recently about the 7700HQ getting aggressively throttled (down to 800Mhz at one point) at 70C.

do you have a link to the article ? ... because i suspect this is system dependent, it is not something inherent in the chip itself. certainly none of the i7 7700hq systems (laptops) i researched have any such reported throttling issues (800hz @ 70c). even at sustained maximum cpu + gpu loads, the reported throttling was never that severe in the systems i considered and researched. in all cases i read, the high temps (and thus any related throttling) were rectified with a thermal repaste + undervolting + adjusting gpu volt/hz curve ... max performance even improved in some cases.

if you are considering a system that throttles an i7 7700hq down to 800mhz @ 70C, I'd seriously consider a different system. I guess this has something to do with the fact you are looking for a 2-in-1 type of hybrid laptop ... ? If you are really determined to go 2-in-1, maybe look at a different chip or an 8th gen i7 ...

unfortunately, nothing I was looking in to had a touch screen so I can't offer you any suggestions ...
if you were to consider a 'regular' laptop though, I'd suggest looking in to the current Acer Helios 300... at $1050 (15", Amazon.com) and $1200 (17", Amazon.com) it represents very good value for money imo, though the inclusion of a decent gpu was a priority for me when finding a laptop. I found lots of discussion regarding this model online, youtube videos, and facebook groups, all going in to great detail how to mod & maintain the laptop to keep it running at max horsepower at safe temps. Furthermore, Amazon announced during last week that between Friday 17th and Friday 24th, they will be offering discounts of ''up to $150" on the "Acer Helios 300", but they didn't specifiy which model or configuration. I hope they aren't being sly, because they already list both the 15" and 17" models as being discounted for months before any such announcement. Assuming they're not being sly, and if you are interested in that laptop, you should check their 'daily deal' section and keep an eye out for 'lightning deals' (time & stock limited) between now and black friday - they typically only last for something like 8 hrs ? or 12 ? I forget.

I would have bought the 17" model of the Helios 300 for $1200, but I ended up getting an Asus ROG Strix GL702VS for $1350 during one of the 'lightning sales' as it had a much better gpu, better connectivity, better display, and is 'hackintoshable', and had a good amount of users vlogging & blogging their modding/maintenance routines to deal with temp issues and deliver maximum performance. In terms of audio performance, and using the laptop purely for running DAWs etc, the Helios 300 would have been the better buy. But as I am also interested in 3d modelling, photo editing, and experimenting with 'hackintoshes', I decided to go the extra mile with the Asus.

Whatever you decide, definitely keep an eye on Amazon throughout this week ...

[Izbu]

do you have a link to the article ? ... because i suspect this is system dependent

https://www.notebookcheck.net/Lenovo-Yo ... 572.0.html

Definitely system-dependent. It was 75C though, not 70C. I really want to see if I can find a B&M shop that will let me run DAWBench on one of these. lol

Like I said in the OP, I'm definitely leaning toward the touch interface for the reasons I detailed, but I'm not dead-set on it if it's not worth it. However, I really don't think I'll ever be pushing it awfully hard. I'd still like to see a DAWBench run on this unit while keeping an eye on temps.

[Daags]

do you have a link to the article ? ... because i suspect this is system dependent

https://www.notebookcheck.net/Lenovo-Yo ... 572.0.html

Definitely system-dependent. It was 75C though, not 70C. I really want to see if I can find a B&M shop that will let me run DAWBench on one of these. lol

Well, actually ... it is clear from the article that this was when they were stress testing both the CPU and GPU simultaneously. This is absolutely not a scenario that you are ever going to come even remotely close to encountering for DAW duties. ever. unless you happen to be stress testing the GPU while you're laying down those phat beetz. And as I suspected, this extreme throttling scenario is owing to the nature of the 2-in-1 design decisions & compromises Lenovo have to make when putting an i7 7700hq in a 2-in-1 alongside a comparatively (to other 2-in-1's) beefy GPU for good measure.

Furthermore, and this obviously would not be reflected in a stress test, the GPU is employing 'optimus' ... which basically means the system automatically controls whether it is the integrated intel graphics or the GPU that handles the graphics - depending on what you are doing. 'optimus' won't kick in the GPU unless it's needed - to save battery (when not connected to a power supply), keep temps lower, etc. And if it kicks in at all for your DAW work, it will be under no stress at all. you could also adjust settings to make sure it doesn't kick in, but I can't imagine how that would be necessary.

