This note is primarily for working photographers who use a 40 plus Mpix sensor and who need to process raw images, although enthusiasts with the same type of camera body and who also use raw might consider it. This is not addressed to Apple users as I have no real experience with Apple hardware nor MacOS X except in so far as the underlying OS is BSD “unix”. I use a HP Zbook as my field laptop as I need something durable, field upgradeable for RAM and disk space, and with access to service manuals and replacement components (“spares”, “parts”). My previous Zbook, just retired and replaced by what I am describing here, was an excellent stable machine, ending up with a 4Tbyte SSD, and running a hypervisor to access a MS Win 10 environment that had PL on it (along with the Adobe suite, Nik plugins, etc, prior to the Adobe rental use model). I currently used PL6Elite complete on the machine, with images accessed from a SAN over a MS Windows shared folder mechanism. I image raw, currently lossless compressed NEF from either a Nikon Z8 or Z9. Using my previous machine and DeepPRIME XD (with my personal set of presets) and using the multiple selection processing method (each image individually “corrected”, cropped, etc, but then all selected for one export to JPEG), an individual image could take 15 minutes or more to process – unacceptable. I just replaced my previous Zbook with a Zbook G9 Studio, 32 Gbyte RAM (that I may increase to 64 Gbyte), and I installed a Crucial 4Tbyte SSD to replace the 1 Gbyte SSD that came with the system (much less expensive in the USA than getting 4Tbytes pre-installed from HP). The computer has an Intel I7 18 core CPU and a Nvidia RTX A3000 12 Gbyte laptop GPU, and has Thunderbolt 4 ports. The Zbook G9 processes the same NEF file using the same DOP file for my settings (ie, processing a NEF file that already has been processed for a human clock time-to-process comparison with only the machine being the primary change) in well under a minute, and in most cases I have tested, under 15 seconds. This is sufficiently “fast” for my use as after culling (a time intensive manual operation), I rarely have more than 50 images to process.
that is what like USD $6K+ notebook ? to get 45mp in 15 sec … not a good deal per buck
Not USD $6k as BH had it on “deal of the day” and 12 months no interest on the BH PayBoo credit card (otherwise, no sales tax – unclear if that also covers VAT where that is the sales tax). Not even USD $6k at Amazon USA. However, to a working photographer, even that much expense would be worth it. Not for me. This merely was an observation that I posted. Moreover, as the unit enters the used/refurbished distribution channel, the price presumably will drop and unlike an Apple machine in which Apple changes CPU family and obsoletes equipment, one can keep a X86-64 machine OS supported for a long time.
Hmm, nice but way above my wallet.
There are way cheaper options. And to be frank that GPU is optimized for more industrial kinds of workloads like 3D modeling. (I.e. solidworks). Performance wise it’s similar to an RTX3060. Not bad. But it’s overkill for this.
A gaming laptop is still the best value for DeepPRIME processing. Find one with an RTX3060 or higher and DeepPRIME will blaze… I’m processing 50MP RAWs in about 7-8 seconds through DeepPRIME and 15-20 seconds through XD on a 3070RTX on a laptop that cost me $1800 in 2021.
The key when searching for a suitable gaming laptop is to find one with a good, wide gamut display that calibrates well. Anyone looking for a new windows laptop would be much better off spending the research time on the screen than the GPU/CPU combo that will eeek another second or two out of the DeepPRIME processing times.
I fully agree, there are less expensive options (although for a laptop, not a freestanding desktop or rack computer, the “build it yourself” option from components is not feasible), albeit the BH “deal of the day” was a significant savings over other vendors – the reason I purchased it. Please note that most laptop gaming machines, as with most enthusiast or “home use” machines (not the “industrial” components mentioned above) do not have the durability nor life expectancy of a HP Zbook. (Without deprecation to either Dell or Apple, machines advertised as “equivalent” have not been so in my experience based upon evidence from other users – Lenovo ThinkPad machine typically have been as good as HP Zbook.) Such “non commercial” "non field ‘hardened’ " machines typically do not last as long as a Z book in daily regular “heavy use” and also when routinely transported to remote sites. The typical life expectancy for a “consumer” machine is two to four years based on what I have been told by computer repair professionals unless the machine is lightly used. In many cases, planned obsolescence appears for such machines – eg, Apple will not provide updates to MacOS X for such “obsolete” hardware, and thus, even if the machine is operational, it has no further security fixes nor compatibility with newer file formats, etc. The recommendation was for working photographers who have assignments over “hill and dale”.
