Looking for your thoughts

[lyonone]

Hey folks,
I use my cheap Aspire 5050 laptop for getting out of my office (room) and do my research, minor photo editing etc., in the comfort of my living room with the 52 inch plasma. My laptop is falling apart, so I'm shopping along and stumble across the Dell Studio 17 with the new intel core i7 720 QM processor. It made me wonder (wavey screen effect here), (V.O.) "Would this laptop, using OHCI HD, outperform (or even blow away) my current dual monitor desktop editing station?! (Then, I thought) "I have a 26" HD TV/Monitor I could add for dual display and shoot program out to my plasma!". My next thought was, "I'm so clueless when it comes to this area, what would the forum guys say?". So........

Here is my current desktop setup:

Supermicro X6DA8-G mobo with Intel E7525 Chipset, Dual Xeon 3.4GHz, 4.0GB RAM (DDR2 400 SDRAM), NVIDIA GeForce 8600GT, 2X35GB Raptors 0 Raid OS(onboard), 2 X 500GB Barracudas O Raid Video Drive (3Ware 7000/8000 SATA Controller card, OS Windows XP Pro (32-bit), NX PCIx\Edius 5xx, HDSpark card.

Here is the Dell Studio 17 setup:

PROCESSOR: Intel Core i7 720QM 1.6GHz (2.8 GHz Turbo Mode, 6MB Cache)
OPERATING SYSTEM: Windows 7, 64-bit
HD DISPLAY: 17.3” HD+ (900p) Bright LED Display with TrueLife
MEMORY: 4GB Shared Dual Channel DDR3 at 1067MHz
HARD DRIVE: 500GB SATA HDD (7200rpm)
OPTICAL DRIVE: 8X Slot Load CD/DVD Burner (Dual Layer DVD+/-R Drive)
SOUND OPTIONS: High Definition Audio 2.0
VIDEO CARD: 1GB ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4650

[tingsern]

Video editing is largely I/O bound. And that's where all laptops fail - when compared with desktops. While laptops can match desktops in terms of CPU and maybe RAM - nearly most laptops today are equipped with just one Hard-disk (or maybe two at the most). Not talking about external USB or Firewire HDDs - but, internal to the laptop. So, with just one or two HDDs, how to compare with desktop's 3 or more HDDs - some configured as RAID 0 as well. You can't even do RAID 0 with laptops internal HDDs (as one of the internal HDD has to contain the operating system and boot sectors).

Of course, if you just want to view (as opposed to editing) your video on a laptop, yes - that is possible. Heavy duty video editing will belong to the domain of a desktop for a long time to come.

[vortigern]

This is suggested by Dave of DVC in Hove as being a very workable system 2.5Ghz M571 deluxe laptop check the site . In the UK he is a legend and would not sell anything up to purpose. I would be very happy with one.

[lyonone]

Hello Chief, Max....

I/Os!? Minor details. I scare myself sometimes (embarrassed emoticon here). Thanks guys. And, to the moderator, I get why you moved my post, but questions like this rarely get answered in the "Hardware" forum. In fact, this same inquiry received no replies in 3 days and took less than 12 hours for my buds in "Edius" forum to reply. A guys gotta do what a guys gotta do.
Thanks.

[drgagx]

This is suggested by Dave of DVC in Hove as being a very workable system 2.5Ghz M571 deluxe laptop check the site . In the UK he is a legend and would not sell anything up to purpose. I would be very happy with one.

I think (hope) you mean "would not sell anything not up to purpose".