Best laptop for 8k video editing
So, you just got yourself a new camera that shoots 4K high quality, or maybe it even shoots 8K. You go capture some content, get yourself a little bit of coffee, and sit yourself down ready to bang out an edit. That is until-- (audio stutters) (error message bloops) Yeah, you're gonna be needing a stronger computer. (futuristic resonating) (keyboard keys clacking) Happened to you too, huh? Spent all your money on a brand new camera only to find out that it is in fact so epic that you're gonna be needing a new computer that is equally as epic just to edit the footage. A strong camera is an incredible tool but it's pretty much useless if it's not paired with a strong machine and a strong operator to be able to utilize its technology. be in need of a computer upgrade are, one, if your computer or editing programs decide to crash every time you ask them to do something intensive.
So today I have to find two laptops at two different price tiers that are both complete creator powerhouses. Both of these machines are capable of editing 4k high quality 4k60, and even tackling the dreaded 8k RAW that has rendered all of our laptops useless. So after terabytes of testing, I have landed on two different variations of the Creator 15 laptop from MSI, both of which supporting 10th generation i7 Intel Core Processors, and honestly quite ridiculous graphics cards.
Creator 15 A10SGS-40
So laptop A, which is technically the Creator 15 A10SGS-40 we're gonna call The Beast, AKA The Beast. And we call it that because MSI has managed to be able to put an RTX 2080 Super Max-Q graphics card, 32 gigs of RAM, two terabytes of storage, and a 4k Thin Bezel Monitor into one small, incredibly powerful laptop.
Creator 15 A10SFT-53
Laptop B, which is technically the Creator 15 A10SFT-53, we're gonna Beauty, AKA Beauty, because they've somehow put an Nvidia RTX 2070 Max-Q graphics card, 16 gigs of RAM, and a full HD touchscreen monitor in this laptop.
workflow
But are they both capable of 4k high quality, 4k60, or an 8k RAW workflow? And can they allow you to edit and export faster and more efficiently? Let's find out. I tested it for you, and we're gonna go through all of my results, but also in case at home you wanna test this on your own device to kinda see how much of an upgrade you're actually looking at, so that you can test it against our findings as well. So the first test we did was editing 4k high quality. 4k, 120 frames a second in traditional 4k to just make sure there was no jittery playback or lagging video that would make editing impossible. Luckily for us, both of these machines absolutely rocked this test. Both of these laptops were able to achieve butter smooth playback in full resolution quality without requiring any pre rendering at all. You were able to import the video, click play, and instantly start editing your 4k high quality and also 4k120. It's worth noting that even when the footage was color corrected, there was absolutely zero change in the outcome.The playback was butter smooth and that is for both machines.
frame rate
Now the second test was 4k60, a frame rate that literally cripples almost every computer. However, after a brief pre-render, which is completely normal, both of these devices were able to achieve butter smooth constant playback in full resolution in 4k60. And just keep in mind that Laptop A with the 2080 Super graphics card is playing 4k60 smoothly back on a 4k monitor. That's pretty freaking cool. And for you guys keeping little notes at home, laptop A, AKA The Beast, was able to pre-render our 4k60 test clip in just 45 seconds while laptop B, AKA Beauty, was right behind it with only 60 seconds. So it's not like it was a massive difference. Both machines absolutely dominated this task. Now I was actually kinda nervous about the third test. Can these machines actually handle an 8k RAW video workflow with color correction, and post-processing, and all of the tools that we need to use as creators? Can they do it without melting?
So yes, they actually both after a brief pre-render were able to play back 8k RAW video in full resolution without any skipping or jittery, perfect, butter smooth playback. My mind is honestly completely blown. However, this is the first test where Laptop A, AKA The Beast, started to noticeably be able to outperform Laptop B. Laptop B, AKA Beauty, was able to pre-render our 8k RAW clip in 12 minutes, while Laptop A, AKA The Beast, was able to complete the same task in only six minutes. That means that our Creator 15 configuration with that 2080 Super Max-Q graphics card was rendering footage twice as fast as the 2070. This power gap actually became noticeably more apparent when we started to do post-processing to 8K footage like advanced color correction, stabilization, or even graphic text.
They were both able to complete the tasks, but Laptop A was doing them much more efficiently, which we would have expected. And that brings us to our fourth and final test. What individual features or functions allow us to edit easier, more efficiently, or at a higher level? Well, Laptop A, AKA The Beast, is a little bit more capable and also a little bit more expensive. It has a razor sharp Ultra HD 4k monitor a faster graphics card, more memory, and the ability to render videos at almost twice the speed of laptop B, but it does cost a little high.
Laptop B, AKA Beauty, is perfectly capable of 4k and 8k video, it has plenty of memory and power, it comes with a full HD touch screen monitor, which is an absolute game changer for photo editing or Photoshop use, and yet you get all this for less than $2,000. In closing, both laptops are going to be incredible choices when looking for a machine to edit 4k and 8k workflow. Personally, for me, I'm going to be going with Laptop A, AKA The Beast, because I can utilize the larger graphics card and increased memory to be able to speed up my workflow and actually minimize the turnaround times.