I was running laptop-only for a number of years. These laptops were plenty fast, and not much worse than desktops for image processing.
But with the last couple of CPU generations, things changed. My 2017 XPS13 could not sustain high clock rates for more than a few seconds. Longer than that, its 15W power envelope would clock down to 2 GHz for longer, multi-threaded workloads (i.e. Darktable).
So in 2018 I opted for one of the bigger NUCs, with a 45W CPU that can actually run at its full 4 GHz reliably. Despite very little technological difference between these two processor generations, 2 cores at 2 GHz vs 4 cores at 4 GHz makes a massive difference.
So whatever you do, stay away from the ultra-low-power 15W CPUs. They look good in benchmarks that only run for a second or two, but they are turds for image processing.
I am facing a similar question for a while now. Especially, I do not want to move data around all the time (yes, I do use git-annex, but still …). At the moment I do own solely a lenovo x240 from 2013, but without gpu and only 8 GB ram darktable is not really fun. And accepting only a 9.5 mm hard disk limits to 2 TB space, which is not enough for photo and video stuff. Therefore I have to carry an external disk all the time, which is cumbersome. I am willing to upgrade but I do not see offers no matter the price tag unless it gets really expensive.
HDD: Since 10 years development of 2.5 in spinning disks is stuck. At the same time, even in large laptops I can not fit 9.5 mm disks anymore, not to think about 15 mm which could give me the 4…5 TB I require. SSD may be an option, but 5 TB would be extremely expensive.
Memory: 32 GB are available, so I do not complain here. However, the offers are rather limited.
Tactile touchpad: This is a must, but only lenovo seems to use it. At least dell is kicked out here.
GPU: I would prefer AMD since they offer a free driver, but there seem little options in the laptop market.
CPU: Here, AMD seems to have the better offers these days, but little offers for laptops so far.
Does that mean I should go with a desktop computer? Clueless since 3 years or so.
I am on a laptop (mac), but for accurate colour, need to upgrade to desktop for a better monitor. Some calibration tests showed I could not get optimal accuracy with this monitor:
That may not be a requirement for you, and hasn’t been for me for so many years, but my standards are lifting.
Edit: I see you have a 27" screen plugged into your laptop. So really you only need a desktop if the operations you are trying to run on laptop are too slow, or you are running out of storage space.
Right now I don’t have a real speed problem (Lenovo Flex 14, i5-8thGen, 8Mb) That runs fine and I will keep using it for the next few month.
I am thinking of those AMD Renoir CPUs (4000 something) which start to come to the market now. But I have time and I am not in a hurry.
The heat aspect is new to me. I need to look into that.
HDD space is not important, I usually buy SSD with 256Gb. Big enough to run plenty of programs - as long as you don’t store videos. In fact, I use darktable on a portable USB 1T HDD that I can hop from PC to PC and it works just fine in terms of speed.
@chris
I am not a friend of the trackpad when it comes to darktable. darktable without mouse wheel is not very convenient (specially the tone equalizer). External mouse would be a must, but that’s a very minor $10 issue.
Last year I was rendering the 45 minutes movie I produced over night with kdenlive, one day before deadline. It had taken 4 hours. I had a little mistake in the closing credits, and thought I would easily render it the next night again. In the morning I did find out that I was at about 60 %. The laptop was hot as hell and I just learned that the fan did stop working in the night, limiting all cores to < 800 MHz. I think it was because of dust. Unfortunately it is not too easy to clean the thermal system of a modern laptop, but it really should be done from time to time.
This is what I as well thought earlier. Of course, for editing I am using a dedicated mouse as well, but for culling/sorting and little edits, the tactile trackpad works extremely well. Before I tried it, I had only non-tactile trackpads and therefore always insisted on the little red joystick in the middle of the b, g and h key, but with the trackpad of the x240 I would easily go without this joystick and rely solely on the trackpad (and external mouse, of course). My work laptop is a 2020 dell model, fully equipped with everything (i7, 6 cores, 32 GB, etc.), but the lack of a decent trackpad makes me not considering dell for my private computer. And I would take the first opportunity to get a work thinkpad.
You may find a desktop is easier to keep dust-bunny free.
Bigger thermal solution(s) can be installed.
Internal GPU can be installed.
Internal HDDs or SDDs can be installed, RAID’ed together.
I have a 15-watt i5 ice-lake CPU, and I find it plenty fast. My needs may be different than yours, but RT takes around five seconds to process one of my (16 MP) raw files, even with noise reduction, sharpening, etc.
The only thing that is bothersome is the fans starting up and down all the time. After a few months of use, I know when the fans will turn on one second before they do, which is distracting.
Since I pointed out the question of thermals, does anyone on the forum know of any resources that evaluate this in laptops? How efficiently laptops dissipate heat (passively / actively and where) over a couple years of real life use, and how easy it is to clean the essential parts. I guess the latter would be how easy it is to disassemble them (e.g., iFixit). That would definitely inform my next purchase when my more than decade old laptop finally croaks).
I’m definitely old school…our house had 2 kids growing up in the computer age and needing portability, so we went through a number of laptops. Crappy battery life spans, hard to upgrade, fans quitting etc. all proved to be way more expensive than the desktops I’ve stuck with. Easily clear out dust, easily add new cards, memory etc. when needed. Plus massive drive that’s easily and quickly backed up to a portable drive - no cloud based stuff for me.
I always do my editing plus all the household computing stuff from a dedicated spot so portability was a limited need for me. I had an ipad from about 2012 that just died and I replaced it with one of the newer cheaper models just for reading, browsing etc.
All in all keeping a desktop worked well for me and saved me time and hassles. However, it always comes down to personal preferences - and lots of pros use only laptops for their work.
I use a desktop so I can have lots of storage and multiple 4k monitors.
You can get a lot more oomph per dollar for a desktop, and it’s upgradeable if you want—I upgraded my graphics card, then added a bunch of hard disks, then upgraded motherboard and CPU, over the course of several years.
Laptops are poor ergonomically; you want your keyboard low and your screen high.
If you aim for high specs, you should have enough budget to get a desktop plus a tablet for leisure activities at the same price as a similarly performing laptop …
Anyway if you are on the budget side desktop is the way to go
No doubt one for each corner of your wraparound desk. (Edit: Oh, I just saw your comment.) I had a grade school friend whose basement was like an office. He and his 2 brothers would be gaming with their friends after homework.
(Edit: Oh, I just saw your comment.) I had a grade school friend whose basement was like an office. He and his 2 brothers would be gaming with their friends after homework.
