Am i understanding computing wrong?

[sour-ding]

Hey everyone, I'm on the hunt for a new laptop and to be honest, I'm a bit lost with all the tech stuff out there.
 

So here's my deal: I usually have a bunch of tabs open, like seriously a LOT, I do a fair amount of coding, use my webcam for meetings, and occasionally dabble with video editing. We're talking 1080p videos here, nothing insane. Sometimes i use premier or aftereffects to edit some animations together or something.
 

I'm thinking I need a pretty solid CPU and a ton of RAM, but I'm not sure what's the best way to go. I mean, should I be gunning for something with a decent CPU like an i9 or i7 12th or 13th gen (or whatever the AMD equivalent is) and 8 or 16 gigs of RAM that I upgrade to 32 or 64 with some ram sticks from amazon (if that is cheaper to do. I have no problem with that)? Or is it better to just go all in for something that's already all juiced up so I don't have to mess around with upgrades? Has anyone done the maths? Is upgrading cheaper? I am trying to figure this out.

Also, I don't think I need to worry about video cards. Intel iris or whatever AMD uses should be good enough, right? At least in the past for my workflow I didn't need to use anything more than that. I don't game at all. Right now i have an old Yoga c940, that i got like 5 years ago or something. The goal is to replace it with something modern.
 

Oh and, on top of all that, I'm a student studying in the EU, which makes this whole process feel harder because of the deals here. Feels like everything's priced through the roof.

Fit enough info in here to get me some help? I am looking to get something for about 1k euro. max (not including upgrading ram if that is the better route to take)

Edited November 2, 2023 by sour-ding
added info

[YoungBlade]

Generally, doing a RAM upgrade yourself is cheaper, but that's not always the case. You'll need to just factor the cost in when comparing laptops.

 

But when it comes to RAM upgrades, the most important thing is to do your research about the specific laptop you're looking to buy. Plenty of laptops today still have RAM slots, but some solder the RAM directly to the motherboard, making a RAM upgrade at best much more difficult and at worst, utterly impossible.

 

Good reviewers will mention whether or not a RAM upgrade is possible, so third party reviews are often a good place to start with newer laptops. For laptops that have been on the market for 6 months or so, you can usually find online posts about people talking about upgrade options for a specific model.

[sour-ding]

3 minutes ago, YoungBlade said:

Generally, doing a RAM upgrade yourself is cheaper, but that's not always the case. You'll need to just factor the cost in when comparing laptops.

 

But when it comes to RAM upgrades, the most important thing is to do your research about the specific laptop you're looking to buy. Plenty of laptops today still have RAM slots, but some solder the RAM directly to the motherboard, making a RAM upgrade at best much more difficult and at worst, utterly impossible.

 

Good reviewers will mention whether or not a RAM upgrade is possible, so third party reviews are often a good place to start with newer laptops. For laptops that have been on the market for 6 months or so, you can usually find online posts about people talking about upgrade options for a specific model.

Okay, I will keep that in mind. make sure to check the manual or see if reviewers mention how easy it is to upgrade ram! Thanks!
 

[Tetras]

13 minutes ago, sour-ding said:

So here's my deal: I usually have a bunch of tabs open, like seriously a LOT, I do a fair amount of coding, use my webcam for meetings, and occasionally dabble with video editing. We're talking 1080p videos here, nothing insane. Sometimes i use premier or aftereffects to edit some animations together or something.
 

I'm thinking I need a pretty solid CPU and a ton of RAM, but I'm not sure what's the best way to go. I mean, should I be gunning for something with a decent CPU like an i9 or i7 12th or 13th gen (or whatever the AMD equivalent is)

Everything you described is usually not that demanding, e.g. a recent i5 would be plenty sufficient.

 

The part that's less easy to define is video editing, because everyone has different requirements and it depends how much you're doing, how often and what apps you're using. If this is a hobby, it's unlikely to be worth paying out for an i9, but it really comes down to two things: 1. how much time do you spend waiting around for your editing work to complete and 2. what value do you put on that time? If the answer is: "not much" and "not much", then I'd just get an i5.

 

21 minutes ago, sour-ding said:

Also, I don't think I need to worry about video cards. Intel iris or whatever AMD uses should be good enough, right? At least in the past for my workflow I didn't need to use anything more than that. I don't game at all. Right now i have an old Yoga c940, that i got like 5 years ago or something. The goal is to replace it with something modern.

They should be, but I'd be aware that GPUs are being used more and more for workstation apps (especially with 3D work), so depending on what you're doing, you might need the power and ram elsewhere. The Intel IGPs also have pretty powerful encoding/decoding capabilities, which I don't know if AMD's 7000 CPUs share.

 

14 minutes ago, sour-ding said:

and 8 or 16 gigs of RAM that I upgrade to 32 or 64 with some ram sticks from amazon (if that is cheaper to do. I have no problem with that)? Or is it better to just go all in for something that's already all juiced up so I don't have to mess around with upgrades?

