In reply to BoxheadTim :
Weak sauce is better than no sauce.
In reply to BoxheadTim :
Weak sauce is better than no sauce.
BoxheadTim said:In reply to Russian Warship, Go Berkeley Yourself :
My weak sauce answer - the newest model that fits in your budget as it likely has the longest lifespan left from both a hard- and software point of view.
Also, Resolve relies a lot on the graphics card for rendering, so a weaker processor (say, an i7 instead of an i9) has less impact than a weaker graphics card.
Some codecs will use every CPU core they can get their hands on when encoding. I'm curious to see some info about what is leveraged more on-the-fly when editing. Its been a while since I've messed with Resolve, but its definitely resource hungry (for obvious reasons).
Anyway, +1 to Lenovo. Your fingers get practice with that magic spot.
RE: Specific controller, I've heard some people use a 3D Connexion spacemouse for controlling resolve. I only mention this because I always have them around me, so it would be nice to not get something application specific.
If you're looking for new, I'd probably suggest an Asus ProArt PX13. Plenty of horsepower and excellent display.
In reply to scardeal :
$1449 is completely out of the ballpark.
TravisTheHuman said:BoxheadTim said:In reply to Russian Warship, Go Berkeley Yourself :
My weak sauce answer - the newest model that fits in your budget as it likely has the longest lifespan left from both a hard- and software point of view.
Also, Resolve relies a lot on the graphics card for rendering, so a weaker processor (say, an i7 instead of an i9) has less impact than a weaker graphics card.
Some codecs will use every CPU core they can get their hands on when encoding. I'm curious to see some info about what is leveraged more on-the-fly when editing. Its been a while since I've messed with Resolve, but its definitely resource hungry (for obvious reasons).
I think some of this depends on the codec, some of it depends on the version of Resolve. In newer version they enabled use of the graphics card for rendering even in the free version (it was paid-only before, and I think it's still a paid feature if you want to run more than one graphics card).
I pretty much only use H.264 as a render targe because Tubes of U, and both the machines i use have a fairly high number of cores. On my Mac Studio it'll definitely light up the GPU cores first and doesn't make use of all of the CPU cores (IIRC it has 10), and on my PC it'll use about 6-8 out of the 12 and also massively light up the GPU.
Another item that I forgot to mention is that whatever machine RWGBY gets, I would put a brand new, fast (NVMe) SSD in it, especially when dealing with 4k resolution videos. You really need a fast and reasonably large SSD, more for editing than final rendering, IME. And for external drives you really want Thunderbolt 3 or newer, and I don't know if that's an option on the P53 or P15.
I work for a large, 4 letter company headquartered in Texas that sells a lot of laptops. I'm going to intentionally stay out of the discussion, but if you do decide to purchase something from them, I can get a 17% employee discount off of the prices on the website.
In reply to dj06482 (Forum Supporter) :
I'll let you know.
In reply to BoxheadTim :
Doing my best to keep up here, but it's like a non-car guy listening to car guys talking about cam specs. Steeeeep curve here.
Do the non 4 letter companies have better docking options? I have a dual USB-C dock from them and god damn it's a piece of E36 M3. (And it's my 3rd or 4th)
I miss port replicators
*get off my lawn.gif*
In reply to Russian Warship, Go Berkeley Yourself :
Sorry. Let me see if I can explain this a little better.
In order to be able to watch videos on a computer (and your TV is a computer as well), the video has to follow a specific standard so the playback device knows what to do with what's otherwise just a bunch of data. H.264 is one of these standards and commonly used for YouTube videos.
The video data that Resolve processes is often in a different (standardized) format, plus you're editing it so you remove some video, shift some others around etc. In order to turn those edited pieces of video into a coherent file that you can watch, upload to YouTube etc, it uses a piece of software called a codec that basically turns the edited video into the desired format (like H.264). Modern graphics cards (that's the "GPU" part I mentioned above) often know how to do this encoding by themselves (in hardware), so a program like Resolve divides up the video data into multiple pieces that it feeds the GPU the data it wants to have converted and collects the results. That's usually more efficient than having your main processor (the CPU, that'll be the i7/i9 bit from Intel mentioned before) doing the same conversion, because the GPU specializes in processing graphics data. So if Resolve can use the GPU, it'll process video faster and more efficiently than if it only can use the CPU.
The comment/recommendation about the SSD (data storage, used to be known as a "hard drive") is that because video files tend to be rather large, and an editing tool like Resolve has to read the video file(s) you're editing from the SSD and display without stuttering, you need a pretty fast drive for that. SSDs also tend to age and then croak without warning, so if I care about the data on a laptop, I tend to replace the SSD on any used laptop I buy. The type of SSD that you find in the aforementioned Lenovo workstations is of a type called 'NVMe'.
