Laptop for Photo Editing

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brianpierce458

Member
I'm looking for a Laptop to suit intensive photo and video editing with Photoshop/Lightroom/PremierPro and have I think narrowed it down to Either the Recoil 17 or Recoil 16 with i9 processor, 64Gb RAM, 2x8Tb SSD and Nvidia 4080. I need something thats going to be fast, reponsive, and reliable. I don't want to have to carry a load of external drives - hence the 16Tb SSD. (backup to NAS), I don't see the need for the Nvidia 4090 as I won't be playing games and the 4080 should handle photos and video OK. Ideally I need a screen that can display the whole sRGB gamaut - or very close to it. Its going to get used a lot, so something thats going to take being used intensivly for long periods is essential.

How hot do these get - I'll often need to use it on my knees
I am also a bit concerned about noise, how noisy are these? I dont really want to lug a water cooler around with me.
Is there a 'quiet' option and it it easy to switch between 'quiet' and 'performance' settings?
Is there any difference other than screen size between the Recoil 17 and Recoil 16? - the price difference is negligable

Is this a good choice for my needs or should I be looking at a different set-up?
Maybe an Elimina 17in with i7 Processor, Nvidia 4070 and otherwise same spec, would do the job for less outlay and be cooler and less noisy?
 
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brianpierce458

Member
I was hoping to avoid the water cooler to aid portability. How noisy are these machines without one? Ideally I want something I can sit on my lap in the front room without anoying everyone
 
Paul1964

Paul1964

Gold Level Poster
brianpierce458 said:
I was hoping to avoid the water cooler to aid portability. How noisy are these machines without one? Ideally I want something I can sit on my lap in the front room without annoying everyone
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Having it on your lap is NOT a good idea. You will block the air vents with your legs and it will get toasty.

Under heavy load (such as gaming, video rendering, photo batch edits etc) the laptop will throttle without the cooler. If you're doing regular stuff then you would be OK.
 
Clintster

Clintster

Silver Level Poster
I keep seeing people saying that without the water cooler the laptop will throttle.
I'm ok with not getting the full power from it but will it do any damage running it throttled?
Without the water cooler will it ever run at full performance?
 
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TonyCarter

VALUED CONTRIBUTOR
Clintster said:
I keep seeing people saying that without the water cooler the laptop will throttle.
I'm ok with not getting the full power from it but will it do any damage running it throttled?
Without the water cooler will it ever run at full performance?
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No, an i9 will never be able to hit/maintain the boost clocks.

If you're going to effectively be running a crippled CPU all the time to avoid needing liquid cooling then you might as well go for a lower tier CPU/GPU to remove some of the inherent heat they produce.
 
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Clintster

Clintster

Silver Level Poster
The GPU is non negotiable, neither is the memory amount but I could compromise on the CPU, the trouble is what would be the equivalent CPU to the one I've ordered running throttled?
Also what is causing the majority of heat? The CPU or the GPU?
I have contemplated a desktop PC as I understand they will run cooler with just the fans and no water cooling but that is not really the way I want to go and the memory would be DD4 instead of DDR5 but I guess without a comparison I wouldn't notice a difference?
Now I'm in a dilemma. :-(
 
Clintster

Clintster

Silver Level Poster
If I went the desktop route I would need to throw another £100 to it, I would gain extra VRAM on the GPU though. The main extra cost would be the upgraded PSU as It appears to need at least 1000 watts. I have monitor, keyboard and trackball that I'd be happy using.
 
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TonyCarter

VALUED CONTRIBUTOR
The solution may be an AMD version of the Recoil...but I'm not sure if there are any recent head-to-heads between the new Intel 275HX (8P+12E-core / 24-thread) and AMD 9955HX3D (16P-core / 32-thread).

Their desktop equivalents trade blows between media test suites, but the AMD does it at about 50% the power usage...which translates into less heat produced and thus less cooling required. But until we see independent testing of the laptop configurations specifically, we're all guessing as to how critical a water cooling solution will be on either of these models.

If it wasn't for the extortionate Apple RAM/SSD costs, a new M4 Pro MacBook Pro would be the most efficient option.
 
Clintster

Clintster

Silver Level Poster
TonyCarter said:
The solution may be an AMD version of the Recoil...but I'm not sure if there are any recent head-to-heads between the new Intel 275HX (8P+12E-core / 24-thread) andAMD 9955HX3D (16P-core / 32-thread).

Their desktop equivalents trade blows between media test suites, but the AMD does it at about 50% the power usage...which translates into less heat produced and thus less cooling required. But until we see independent testing of the laptop configurations specifically, we're all guessing as to how critical a water cooling solution will be on either of these models.

If it wasn't for the extortionate Apple RAM/SSD costs, a new M4 Pro MacBook Pro would be the most efficient option.
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My spec is already AMD Ryzen™ 9 9955HX3D for the CPU and NVIDIA® GeForce® RTX 5090 for the GPU
 
Clintster

Clintster

Silver Level Poster
TonyCarter said:
Sorry, I was speaking in context with the OP's i9 choice.

It gets confusing when questions are asked out of context on someone else's thread!
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Sure, sorry, I'll start my own thread in future, I'm not used to this forum lark, Please excuse me.
 
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