It really depends on the brand and the PC/laptop, but generally speaking: getting a larger SSD or more RAM is very poor value compared to doing it yourself, part of the reason why is because of the way they segment their products. This is mainly applicable to large OEMs, since small custom builders are less likely to charge so much as they don't have the same incentive to upsell.

[Supersonicwolfe]

29 minutes ago, sour-ding said:

I'm thinking I need a pretty solid CPU and a ton of RAM, but I'm not sure what's the best way to go. I mean, should I be gunning for something with a decent CPU like an i9 or i7 12th or 13th gen (or whatever the AMD equivalent is) and 8 or 16 gigs of RAM that I upgrade to 32 or 64 with some ram sticks from amazon (if that is cheaper to do.

Careful about this one, these days there are lot of laptop have soldered RAM, some even have weird configuration like have 4GB on board, yet still gives you 2 slots.

You need to check reviews (one of the reason LTT still take them apart even in Short Circuit)

 

In EU 1000 Euro can get you very good laptop

E.g. on Amazon (Sweden):

ASUS TUF F15, FX507ZC4-HN083W, Gaming Laptop, 15.6'' FHD 144HZ (Intel i5-12500H, Nvidia RTX 3050, 16GB DDR4, 512GB SSD, Keyboard - Swedish) : Amazon.se: Electronics

^You probably don't even need to upgrade this. 16GB DDR5-4800 SO-DIMM, Max Capacity:32GB, Support dual channel memory and 2 M.2 Slots

 

Something cheaper...

Lenovo Laptop IdeaPad Gaming 3 15ARH05 | 15.6" FHD | AMD Ryzen 5 | 8GB RAM | 256GB SSD | Windows 10 Home | Swedish Keyboard : Amazon.se: Electronics

[sour-ding]

1 hour ago, Tetras said:

Everything you described is usually not that demanding, e.g. a recent i5 would be plenty sufficient.

 

The part that's less easy to define is video editing, because everyone has different requirements and it depends how much you're doing, how often and what apps you're using. If this is a hobby, it's unlikely to be worth paying out for an i9, but it really comes down to two things: 1. how much time do you spend waiting around for your editing work to complete and 2. what value do you put on that time? If the answer is: "not much" and "not much", then I'd just get an i5.

 

They should be, but I'd be aware that GPUs are being used more and more for workstation apps (especially with 3D work), so depending on what you're doing, you might need the power and ram elsewhere. The Intel IGPs also have pretty powerful encoding/decoding capabilities, which I don't know if AMD's 7000 CPUs share.

 

It really depends on the brand and the PC/laptop, but generally speaking: getting a larger SSD or more RAM is very poor value compared to doing it yourself, part of the reason why is because of the way they segment their products. This is mainly applicable to large OEMs, since small custom builders are less likely to charge so much as they don't have the same incentive to upsell.

Thanks for taking the time to respond and giving me all the info! I will carefully look over the ram and make sure it's upgrade-able in the first place!

I will go with intel probably then and as far as editing. i will character animator, premier / aftereffects or davinci(very rarely) and sometimes capcut. nothing too crazy.

[sour-ding]

1 hour ago, Supersonicwolfe said:

Careful about this one, these days there are lot of laptop have soldered RAM, some even have weird configuration like have 4GB on board, yet still gives you 2 slots.

You need to check reviews (one of the reason LTT still take them apart even in Short Circuit)

 

In EU 1000 Euro can get you very good laptop

E.g. on Amazon (Sweden):

ASUS TUF F15, FX507ZC4-HN083W, Gaming Laptop, 15.6'' FHD 144HZ (Intel i5-12500H, Nvidia RTX 3050, 16GB DDR4, 512GB SSD, Keyboard - Swedish) : Amazon.se: Electronics

^You probably don't even need to upgrade this. 16GB DDR5-4800 SO-DIMM, Max Capacity:32GB, Support dual channel memory and 2 M.2 Slots

 

Something cheaper...

Lenovo Laptop IdeaPad Gaming 3 15ARH05 | 15.6" FHD | AMD Ryzen 5 | 8GB RAM | 256GB SSD | Windows 10 Home | Swedish Keyboard : Amazon.se: Electronics

I heard about the tuff that it limits power or tde or something for the video card. but it still seems like a great option. and the idea pad actually looks nice too. interesting. Thanks! I will keep doing some research

[Supersonicwolfe]

12 minutes ago, sour-ding said:

I heard about the tuff that it limits power or tde or something for the video card. but it still seems like a great option. and the idea pad actually looks nice too. interesting. Thanks! I will keep doing some research

Well it's still a quite nice 3050 compare to the 1650.

But yeah local store here have better deals than on Amazon.se... weird they don' have many option here...

[sour-ding]

6 hours ago, Supersonicwolfe said:

Well it's still a quite nice 3050 compare to the 1650.

But yeah local store here have better deals than on Amazon.se... weird they don' have many option here...

still good to know! Thanks