# Are Ultrabooks Fast enough?



## ShotInTheDark (Sep 9, 2012)

I'm considering getting a new laptop. 

There are these new slim Ultrabooks such as http://www.lenovo.com/products/us/laptop/thinkpad/x-series/x1-carbon/ - one of the few that supports 8 GB RAM.

The question I have is how well do these CPUs cope with basic post-processing, eg DPP or LR?

Has anyone used one for this purpose? Are they fast enough?

I know for the same price, you can get a normal size, normal spec laptop. However the idea of carrying an Ultrabook sized laptop while loaded with all the camera gear is quite appealing.


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## KKCFamilyman (Sep 9, 2012)

Yeah it will cover your needs just fine but by the time you load it up it will still be expensive compared to lighter notebooks. I would hold off till October when windows 8 launches and you'll see a surge of more options. Look at the says ux31 the new one has 1080p ipS panel and costs $1k.


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## ShotInTheDark (Sep 9, 2012)

I've tried Windows 8, and hate it. I will be running Windows 7 on whatever I get. Hopefully, the Win 7 models will drop in price in October.


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## KKCFamilyman (Sep 9, 2012)

ShotInTheDark said:


> I've tried Windows 8, and hate it. I will be running Windows 7 on whatever I get. Hopefully, the Win 7 models will drop in price in October.


 I understand but given the chance win 8 could prove to be useful with the tile apps. Eitherway all the remaining good gear is coming around then and you can always install win 7 on it.


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## TrumpetPower! (Sep 9, 2012)

I'm typing this on a maxed-out MacBook Air that's computationally more than ample. The display is excellent for a laptop this small and lightweight, but it's of course nothing you'd want to use for real work. But for remote shooting or first-pass or quick-and-dirty editing? Bring it on!

Cheers,

b&


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## robbymack (Sep 9, 2012)

depends how much editing you are planning to do. For the down and dirty quick edits probably fine, but for much else it will likely be slow running LR 4 or aperture depending on what is your flavor. Also more ram won't necessarily make the editing software run better/faster, you're better of with a better/faster graphics card vs more ram if you want to deal with detailed editing...just my $0.02


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## expatinasia (Sep 9, 2012)

Laptops are no different from cameras in that you get what you pay for. And, more often than not, a compromise must be reached between budget, weight, portability (size) and power.

There are some great ultrabooks coming out soon, but, just as you did with your camera and lenses, you should consider how you will grow into it.

File sizes are only likely to get bigger, will you be doing more video in 1 or 2 years etc etc.

As has been already mentioned the CPU and GPU is very important when choosing a compauter especially if you are doing stuff like rendering HD video etc.


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## Hardwire (Sep 9, 2012)

robbymack said:


> depends how much editing you are planning to do. For the down and dirty quick edits probably fine, but for much else it will likely be slow running LR 4 or aperture depending on what is your flavor. Also more ram won't necessarily make the editing software run better/faster, you're better of with a better/faster graphics card vs more ram if you want to deal with detailed editing...just my $0.02



I am a PC guy and I have quite a beefy rig in my office for edits, but when I travel I have a Macbook Air (which is comparable to the Ultrabooks in spec etc) which I use to backup and perform on location edits just fine.


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## Fotofanten (Sep 9, 2012)

The Asus UX31A with a 13" 1080p IPS panel should be a safe choice. A 15" is coming up soon also. With the limited storage capacity of SSD drives, you might want to consider putting aside some funding for a NAS.


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## Chewy734 (Sep 9, 2012)

I do all my post-processing with my MacBook Pro, 16gb RAM, and 512gb SSD. It's super fast for anything that I throw at it. The key is getting at least 8gb RAM and the SSD. The SSD makes a world of difference.


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## KKCFamilyman (Sep 10, 2012)

Chewy734 said:


> I do all my post-processing with my MacBook Pro, 16gb RAM, and 512gb SSD. It's super fast for anything that I throw at it. The key is getting at least 8gb RAM and the SSD. The SSD makes a world of difference.



I am sure your Mac runs great but I find on all these forums everyone immediately goes the Mac Route. I think ultrabooks like the Asus UX31A with it's 1080p ips antiglare screen prove that windows still has it's place. Also a lot of people who post these are looking at cost and I am sorry but you can get way more for your money on the windows side of the fence plus a much larger selection. Blu-ray Drives are another plus in laptops/desktops that are not on the Mac Camp. Don't get me wrong I have IPADS,IPHONES but when it comes to computers in general I find Windows allows me to do more frequent hardware refreshes and it's cheaper.


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## Setazo (Sep 10, 2012)

Chewy734 said:


> I do all my post-processing with my MacBook Pro, 16gb RAM, and 512gb SSD. It's super fast for anything that I throw at it. The key is getting at least 8gb RAM and the SSD. The SSD makes a world of difference.



*Chewy734*, what file sizes do you throw at your machine? And which PP app do you use?
I'm considering going the MacBook pro route, so I'm curious about what it can handle...


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## Hardwire (Sep 12, 2012)

KKCFamilyman said:


> Chewy734 said:
> 
> 
> > I do all my post-processing with my MacBook Pro, 16gb RAM, and 512gb SSD. It's super fast for anything that I throw at it. The key is getting at least 8gb RAM and the SSD. The SSD makes a world of difference.
> ...



