dandev wrote:
I'm back to searching for a Laptop PC (not Mac) for photo use. I ordered a MSI Creator series from XOTIC PC - and the mousepad was dead on arrival. The fan was also very loud. It is being returned.
Any recommendations? I'm running Capture One and Affinity Photo with large (40M) files, and my existing (old) Lenovo Think Pad gets bogged down.
I've looked at the Dell XPS 15, but concerned that the graphics card is not powerful enough.
Thanks...
Which one did you get? How is it configured?
I've been recommending XoticPC for about 10 years - and other than the occasional hiccup they have been a solid company to deal with. However, I rarely suggest the MSI brand. ASUS, Sager or their house brand seem to be a better value and what I normally recommend. Your's is the first of over 30 laptops that I have heard of from my circle that was not operating correctly on delivery. At least XoticPC stands behind their products and is working with you to resolve this.
I don't like to spend $$ so I got their "house brand" laptop almost a year ago -
https://xoticpc.com/collections/advanced-series-gaming-laptops/products/xotic-g58dd-nh58ddw - with 32 gb ram, (2) 2 TB XoticPC NVMe, PCIe, m.2 drives, Grizzly thermal cooling upgrade and GPU overclocking for a little over $2000. The comparable MSI did not support dual external displays and it was $500 more expensive at the base configuration.
Since the cpu uses a dynamic throttle for clock speed, there are times that the fan can be loud, like on startup, but most of the time it is undetectable. These computers can get a little hot, but it is within design specs. I am going to go out on a limb and say that you may have gotten a lemon.
Unless you are doing video editing and playback, 3D design and/or need to drive multiple 4K displays, the graphics on the XPS 15 is more than adequate. Remember, Capture One barely uses graphics processing, and as long as you have enough vram to run your displays, there is little benefit to getting more graphics processing power. The graphics card on my desktop has 1 gb vram and drives two HD displays (1920x1200) with no issues at all. I am not familiar with Affinity so I can't be helpful there.
I routinely edit D800 and D810 files and often they are stitched panoramas as big as 200 mp, and my laptop has no issues. But neither did my 12 yr old desktop.