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Author Topic: Need a new PC - laptop or desktop?  (Read 6864 times)

MattBurt

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Re: Need a new PC - laptop or desktop?
« Reply #20 on: February 13, 2018, 03:49:20 pm »

Looks like a respectable machine. If it were mine, I'd put a SSD in for a little extra oomph before you have much data to transfer.
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GreggP

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Re: Need a new PC - laptop or desktop?
« Reply #21 on: February 13, 2018, 06:06:25 pm »

It has a 512 GB SSD.

MattBurt

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Re: Need a new PC - laptop or desktop?
« Reply #22 on: February 14, 2018, 01:00:29 am »

D'oh, overlooked that. Then yeah, looks good. :)
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GreggP

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Re: Need a new PC - laptop or desktop?
« Reply #23 on: February 15, 2018, 11:33:48 am »

Quick answer No.
Someone is confusing you by not seemingly knowing the difference between color gamut (sRGB, AdobeRGB etc.) and the 10 bit display capability of certain high end monitors.
Capture One, for instance, recomend the biggest baddest gaming card you can afford for best performance.  As far as I know the only photo editing software that supports 10 bit displays and needs a (very expensive) pro video card is Photoshop.
Thanks for the explanation.

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GreggP

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Re: Need a new PC - laptop or desktop?
« Reply #24 on: March 16, 2018, 12:44:02 pm »

Quick answer No.
Someone is confusing you by not seemingly knowing the difference between color gamut (sRGB, AdobeRGB etc.) and the 10 bit display capability of certain high end monitors.
Capture One, for instance, recomend the biggest baddest gaming card you can afford for best performance.  As far as I know the only photo editing software that supports 10 bit displays and needs a (very expensive) pro video card is Photoshop.

Are there any 8-bit 4K monitors (27" or so) that support close to 100% Adobe RGB, or are they all 10-bit?

nemophoto

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Re: Need a new PC - laptop or desktop?
« Reply #25 on: April 04, 2018, 01:22:05 pm »

My 2-cents.

I work extensively with both. It really depends upon your greatest need. With a desktop, you get a lot of bang for the buck, plus you can more reasonably get buy an AdobeRGB rated monitor. To me, accurate color has always been the primary concern. Bad color = bad photos. sRGB is not bad, just incomplete, depending on what you do. If most work will be internet/screen, then sRGB is fine. Most of my work is for print (CMYK). Though it's a narrower gamut than aRGB, I still like having the widest gamut when editing.

Laptops are portable, and some very powerful. However, most screens are NOT aRGB. Even vaunted Apple and their MacBook Pro only manages about 70% aRGB and barely over 100% sRGB.  With notebooks, it's generally a closed system, so not upgradeable -- some even limit upgrading RAM -- so what you order initially will be what you have forever. I will occasionally edit a client's work while on location on my notebook, but that's only when I'm shooting for one client and another need work immediately. Anything critical waits, if possible, till I get home. With Most laptops these days, an external monitor can be attached, so you CAN get a larger screen for editing as well as better color.

In the end, laptops are portable, but can be limited if you have to do any amount of serious editing. If you go that route, do yourself a favor: no small screens. Eschew the cute little 13" and 14" screens and got to a 15". Your eyes will thank you. If you want power, then there is truly no comparision. For your budget a desktop you can have larger drives, more memory and more expandability and significantly greater processing power (e.g. - 8-core vs 4-core). If you are at all geeky, you can upgrade components as needed.

My setup:
AMD Ryzen 7 1800x, Asrock X370 Killer SLI
64GB RAM
nVidia GTX1080 w/8GB, 2 - 24" NEC PA241 monitors (98% aRGB)
Samsung 960 Pro m.2 512GB
WD Black 2TB HDD
and numerous external drives

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GreggP

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Re: Need a new PC - laptop or desktop?
« Reply #26 on: April 05, 2018, 11:22:44 am »

My 2-cents.

I work extensively with both. It really depends upon your greatest need. With a desktop, you get a lot of bang for the buck, plus you can more reasonably get buy an AdobeRGB rated monitor. To me, accurate color has always been the primary concern. Bad color = bad photos. sRGB is not bad, just incomplete, depending on what you do. If most work will be internet/screen, then sRGB is fine. Most of my work is for print (CMYK). Though it's a narrower gamut than aRGB, I still like having the widest gamut when editing.

