I'm ready to buy a new laptop, does anyone have any recent experience with some of them out there.

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The other big consideration is that most gaming rigs are pushed to the absolute limits of their thermal possibilities, yet manufacturers are still trying to make them slimmer and lighter. This often causes thermal throttling, and when you look on forums you repeatedly read about UNDERvolting (as opposed to overclocking). Meaning all this power has to be tuned down in order to not overheat the laptop, so what's the use in having so much power in the first place! I perform live frequently with my laptops and absolutely cannot afford that has thermal throttling issues at a gig. (all that said, yes the new RyZen CPUS are LEGIT!)

I have found a very nice PC alternate to the gaming machines. I just received my Eluktronics Mag-15u and it appears to be ....UPDATE. Crackles under load. Failed DPC testing after W10 1909/2004 updates.
Last edited by Schmidi on Wed Jun 17, 2020 2:58 am, edited 1 time in total.

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I have to back most of the things said in the posts already. A gaming laptop usually beats a "productivity" laptop for the price you end up investing. And when it comes to the CPU you should look for, the Ryzen series really are pulling decent numbers. Both for a PC and a Laptop.
Take care :wink:

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Schmidi wrote: Thu May 21, 2020 4:08 pm The other big consideration is that most gaming rigs are pushed to the absolute limits of their thermal possibilities, yet manufacturers are still trying to make them slimmer and lighter. This often causes thermal throttling, and when you look on forums you repeatedly read about UNDERvolting (as opposed to overclocking). Meaning all this power has to be tuned down in order to not overheat the laptop, so what's the use in having so much power in the first place! I perform live frequently with my laptops and absolutely cannot afford that has thermal throttling issues at a gig. (all that said, yes the new RyZen CPUS are LEGIT!)

I have found a very nice PC alternate to the gaming machines. I just received my Eluktronics Mag-15u and it appears to be an excellent production and performance machine at a very reasonable price. Initially I was looking at a gaming machine, but I wanted more portability and battery life (something gaming books suck at). I also demo'd and returned a nice Lenovo C940 2in1, due to terrible wifi speeds and very poor DPC latency (beautiful build, sh!t components)

This is the config I bought: https://www.amazon.com/Eluktronics-MAG- ... r=8-1&th=1

The i7 in this is a bit older, but raw speed has not changed a ton over the last 5 years, and honestly audio work doesn't require a billion gHz if you work efficiently. (Those new RyZen 4000's are the only CPU I wish it had due to their low power consumption vs performance)

Basically this is a super long battery, super lightweight but well constructed (all magnesium alloy) 15" that still has a dedicated GPU. That's exactly what I wanted.

DPC latency (THE most important bench for audio work) is excellent so far (measured with latencymon).

Cons: only 1 ram slot but most bench's show that this doesn't effect most processing tasks nearly as much as we think.
Thanks for posting that info. Do you run any instruments that are CPU hogs like Omnisphere when you play live with that laptop? I'm looking for a laptop that I can run Omnisphere on live.

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For playing live I try and bounce the foundations (rhythm/PERCUSSION and some bass and leads) to samples that are played from my MPC Live. That helps me keep the show running in the event of a computer crash.

On the laptop side I'm running Akai VIP<>Advance 49 for pads, fx and some lead/bass duties. I avoid CPU intense plugs for any kind of live performance, so usually the AIR plugs get a lot of use.

I'm also evaluating Ableton Live 10, MPC software and Plogue Bidule for vst host duties.

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Schmidi wrote: Wed May 27, 2020 4:15 pm For playing live I try and bounce the foundations (rhythm/PERCUSSION and some bass and leads) to samples that are played from my MPC Live. That helps me keep the show running in the event of a computer crash.

On the laptop side I'm running Akai VIP<>Advance 49 for pads, fx and some lead/bass duties. I avoid CPU intense plugs for any kind of live performance, so usually the AIR plugs get a lot of use.

I'm also evaluating Ableton Live 10, MPC software and Plogue Bidule for vst host duties.
Awesome, thanks.

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Returning to this thread for a more direct recommendation, a few months we took a look at an interesting option that could come quite useful.

Definitely on the higher end when it comes to price, but worth a look nonetheless.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P9nO8uJ7pkU
Take care :wink:

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Yeah that Asus is a beautiful laptop. I do worry about thermals a little, but would love to try it.

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Well, after getting everything up and running on my new Eluktronics laptop, the DPC spikes have crept up and things are not as rosey.

Win10 1909 update didn't help at all. I will try 2004 tonight but I'm not optimistic. The laptop is not completely unusable, but I want better performance and no crackles damn it. Returning 😢

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There's a load of great info about the specific requirements for audio laptops on this forum that the vast majority of off the shelf gaming and business machines simply can't meet. There's also very little info available online about the DPC latency and thermal throttling characteristics for such machines.

To further exacerbate the problem there are even sites like these giving "advice":
https://www.musicradar.com/news/best-la ... production
https://www.techradar.com/uk/news/best- ... production
https://www.learnhowtoproducemusic.com/ ... production

Try searching for "DPC latency" or "thermal throttling" on those pages :roll:

The fact is that without knowing the specialist characteristics required for audio performance of any given machine it's impossible to make an informed choice.