The system does not fare as well when both FurMark and Prime95 are running. While the GPU continues to exceed expectations, averaging a core clock of an impressive 1506 MHz and temperatures of 79º C, the CPU is hit hard and aggressively throttles. Average clock speeds are a measly 800 MHz. This result is very surprising, as temperatures remain relatively cool at about 75º C. However, looking at the measurements over time, we see that the CPU isn't able to hold even its base clock without temperatures quickly approaching 100º C, which is the rated thermal limit for the i7-7700HQ. Lenovo seems to have tuned the system this way to control heat. This is sensible, as the device may be put under stress when in tablet mode. This aggressive underclocking may be an attempt to keep temperatures and noise down while the device is in users' hands.

really, while it's not a DAWbench test, the only stress test in this article you should be focusing on, for your uses, is the Prime95 test...

Stressing the notebook using synthetic tests can give us an idea of how the device will operate under absolute worst case scenarios. Using Prime95 to tax the CPU, we see that the 7700HQ is fairly conservative in its clock speeds. After an hour of stress, the processor settles in at its base clock of 2.8 GHz with intermittent bursts up to its max turbo of 3.8 GHz. Temperatures remain very well managed at about 79º C. Maximum temperatures never exceed 84º C; considering the stress that Prime95 puts on a CPU, this is a great result.

I agree with their conclusion here ... those are good temps for an i7 7700hq in a 2-in-1, especially so for stock settings. With a little tweaking of your setup you could get even better performance at lower temperatures. Undervolting delivers suprisingly good results (this is a software tweak), and a thermal repaste should definitely take you even further. if you were planning to use CPU + GPU intensive processes, adjusting the volt/hz curve of the GPU can help also ... but that's not something I can envision you needing unless you want to use it for gaming.


ultimately, if that was a concern of yours ... the 800mhz @ 75c thing ... I'd no longer be concerned about it. Not for your intended uses.

[resynthesis]

Personally I would never touch a Lenovo machine again. I used and recommended Lenovo machines (and Thinkpads before them) for ages but the last couple have been pretty poor. Lenovo's history of installing bloatware and malware is pretty grim and their device support has been iffy. The hardware itself isn't too bad so if you're going to run Linux but I'd still be wary of Windows device support for your VMs.

[Izbu]

Personally I would never touch a Lenovo machine again. I used and recommended Lenovo machines (and Thinkpads before them) for ages but the last couple have been pretty poor. Lenovo's history of installing bloatware and malware is pretty grim and their device support has been iffy. The hardware itself isn't too bad so if you're going to run Linux but I'd still be wary of Windows device support for your VMs.

Honestly, I'm kinda sketchy about any "non-boutique" (Sager, etc.) brand of laptop these days. We've even seen the quality of ASUS and MSI laptops take a dip in the last 7 years or so. As far as hardware goes, I'm willing to take my chances because I'm very responsible and careful with all of my electronics. This unit has been reviewed very well when it comes to the lasting quality of the hardware itself.

I'm definitely going to be nuking it as soon as I get it and putting a clean install of W10 on it. I'd LOVE for it to be Ubuntu, and I feel like I have the skills necessary to make that work within the confines of the software that's available for Linux, but I already have a Debian server that needs that kind of attention and I'm just too lazy to put the effort in. lol

[Izbu]

@Daags: Thank you for the advice on the CPU.

@Everyone: Still trying to find anyone who has used a touch screen with guitar effect VSTs. Anyone?

[Daags]

Honestly, I'm kinda sketchy about any "non-boutique" (Sager, etc.) brand of laptop these days.

Ya ... no matter what brand of 'non-boutique' laptop I considered prior to my recent purchase, I would always find clusters of people here and there swearing against them for either quality control or support reasons, was tricky trying to deduce which brand was actually worse. ASUS has closer service centres to me than ACER, so that was yet another plus in the ASUS column when making my choice. But I digress ...

@Daags: Thank you for the advice on the CPU.

no worries, I'm sure you got it figured out but some things are worth mentioning for the benefit of other readers.

good luck in your search ... I hope you check back in after you get your new machine, I'm particularly interested in how musicians are managing their i7 7700hq mobile systems, performance/thermal issues etc.