Sub $1000 Laptop for School/GPU Accelerated tasks

[Nolanl83]

Need a laptop recommendation. <$1000 USD, Primarily schoolwork, mySQL, Capcut/Davinci and customer support type tasks. Thinking I look for a 78XX series AMD w/ the 780 mobile but they seem to be hard to find, wanting greater battery life. Available at BestBuy, going for open box and running with a 2 year total tech warranty preferably. Probably better to look on the intel side of things? found this for $930 Open Box excellent, https://www.bestbuy.com/site/asus-rog-zephyrus-g14-14-165hz-gaming-laptop-qhd-amd-ryzen-9-with-8gb-memory-nvidia-geforce-rtx-4060-512gb-ssd-moonlight-white/6535495.p?skuId=6535495 BUT. Hard to justify having this because with a DGPU disabled im STILL assuming its gonna have meh battery life.

 

Coming from a 6100U with 16gb of DDR3, So really anything is an upgrade. I just want good value and a good fresh perspective

[WereCat]

Well the battery life should still be solid enough for web browsing or watching videos but it really comes down to what you do and how much. Also it has an HS processor which is made for performance so it will draw considerably more power under load to maintain higher clock speeds rather than the U processors which are made for low power/longer runtime workloads.

[Nolanl83]

2 minutes ago, WereCat said:

Well the battery life should still be solid enough for web browsing or watching videos but it really comes down to what you do and how much. Also it has an HS processor which is made for performance so it will draw considerably more power under load to maintain higher clock speeds rather than the U processors which are made for low power/longer runtime workloads.

Yep; Which is my main concern, the power is fantastic and SURELY will last me forever, going on 8 years with this HP 440G3. But, Do I need it.  Nope. I just like the added idea of having 2 years worth of total tech warranty alongside whatever manufacturers are offering so I can save a buck in the moment.

[WereCat]

Just now, Nolanl83 said:

Yep; Which is my main concern, the power is fantastic and SURELY will last me forever, going on 8 years with this HP 440G3. But, Do I need it.  Nope. I just like the added idea of having 2 years worth of total tech warranty alongside whatever manufacturers are offering so I can save a buck in the moment.

IMO, unless you absolutely need the GPU power I would look at laptops with AMD 7x4xU series CPUs or the new Intel Meteor Lake Core Ultra 5 or 7 with Arc graphics.

They all can do video editing well as they have built in HW encoders (Intel ones is better for older stuff like h.264) and they all have comparable iGPU performance with Intel possibly being a bit faster this time around.

[Nolanl83]

2 minutes ago, WereCat said:

IMO, unless you absolutely need the GPU power I would look at laptops with AMD 7x4xU series CPUs or the new Intel Meteor Lake Core Ultra 5 or 7 with Arc graphics.

They all can do video editing well as they have built in HW encoders (Intel ones is better for older stuff like h.264) and they all have comparable iGPU performance with Intel possibly being a bit faster this time around.

I heard the new Core ultra series were fantastic! Seemingly a bit out of my price range on the side of the Core ultra 7, but in terms of the AMD SKUs I can really only find the 7840Hs, and 7840u available at bestbuy, Im wanting to avoid the 7000 series refreshes and although a mac would probably work great, I am not in the ecosystem at all so Id like to stay out of it. 

[WereCat]

4 minutes ago, Nolanl83 said:

I heard the new Core ultra series were fantastic! Seemingly a bit out of my price range on the side of the Core ultra 7, but in terms of the AMD SKUs I can really only find the 7840Hs, and 7840u available at bestbuy, Im wanting to avoid the 7000 series refreshes and although a mac would probably work great, I am not in the ecosystem at all so Id like to stay out of it. 

Yeah, I struggled to find the U series chips as well. I just got the Yoga 6 Slim this Friday with 7540U but I installed Linux on the machine. I wonder if Ryzen Master allows to control max power to the CPU on Windows.

I mean even the HS will be fine but they will use more power at full load since they will boost higher (and also accomplish tasks faster) but for normal daily tasks it shouldn't make much difference.

And with Mac you will end up paying another laptop worth of price just for RAM and storage

[Nolanl83]

4 minutes ago, WereCat said:

Yeah, I struggled to find the U series chips as well. I just got the Yoga 6 Slim this Friday with 7540U but I installed Linux on the machine. I wonder if Ryzen Master allows to control max power to the CPU on Windows.

I mean even the HS will be fine but they will use more power at full load since they will boost higher (and also accomplish tasks faster) but for normal daily tasks it shouldn't make much difference.

And with Mac you will end up paying another laptop worth of price just for RAM and storage

Yep exactly, honestly I am someone who normally over buys. I really only have a year and a half left of college, but with my career path right now it's likely that I won't go into corporate and be issued a corporate laptop or anything like that. So I'm just trying to find a good middle ground at the moment where if I get rid of it in a few years I won't lose all my money, and I won't overbuy for something that is way beyond my needs. Last year when I was looking I was really taking a peek at the 1240p. So maybe I just need it 7540U and call it a day lol. Save myself a lot of money