Should I ditch the desktop for a laptop?

[nerwin]

So I got my 32gb dual channel memory kit for my PC today to replaced my previous kit that for some reason one of them decided to fail on me. I also ordered an RTX 3060 12gb video card to replace my aging 1060 6gb as it wasn't able to edit 4k video. It will be nice to see how smoother it will make editing video and maybe it would encourage me to get back into making videos again.

Thanks everyone for the help and thanks for letting me kinda brainstorm openly with y'all.

 

[jeffashman]

So I got my 32gb dual channel memory kit for my PC today to replaced my previous kit that for some reason one of them decided to fail on me. I also ordered an RTX 3060 12gb video card to replace my aging 1060 6gb as it wasn't able to edit 4k video. It will be nice to see how smoother it will make editing video and maybe it would encourage me to get back into making videos again.

Thanks everyone for the help and thanks for letting me kinda brainstorm openly with y'all.

I have both PC and laptop. I think you will appreciate what the 3060 brings to your setup. I have an older AMD Ryzen 5 2600x 3.6GHz CPU, Nvidia RTX 3060 12GB, with 32GB RAM, NvMe and SSD drives, and an older LG 27" monitor. You will appreciate the difference in performance between the 1060 and the 3060. With the speedup provided the graphics alone, I was able to bring my process down to five minutes for a single image. I can't remember how long it took before, but the difference blew me away. I use the laptop, an Asus Predator with an Intel i7-11800 and Nvidia 3060 when I travel, but the PC is my goto. The laptop is no slouch, but the PC has it beat hands down.

 

[nerwin]

I have both PC and laptop. I think you will appreciate what the 3060 brings to your setup. I have an older AMD Ryzen 5 2600x 3.6GHz CPU, Nvidia RTX 3060 12GB, with 32GB RAM, NvMe and SSD drives, and an older LG 27" monitor. You will appreciate the difference in performance between the 1060 and the 3060. With the speedup provided the graphics alone, I was able to bring my process down to five minutes for a single image. I can't remember how long it took before, but the difference blew me away. I use the laptop, an Asus Predator with an Intel i7-11800 and Nvidia 3060 when I travel, but the PC is my goto. The laptop is no slouch, but the PC has it beat hands down.

I am curious how much of a difference I'll notice, I know it will be huge for video editing. You have no idea how infuriating it was trying to edit video with the 1060, it was impossible to skim through footage and make cuts without it lagging..it ultimately was a enough for me to give up doing anything video wise. I have a Pixel 8 which can take amazing 4K footage but I don't bother because I can't edit it! Haha.

Hopefully it makes editing photos in Lightroom classic more smoother too. Were you editing in Lightroom when you noticed the speed difference?

B&H just notified me, I'll be getting the 3060 tomorrow!! woot.

 

[jeffashman]

I am curious how much of a difference I'll notice, I know it will be huge for video editing. You have no idea how infuriating it was trying to edit video with the 1060, it was impossible to skim through footage and make cuts without it lagging..it ultimately was a enough for me to give up doing anything video wise. I have a Pixel 8 which can take amazing 4K footage but I don't bother because I can't edit it! Haha.

Hopefully it makes editing photos in Lightroom classic more smoother too. Were you editing in Lightroom when you noticed the speed difference?

B&H just notified me, I'll be getting the 3060 tomorrow!! woot.

My workflow is Topaz Photo AI, Lightroom, and Photoshop Elements, and for the average image I can work end-to-end in five minutes including sharpening and denoising in Photo AI, adjusting sliders and cropping in LR, and polishing the final image in PSE.

 

[adamhiram]

what's the point if I was to get a laptop and just have it sit on my desk 90 percent of the time as I don't really travel much

I'm team desktop all the way. You're not limited to low-power chips to extend battery life, you don't have the cooling issues, and even if you don't plan to upgrade much, serviceability is a huge plus.

 

[nerwin]

Ohhh look what just arrived!

 

[smoke665]

Speaking from experience the 3060 will be noticeably faster than the 1060, but in today's rapidly improving world for just a few dollars more you could have got the 4060 which is 1.7k faster than the 3060. I elected to get the 4060 ti (faster yet) rather than the 4070, because there wasn't a significant difference in performance to out weigh the increased cost.

 

[nerwin]

Speaking from experience the 3060 will be noticeably faster than the 1060, but in today's rapidly improving world for just a few dollars more you could have got the 4060 which is 1.7k faster than the 3060. I elected to get the 4060 ti (faster yet) rather than the 4070, because there wasn't a significant difference in performance to out weigh the increased cost.

I considered the 4060, but the 3060 has 12gb of vram versus the 4060 only having 8gb of vram and that extra 4gb makes a big difference when editing 4K video.

 

[smoke665]

I considered the 4060, but the 3060 has 12gb of vram versus the 4060 only having 8gb of vram and that extra 4gb makes a big difference when editing 4K video.

I'm not sure with the increased processing speed of the 4060 that the loss of 4gb of ram makes much difference. Interestingly the 4060 ti comes with two options only, 8gb or 16gb.

 

[nerwin]

I'm not sure with the increased processing speed of the 4060 that the loss of 4gb of ram makes much difference. Interestingly the 4060 ti comes with two options only, 8gb or 16gb.

More vram helps when you have lot of cuts and things. The 4060 would be overkill for what processor I have but it would've probably been fine too and less power. But that extra 4gb of ram can make a difference.

 

[nerwin]

Well I think I'm going to return it, I don't see a big enough difference that justifies keeping it. I might just end up buying a laptop and selling my PC components and just have a laptop.