The touchscreen narrows the choice a lot. I you’d drop that and replace it with an external touchscreen (I do that myself), then a lot of people here uses laptops that you might consider.
I do like Lenovo laptops. The physical build is not too bad, latency is no problem (if you follow the instructions in the performance optimization guide, especially about power profiles) and for me more than enough cpu and memory. I use a legion 5 17”. Intel i7-10750H, 16 GB (guitar player, no need for more). It’s too big for your specs, but they also offer legion 15” laptops.
My other computer is the intel nuc I mentioned before, but then you need main power an external screen, keyboard and mouse, so that deviates from all you requirements, except for memory and cpu (I7-1360P)
I have checked Lenovo Yoga 14IMH9 which I can purchase, it is very powerful and has the same CPU (Ultra 9 185H) as the Asus.
Its LatencyMon shows a latency higher than the Asus (1636 vs 435).
The Lenovo model price is also higher, about $670 more (with similar specs).
I must say that 435 us shouldn’t bite you. I was focusing on the > 3000 us from the dxgkrnl.sys, but maybe that latency is apparently not too important. There’s still room for learning for me :
From the notebookcheck site:
“ In our standardized latency test (surfing the web, 4K YouTube playback, CPU load), the Zenbook 14 with the current BIOS version showed limitations with one driver, but the important value “interrupt to process latency” was very low.” (emphasis mine)
So I think I was too hasty and the asus is a good choice.
Edit: my lenovo legion 5 17IMH05H is rated at 1688 us. I’m doing fine 64 samples at 48 Khz.
Take a look at XMG’s Apex + Core series. These can be spec’d up to be quite powerful, but the unique selling point is that XMG actually optimizes these two series for real time performance, so one can expect well optimized drivers and low DPC.
Edit: Thanks to @schamass for adding important information:
Only the most recent models (late 2023, identified as “L23”) are officially optimized for real time performance!
Most other notebooks seem to have good real time performance by “accident” only. I’ve read quite a few times about successor series or driver updates fu**in it up again, so I’m quite excited to have a manufacturer who’s officially optimizing the machines for that.
Those XMG Apex laptops looks very powerful.
The limitation from my needs is that it looks like they don’t have 13" or 14" screen size and also didn’t see a touch screen support.
I’ll update that I’ve purchased Asus Zenbook, Intel Core Ultra 9 185H, 32GB RAM, 1T SDD, Touch screen.
Already setup the development environment, which is fantastic. Works like a beast.
Will setup the gig environment later.
Congratulations on your new laptop! I didn’t read through the entire thread, but in case nobody else has mentioned it, you really should get a good chill pad in play to both keep your laptop from throttling down as well as extend the life. It appears that all of the ZenBook models are thin form factors, so keeping it cool from an external source will be even more critical.
@Dadi wow, the specs sound awesome. However keep in mind this says nothing about real time performance. Even more critical because the notebooks seems to be brand new and likely hitting markets without thoroughly optimized bios and drivers.
When looking for audio processing computers I first and foremost base the selection of possible choices on positive DPC reports. IMO better to go with a 2 years old product which is known for working well instead of a new power horse with unknown quirks.
Notebookcheck tests are great cause they include such a test run. Most notebooks suck at DPC so the options left will be quite few already.
Anyhow, it seems that the notebook is available via many EU dealers, so I guess it was just introduced to markets in recent days. You can find it at Cyberport Geizhals and many others.
Thank you, and your comments are good.
I successfully installed my gig setup and played the whole setlist without any issues so I’m relaxed about this one
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