As much as you say that, I only have the one Mac and that is my Air...asides from that I am windows on everything else. I recently (ie in the past week) picked up a Dell Ultrabook so will be installing my usual software on that to see how it performs....but there is part of me that like the fact I keep the Mac for travel use only (as it collects dust the rest of the time) and it forms part of my travel work flow.


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## Mt Spokane Photography (Sep 12, 2012)

ShotInTheDark said:


> I'm considering getting a new laptop.
> 
> There are these new slim Ultrabooks such as http://www.lenovo.com/products/us/laptop/thinkpad/x-series/x1-carbon/ - one of the few that supports 8 GB RAM.
> 
> ...


Far more than fast enough. I have a older X200S and it runs photoshop and lightroom at full speed.
As long as it has the i7 processor and runs windows 7 or later, and has a 1024 X 768 or larger display, it will work.
Lenovo is the class act of windows based laptops.


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## Jamesy (Sep 12, 2012)

I was strongly considering the ASUS Zenbook UX32VD but I think it only has one memory slot that can hold an 8GB stick for a max of 10GB in the machine. I think the mobo has 2GB of RAM. It is also only a dual core, things like rendering previews and exporting will benefit from more cores in LR.
OTOH, the screen is awesome at 13.3 (1920x1080) and IPS - that is crazy!
If money were no object, I would have one these and a faster laptop for heavy lifting --- meanwhile reality just called and said "money is an object"


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## sb (Sep 12, 2012)

Hardwire said:


> KKCFamilyman said:
> 
> 
> > Chewy734 said:
> ...



Yup exactly same here. I am all windows 7 +LR with 2 notable exceptions:

- 27" Mac display (hooked up to a custom PC on win 7)
- Macbook air

Macbook air will runs LR just fine. I've done lots of tethered shooting to it. Also remember that LR performance largely depends on the size of your catalogue. I used to only start a new catalogue every calendar year, but I stopped that nonsense because my performance was taking a serious beating.

And as somebody mentioned, with laptops it's all about the SSD. I'd rather get a slower processor and less RAM than have a classic hard drive (and they put 5400RPM drives in laptops for power savings which makes it even more unbearable. Same goes for those drives they advertise as "green"). SSD makes everything load fast.


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## Jamesy (Sep 12, 2012)

sb said:


> Also remember that LR performance largely depends on the size of your catalogue. I used to only start a new catalogue every calendar year, but I stopped that nonsense because my performance was taking a serious beating.


I don't follow. Do you only use one catalog now? Or do you do a new catalog for every new job?


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## sb (Sep 13, 2012)

Well I now start a new catalogue every quarter (Q1-Q4). I mean it depends on how much you shoot but quarterly happens to work out perfectly for me because of the volume of pictures that I shoot. Just around the time when my LR starts slowing down, I create a new catalogue and start fresh.

Starting a new one for every job would be an excessive and unnecessary I think.


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## Jamesy (Sep 13, 2012)

sb said:


> Well I now start a new catalogue every quarter (Q1-Q4). I mean it depends on how much you shoot but quarterly happens to work out perfectly for me because of the volume of pictures that I shoot. Just around the time when my LR starts slowing down, I create a new catalogue and start fresh.
> 
> Starting a new one for every job would be an excessive and unnecessary I think.



I watched the Jared Platt LR seminar on CreativeLIVE and he does a new one for every job - definetly not my workflow.

How many images do you shoot in a quarter? Do you import and work on the native CR2's or convert to DNG? If the later, you can select to Embed Fast Load Data and it keeps med/lrg Jpeg in the DNG file for the Develop module to use which I have heard can really speed up a workflow.


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## sb (Sep 13, 2012)

Mine neither, seems like an overkill. Not to mention that i always work on multiple things at the same time, opening and closing catalogues all the tine would drive me nuts.

I'd have to do some digging to be able to tell you how many files i go through quarterly, i have no idea to be honest. I didn't have a scientific, measurable reason for going with quarterly catalogues, i just eye balled it cause it seemed like a good compromise between performance and convenience, and i'm happy with it ( for now )


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## Jamesy (Sep 14, 2012)

The reason I was asking about number of images is because my catalog has about 18,000 images and things are definitely slower than before however I am running on WinXP with 3GB RAM on LR 3.6. Hence the shopping for a new box.

I can still process my 5D3 files but things are getting sluggish for sure.


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## sb (Sep 15, 2012)

Yeah it sounds like it's time for a new catalogue. More powerful box will maybe allow you to push catalogue size a little further, but no matter what hardware you get, eventually you will hit the wall because the resource consumption can go up indefinitely as your catalogue grows. 

I did a little bit of digging and in 2011 alone, I had a total of about 52,000 RAW files in my catalogue (I don't keep any JPEGs in there) , so about 13,000 per quarter roughly. At times, I found even this to be too much for comfortable work, but I'm too lazy to start a new catalogue each month.


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## Chewy734 (Sep 15, 2012)

Setazo said:


> *Chewy734*, what file sizes do you throw at your machine? And which PP app do you use?
> I'm considering going the MacBook pro route, so I'm curious about what it can handle...



I use LR4 most of the time. Sometimes Photoshop, sometimes Illustrator (not for PP, but other stuff). I actually use my laptop for complex computational scientific research, so any PP stuff I throw at it is not a problem at all.


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