Maybe, if you do a living with your photographs (as I think you do, seing price you put in your photo dedicated laptop), 4 years is probably a limit before changing it seing how fast graphic cards evolve (and so process time for wildlife photography very often taken in low light condition at fast shutter speed and needing FPrime).
So expensive 10 years or more life laptop against very less expensive 4 years life but less expensive to replace laptop …
A question to think about.
I do not have time to post a longer reply as I am packing for a three week long road trip. My wife also “lives” on her laptop (that I configure and “maintain” for her). Her employer forces the use of Dell laptops, and she chooses the best that the employer will allow. These last four years or less (she does NOT do image processing nor “sophisticated” graphics) under “daily regular” use and require repair (I had to change the fan twice in her previous Dell). My Zbook (save for the main battery) lasted much, much longer, and only was obsoleted by me because it is too “slow”. Otherwise, it “hung in there”. A close family friend (for whom I also maintain and configure her laptop) and who lives upon her laptop bought a consumer model and it “died” within two years (after warranty); she now has a Lenovo ThinkPad and it has lasted with no signs of impending failure (no keyboard failures, no stuck keys, unlike the Dell units mentioned above). The “professional” models from Lenovo and HP cost more (and are overpriced for what one gets, even on “special”), but seem to have significantly better reliability and field durability. Again, do please note that my initial posting in this “thread” was intended for working photographers who need a computer in the field.
Dell is no more what it was since it has been bought by chinese company.
I used to create dell renderfarms that last years running near to 24/24 using 100% cpu power (wasn’t gpu computing at this time) - but they were dual xeon stations. Not some core or I something.
They were still 100% functional when they were scrapped because they had become too slow and obsolete.
And they were very less expensive than HP or other “high-end brand” and offered 4 years warranty on site (under 24 h if I remember well) at very decent price (never had to use it - but it helped to feel better with productions with very tight deadlines and no right to fail).
I don’t use dell anymore.
I still have 15, 20 years computing stations still able to run 24/24 without problem (but they of course are to much slow now).
But of course, if money isn’t a problem, take the best you can. You won’t regret it.
Get only intel components in your station with well-designed cooling and it will never die.
Laptops are less easy to cool.
But anyway, are you asking for something or just telling what you’re doing ?
only if Dell, there is a rumor that Clinton … and that was way , way before any Dell transaction
I love DXO PrimeRaw3. The results on my desktop are spectacular. I shoot a lot of sports where high ISO’s are the start point. But location work requires a laptop and my tired old thing just wouldn’t do it. So I bought an i5 with 16 gig of memory and an SSD. That wouldn’t do it either and I returned the laptop. I only use a laptop computer as a life boat, for when the client needs it right now, so I would much rather put my resources into the desktop side of things. I’m not sure if it’s possible but DXO and probably Adobe with their new noise reduction app are rendering most computers obsolescent. I raved about PR3 but when my friends tried it one out of six could actually make it go. My desktop is a gaming computer I7 with 32 gig of memory, an SSD and so forth, and it works fine with PR3; but I’m concerned that PrimeRaw4 - when it comes out - will not work. Maybe a fast computer is the only answer but I’m not going to buy a new computer every year to make a new PR work, and DXO had better start thinking about that.
I concur. My AUD $1200 HP gaming laptop (AMD 5600x 8 core CPU and Nvidia GTX 1650 mobile GPU does my RAW files (R3, 24mp) in around 30s. And it’s 2 years old. More modern options from HP, offer systems featuring say, a RTX 4060 and Ryzen 7 7840HS, which would be considerably faster than my old HP laptop and for only a few hundred dollars more. Certainly far cheaper than the OP’s laptop.
OK, Z9 files are 45mp, so would take around 60 seconds on my old HP laptop. Certainly not a long time. A newer gaming laptop would be certainly quicker than this.
There was no need to spend USD 6k on a laptop imho - cheaper and better suited options were available for significantly lower prices.
Wow, something very underutilized there.
On my old desktop machine with intel core i5 @3.2 GHz, ($68.00) 16 GB of RAM ($29.97) and GeForce nVidia GTX 1060 6GB, ($384.00) ASRock Z77 Extreme4 motherboard ($139.99) for what you said, probably it would take 2-3 min for individual image and that machine is ancient. So that is like what: $800 with cheap monitor.
Still very usable machine for most image processing needs. 50 images of 40 MB or so, no big deal.
If one is actually using it for work, its something one can earn with a job or two. Camera and lenses etc is bigger investment. A lot bigger.
Probably someone could buy it super cheaply today used.