Laptops are portable, and some very powerful. However, most screens are NOT aRGB. Even vaunted Apple and their MacBook Pro only manages about 70% aRGB and barely over 100% sRGB.  With notebooks, it's generally a closed system, so not upgradeable -- some even limit upgrading RAM -- so what you order initially will be what you have forever. I will occasionally edit a client's work while on location on my notebook, but that's only when I'm shooting for one client and another need work immediately. Anything critical waits, if possible, till I get home. With Most laptops these days, an external monitor can be attached, so you CAN get a larger screen for editing as well as better color.

In the end, laptops are portable, but can be limited if you have to do any amount of serious editing. If you go that route, do yourself a favor: no small screens. Eschew the cute little 13" and 14" screens and got to a 15". Your eyes will thank you. If you want power, then there is truly no comparision. For your budget a desktop you can have larger drives, more memory and more expandability and significantly greater processing power (e.g. - 8-core vs 4-core). If you are at all geeky, you can upgrade components as needed.

My setup:
AMD Ryzen 7 1800x, Asrock X370 Killer SLI
64GB RAM
nVidia GTX1080 w/8GB, 2 - 24" NEC PA241 monitors (98% aRGB)
Samsung 960 Pro m.2 512GB
WD Black 2TB HDD
and numerous external drives
I went the desktop route for the past 30+ years. Having worked in software development, systems integration, technology, etc., since about 1984. I've built more desktops than I can remember. So I do appreciate the flexibility of picking optimized components and the upgradeability. I should be in the Newegg customer Hall of Fame.

I have quite a few PCs connected to our home network. A couple were originally built around 10 years ago. One was my dedicated system, another for my wife, my kids shared one briefly, a 20 TB Linux media server, and one is an HTPC, etc. Since my wife and kids (now in their 20s) all switched to laptops, a few of the PCs are no longer needed. Normally when I upgrade a PC, I'll transfer the components to another machine. Kind of like handing down clothes that no longer fit the older child.

So instead of upgrading my PC to the latest/greatest components and doing the hand-me-down to another PC, the portability of the laptop was just too enticing. So I decided to either give away or sell off 3 of our desktop systems and buy a relatively powerful laptop. I ended up buying a lightly used MSI gaming laptop with a 17.3" screen. It matches the performance I would've achieved had I bought the components for a desktop build within my budget. It's too bad laptops aren't as easy to upgrade but I did swap out the 1080p 120Hz gaming screen for a 4K 60Hz, 100% AdobeRGB screen. And it works great!

I'm still looking into buying an 27" or 32" external monitor. Since the graphics processors in my laptop is for gaming, it doesn't fully support 10-bit displays. My understanding is that I can still see the full AdobeRGB gamut, but just not in as fine of gradients as I could with a professional GPU.

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk

nemophoto

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Re: Need a new PC - laptop or desktop?
« Reply #27 on: April 06, 2018, 11:23:56 am »

Most higher end graphic cards support 10-bit displays, even in gaming laptops (which usually are sold with high end GPUs). It's really a factor of the monitor and the connection. My 6-yr old NEC monitors can deliver 10-bit, but ONLY when connected via a DisplayPort. My older desktop/graphics card only had DVI connections, so the display was limited to 8-bit. With my new desktop, the same monitors are using the DisplayPort adapters on the GTX1080 and deliver 10-bit (internally downsampled from 14-bit).
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smthopr

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Re: Need a new PC - laptop or desktop?
« Reply #28 on: April 06, 2018, 11:39:32 am »

I'm not sure or convinced that a 10 bit display is necessary.  Yes, working in 16 bit mode is very helpful, but once one has arrived at a color correction sending that in 8 bit to the display is not so objectionable.  I don't think one's prints will be any different working on a 10 bit display vs an 8 bit display.

I do a bit of work on movies, where a 10 bit display would be more obvious.  I can certainly see the difference on a test pattern.  But, generally I work with the display output at 8 bits to improve playback performance, and on real world material it's really impossible to see any difference.

Color accuracy in a display is important.  8 vs 10 bits much much less so.
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nemophoto

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Re: Need a new PC - laptop or desktop?
« Reply #29 on: April 06, 2018, 11:47:33 am »

I agree. 8 vs 10 is not hugely noticeable, depending upon the display. I haven't noticed a lot on mine. But color accuracy IS a must.
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