New laptop: advice needed on specs

Want to talk about music hardware or software that doesn't include Reason?
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Gardinski
Posts: 340
Joined: 04 Feb 2015

16 Oct 2019

Hi guys,

I'm in urgent need of advice regarding the purchase of a laptop. I've been asked to create a live/interactive soundscape for a batshit crazy experimental theatre production at very short notice.

(They only approached me on Monday night, and the show opens next Wednesday - hence the urgency, and the mild sense of panic which is currently engulfing me.)

I'm looking for a solid, reliable laptop capable of running Reason 10, (and obviously R11 when I eventually upgrade).

Ideally I'd like to keep it within a £1000 budget... but I'm a little out of touch with current laptop specs. (My current setup is a desktop pc I've had since 2012.)

Would something like this do the trick, or do I need to look for a higher spec?

ASUS Strix G G531 15.6 Inch Full HD 120 Hz Thin Bezel Gaming Laptop (Intel i5-9300H, Nvidia GeForce GTX 1660Ti 6 GB Graphics, 512 GB PCI-e SSD, 16 GB RAM, Windows 10, Includes NumberPad)



(Currently £999 on Amazon uk, and available for delivery tomorrow).

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks everyone.

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Gardinski
Posts: 340
Joined: 04 Feb 2015

16 Oct 2019

Also, any alternative suggestions wouls be most welcome.

All the high spec machines seem to be described as 'gaming PCs'. This worries me slightly, as I don't especially need a fancy graphics card if it's going to hog resources which I need for audio/low latency.

My primary use for this machine will be purely 'Reason', although it would also be a huge bonus if it's suitable for video editing, as I have some film projects coming up early next year.)

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chimp_spanner
Posts: 2908
Joined: 06 Mar 2015

16 Oct 2019

Honestly I think that will smash it. I have two laptops here; a 2017 MBP and an HP i7 from about 5 or 6 years ago. To be honest...they're not THAT far apart, and that laptop was like £850 when I got it. Things have changed so much by then. I can't see you running into any problems on that kind of budget. Can't see why the gaming graphic should hamper music production, so long as it doesn't come loaded with lots of apps/services for it, but you can always uninstall that stuff anyway. Good luck with your project and let us know how it turns out. Sounds interesting!

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Gardinski
Posts: 340
Joined: 04 Feb 2015

16 Oct 2019

Thank you so much, Chimp Spanner. You've really reassured me.

The only thing I'm unsure about is the fact that it's an i5 processor, and I recall a lot of people recommending i7. Is there a substantial difference in performance?

antic604

16 Oct 2019

Yep, that seems like a great laptop for Reason.

Personaly I'm on Lenovo Legion Y730 (that's a last year's model) with i7-8750h which seems to be 30% stronger than your i5 and I guess it should be pretty cheap to find right now, since there's already a new Y740 model. Regarding specs, it has a matte 15'' 1080p 144Hz screen, 16GB of RAM, 256GB SSD + 1TB HDD, great keyboard, OK trackpad, lots of outputs conveniently situated on the back. And - from most test I've seen and my exerience - it has very good cooling, therefore can run all 6 cores at 3.9GHz for hours.


antic604

16 Oct 2019

Or you can go even cheaper, but basically the same specs (no 144Hz screen refresh, no color LEDs on the keyboard, fully plasticky instead of aluminium) Y530. My friend has one and is super happy with it:


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Gardinski
Posts: 340
Joined: 04 Feb 2015

16 Oct 2019

Thanks very much for that info, Antic. I'll check out the Lenovos too.

antic604

16 Oct 2019

Gardinski wrote:
16 Oct 2019
Thanks very much for that info, Antic. I'll check out the Lenovos too.
My pleasure. Let us know what you went with!
And if you're Polish, join "Propellerhead Reason Polska" group on Facebook - we need more people :)

dezma
Posts: 268
Joined: 02 Jun 2015

16 Oct 2019

Having done the research myself, I would at this moment go for MSI GF63, with the 9th gen i7 9750H.

There's not much competition given the price for the performance / portability and it will be a 40% raw power increase compared to i5 9300 (see below).
Don't mind the gaming tag they put on it, it's in fact more of a workstation than a gaming computer given the entry level GPU.

Be careful you go for the 9750H, as the 8750H is also still available.

https://www.msi.com/Laptop/GF63-Thin-9SX-GTX
https://www.amazon.com/s?k=gf63+i7+9750 ... _sb_noss_2

Image

dezma
Posts: 268
Joined: 02 Jun 2015

16 Oct 2019

Gardinski wrote:
16 Oct 2019
The only thing I'm unsure about is the fact that it's an i5 processor, and I recall a lot of people recommending i7. Is there a substantial difference in performance?
Yes there will be a very noticable difference.

You get 50% more cores and 50% more cache, for synth VST's this will make a big difference in number of instances you can run and the latency you can run them on.

Image

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Gardinski
Posts: 340
Joined: 04 Feb 2015

16 Oct 2019

Thank you very much indeed, Dezma. I shall add the MSI to my shortlist, and I'll make a definite decision this evening.

Fantastic advice from everyone! That's why I love this place. Cheers guys. You've been a great help.

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Gardinski
Posts: 340
Joined: 04 Feb 2015

16 Oct 2019

Decision made: I've gone for Dezma's suggestion. Amazon UK had one in stock for just £150 more (£1148), with the 9750H six-core processor, AND (as an unexpected bonus) a larger 17.3 inch screen... which seems like a really good deal.

Thanks again guys. I shall let you know how it goes. I am both excited and terrified! (And I daren't even look at my bank balance.)

dezma
Posts: 268
Joined: 02 Jun 2015

16 Oct 2019

Good luck with it and since you're in short notice and probably don't have a lot of configuration time don't forget to put the power energy scheme while plugged in to max power (cpu) in Windows energy settings.

reggie1979
Posts: 1181
Joined: 11 Apr 2019

16 Oct 2019

Sounds like a good unit.

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jam-s
Posts: 3035
Joined: 17 Apr 2015
Location: Aachen, Germany
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16 Oct 2019

I'll add this line of laptops to the line up: https://bestware.com/en/schenker-audio-edition

dezma
Posts: 268
Joined: 02 Jun 2015

17 Oct 2019

jam-s wrote:
16 Oct 2019
I'll add this line of laptops to the line up: https://bestware.com/en/schenker-audio-edition
Since you're suggesting a 2k laptop with a 4 working days delivery time, I'm going to go ahead and assume that you did not even bother reading the first post.

@ Gardinski
this article is explaining what I meant above.

If you have some more time tweaking, you can go follow also these steps

Best of luck with your performance

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