You get excited when you see specs on paper and you bring home a laptop. You see decent frame rates when you play games, but your render times in Premiere Pro or DaVinci aren’t as fast as you’d think.
It all comes down to the way your laptop is configured. It’s just the way they interact with each other. Gaming computers are optimized for gaming, but you can easily do video editing tasks on gaming laptops.
But you can fix the render time with the help of Nvidia Creator drivers.
A laptop that is specifically designed for gaming will not necessarily be good enough for video editing. The hardware needed to edit videos comfortably are different from those required for fast frame rates in games.
If you need a laptop that can both game and edit videos, here are some tips on what to look out for:
Gaming Laptop Requirements For Video Editing, Graphic Design?
To know the exact requirements for video editing visit the software official site or search software name + requirements on Google and you can see the minimum and maximum requirements to run the software.
Key specifications to consider:
| Basic | Good | Best | |
| RAM | 8GB | 12GB | 16GB |
| CPU | >Intel i5 above 10gen >Ryzen 5 above 4000 series | >Intel i7 above 10gen >Ryzen 7 above 4000 series | >Intel i9 above 10gen >Ryzen 9 above 4000 series |
| GPU | Nvidia GTX 1050 | Nvidia RTX 2060 | Nvidia RTX 3050 or above |
| Screen Resolution | 1366×768 | 1920×1080 | 3840×2160 |
A Good GPU
A laptop that is intended as a video editing machine needs to have enough power for the GPU, which is the computer’s graphics processing unit. In this case, it should be at least a mid-level NVIDIA GTX 1650 or 1650 Ti card.
However, if you want to edit 4K videos and create 3D animations, you will require a workstation-level graphics card such as RTX 3050 Ti or above.
Good CPU Is Very Very Important
Nowadays editing software uses both CPU and GPU power to render the video. But CPUs play an important role in video editing.
It is recommended to buy a CPU with Ryzen 7 above 4000 series and Intel i7 above 10gen for best performance. This way you can edit 1080p as well as 4k videos without any lag while staying within budget.
If you have a high budget then you can buy any top-end processor. I’ve already shared the min processor requirements with you above.
If you add a Good GPU then It’ll be “cherry on top”. You can do gaming at high FPS as well as 4k editing with seamless performance.
The Screen
Aside from the GPU, the laptop should have a high-resolution screen with an aspect ratio of 16:9 or 21:9 ideal for editing videos in full HD 1080p and 4K resolution. The display should also be calibrated properly to ensure that what you see on the screen is accurate to how your final videos will look like.
RAM (Random Access Memory)
RAM is important because this is where your CPU goes to get the data it uses for your video editing. The faster the data exchange happens, the faster you can edit. You need 8 GB plus RAM to make the editing experience smooth.
Apart from this, there are three types of RAM – SDRAM, DDR, and DRAM.
SDRAM is the oldest technology, better you avoid SDRAM as it will slow you down and DRAM is obviously the fastest. So you can buy Ram with DDR4 or DDR5 which is pocket friendly.
Ports
Laptops for video editing vary significantly in the number and type of ports for external devices such as monitors or hard drives. It’s very important to think ahead about what items you’ll need or may need down the road, because if there’s no port for them, you’re out of luck.
Audio
If your content includes music or significant ambient sound, it’s obviously important to hear exactly what you’ve got. The speakers in some laptops are dramatically better than in others. You don’t need specifications to evaluate them; Your ears will work fine. Many editors prefer to listen with headphones, which are almost always better than laptop speakers.
Storage
Video files take up a lot of space; 500GB is probably the minimum, and 1TB is an even safer bet. Always choose SSD storage for your laptop as the read and write speed is super fast as compared to HDD drives.
But SSDs can be very expensive and HDDs are much cheaper than SSDs. Still, I consider buying a laptop with an SSD as its read and write speed is in GBs. Though a hybrid solution can give you the best of both worlds: a faster onboard SSD to handle working files and a bigger external HDD for storage.
Luckily, you don’t need to rely solely on the available storage inside your laptop. External hard drives can help maximize storage capacity while keeping costs down.
As for the hard drive itself, you can choose between standard hard drives (HDD) and solid-state drives (SSD), which are faster and have no moving parts.
You also need to think about the interface between the external hard drive and your laptop. There are several options, ranging from as low as 6 Gbps (USB 3.1) to as high as 40 Gbps. (Thunderbolt™ technology). The more files you are going to pull from your hard drive, the more important this number becomes.
At the End:
If you buy a gaming laptop keeping all the above points in mind then you can easily do video editing on your gaming laptop. If you have any doubts make sure to comment below.