On the other hand there are specialist audio workstation suppliers, for example:
In the States there's:
https://www.adkproaudio.com/audio-video ... on-laptops
In the UK there's:
https://www.scan.co.uk/shop/music-and-p ... rkstations

However, beware there are "pro audio PC suppliers" like:
https://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/pro-audio-computers/
I asked them about DPC latency and they replied saying it's not something they test. :dog:

Buying a laptop for music production is a minefield unless you go to the right place.
If you were starting a removals business your choice of vehicle wouldn't be a 2 seat sports car, yet that's the equivalent of what many seem to do with audio laptops.

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So true! The scary thing is that despite people thinking tech and updates are making systems faster each year, DPC latency seems to be creeping upwards on all the tests I'm seeing.

I'm trying to at least spread some awareness on this by asking new owners for Latencymon results on a few subreddit's (/laptop, /laptopdeals).

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Schmidi wrote: Mon Jun 08, 2020 12:59 pm I'm trying to at least spread some awareness on this by asking new owners for Latencymon results on a few subreddit's (/laptop, /laptopdeals).
That's a good initiative!
I hadn't realised how little info there is available about this until I looked around when someone asked this same question on another thread.
Schmidi wrote: Mon Jun 08, 2020 12:59 pm The scary thing is that despite people thinking tech and updates are making systems faster each year, DPC latency seems to be creeping upwards on all the tests I'm seeing.
Agreed. It seems a few years ago you'd have been unlucky to pick a laptop that was inherently bad for audio. Now it seems you'd be incredibly lucky to pick up an untested machine off the shelf that works properly. Thinner machines with faster and hotter CPUs are certainly not helping.

To give an example, before I was able to order my Scan 3xs laptop last summer I was messaging Pete from Scan who listed a load of candidate bare bones systems they were testing. iirc they tested 8 or 9, only one of which was found to be suitable for audio. They now offer 3 audio laptops compared to their 8 pro gaming laptops.

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I just received a Sager (Clevo) laptop with i7 10875H and Nvidia RTX 2060 configuration. So far it looks like a keeper! Real time latency is very low (in the teens!) https://www.sagernotebook.com/Notebook-NP7858DW-S.html

I'm pretty convinced that Nvidia GPUs (or at least their drivers) seem to cause DPC spikes across the board. My new Sager has this behavior as well, but it is still low enough that I can deal (and disabling the 2060 during music time works well ).

It may be a big disadvantage to buy a desktop CPU laptop for music in that you won't have the integrated graphics to fall back on if your dedicated GPU causes spikes.

Unfortunately, there are very few AMD GPU (RX 5xxx series) configs on the market. I was strongly considering the Dell G5 SE (full AMD CPU +GPU), but... It's still a Dell and I've seen more bad reviews of Dell throttling and poor performance than any other brand. (possibly just market share)

I have a feeling that a Ryzen 4600H or 4800H + integrated Vega laptop might have excellent results.

Bottom line, know the return policy before buying any laptop for audio!

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I’m not going in depth, but I did research for myself and I use logic exclusively so I went and got the MacBook Pro 16 inch fully spec’ed. I will be able to make music for at least 4/5 years like my last mbp. I’m very content with it and feel like it’s one of the best mbp models they made which feels really geared towards pro users more than the other recent ones.

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cleverr1 wrote: Mon Jun 08, 2020 11:04 am
Try searching for "DPC latency" or "thermal throttling" on those pages :roll:

The fact is that without knowing the specialist characteristics required for audio performance of any given machine it's impossible to make an informed choice.

On the other hand there are specialist audio workstation suppliers, for example:
In the States there's:
https://www.adkproaudio.com/audio-video ... on-laptops
In the UK there's:
https://www.scan.co.uk/shop/music-and-p ... rkstations
Hey - you advised me on this very issue a couple of weeks ago and I went for a 3XS laptop from Scan. Just wanted to say I'm very happy with that decision, seems to work great and the customer service was also very good. Thanks again :-)

So +1 from me on ADK or Scan laptops...

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gondii wrote: Wed Jun 24, 2020 9:23 pm
cleverr1 wrote: Mon Jun 08, 2020 11:04 am
Try searching for "DPC latency" or "thermal throttling" on those pages :roll:

The fact is that without knowing the specialist characteristics required for audio performance of any given machine it's impossible to make an informed choice.

On the other hand there are specialist audio workstation suppliers, for example:
In the States there's:
https://www.adkproaudio.com/audio-video ... on-laptops
In the UK there's:
https://www.scan.co.uk/shop/music-and-p ... rkstations
Hey - you advised me on this very issue a couple of weeks ago and I went for a 3XS laptop from Scan. Just wanted to say I'm very happy with that decision, seems to work great and the customer service was also very good. Thanks again :-)

So +1 from me on ADK or Scan laptops...
Hi Dude,
I'm so glad that you now have the tools you need!

3xs kit has been great here so far, and I know there's support if needed.

So go and create some great stuff!!!

Cheers,
Roger

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