Hope that helps a bit and doesn't add more confusion.
In reply to BoxheadTim :
It does help a lot. Thank you.
Anyone want to pick a favorite from the three eBay ThinkPads listed?
In reply to TravisTheHuman :
I can't speak to other brand's docks, but I have a WD19TB dock and it's been rock solid in the 5 years I've had it. But then again, I'm a little OCD about staying up-to-date with all my drivers and firmware. It's not cheap, but it's worked well. I've deliberately tried to stay out of the brand x vs. brand y conversations, but I think that keeping firmware up-to-date is critical to the end-user experience, regardless of brand. There may well be better (and cheaper) 3rd party dock options out there, I'm just using the one that was given to me 
So, due to indecision, I apparently dropped the ball here.
Ron, if you would be willing, I really could use another ThinkPad rec here, as the ones recommended sold while I dithered. 
Alternatively, what about this P17? The RAM seems quite a bit lower than the ones offered earlier.
I'm trying my best to cross shop for myself, but my head is spinning with variations.
Russian Warship, Go Berkeley Yourself said:Alternatively, what about this P17? The RAM seems quite a bit lower than the ones offered earlier.
I'm trying my best to cross shop for myself, but my head is spinning with variations.
another longtime Lenovo consumer here ... like most ThinkPads P17s are great, but note:
Here's a P53 that has the 4k screen, enough ram and enough graphics card for you. https://www.ebay.com/itm/196537886101
Brand new, open box P15 with 1080p screen. https://www.ebay.com/itm/305872527227?
P15 with 4k touch screen https://www.ebay.com/itm/316301841526?
In reply to eedavis :
Thank you. Yeah, I didn't realize the size of it, and thought P17 would be be newer than P15, but now it appears to be screen size related. Thanks again.
In reply to RacetruckRon :
My current Chromebook is the only computer I have had with a touch screen. I thought I would use it, but it just seems to get in the way most of the time. But maybe I would use it with Resolve? I dunno.
Between the three, which would you choose in my position? I like the idea of new, but I'm trying my best with the specs between the first two.
Okay, doing my best stab at a deepdive for me. (Someone please check my math here)
I feel like I am leaning toward the P53, due to the 4K and GPU with the bigger number, but should I be? I need to check to figure out whether it is actually better, or just "goes to 11"
I like the touchscreen P15 because it has the 1TB SSD, as well as the 4K, and the fact that it is a newer machine. But Dat USED SSD, doe.
Then the OB P15 is all new, especially the SSD. But no 4K, "only" a T1000, and "just" 512GB SSD.
If there is anything I missed, or things that should be weighted differently, please let me know. This is as close as I have been to having a handle on this, and I still feel pretty lost, like I am picking between different brands of vehicles because of their color.
Russian Warship, Go Berkeley Yourself said:
I feel like I am leaning toward the P53, due to the 4K and GPU with the bigger number, but should I be? I need to check to figure out whether it is actually better, or just "goes to 11"
I like the touchscreen P15 because it has the 1TB SSD, as well as the 4K, and the fact that it is a newer machine. But Dat USED SSD, doe.
Then the OB P15 is all new, especially the SSD. But no 4K, "only" a T1000, and "just" 512GB SSD
Okay, quick check tells me that the T1000 has 768 CUDA cores/shaders, while the T2000 has 1024 so it is "therefore significantly faster"
I mean, who wouldn't want a faster 'cuda??
In reply to Russian Warship, Go Berkeley Yourself :
Resolve pretty much does ALL OF THE THINGS, even on the free version. It will do things you didn't even think of. If you're not careful, it will do them when you didn't expect it.
Speed Editor is very helpful (once I got the hang of it). I got in on the "buy pro for $300 and get a free speed editor" deal when they first offered the Speed Editor.
I originally used free Resolve on a Dell tablet/laptop with Intel graphics. Took 8 hours to render a 1 hour video. Painful.
Then I got an MSI laptop (I think from Woot.com) and its graphics engine made all of the difference.
Most important features are:
1. Graphics engine
2. Memory
3. Graphic engine
4. Disk space.
5. Graphics engine.
6. SSD Disk.
7. I haven't forgotten to mention graphics engine have I?
Lenovos are solid. My secular employer (the binary incantations one) supplies me with one to work from home.
In reply to Humboldt God Botherer :
Thank you.
I ordered the P53. Fingers crossed! I guess at the very least, I can use it to print shipping labels on my Rollo printer. 
In reply to Russian Warship, Go Berkeley Yourself :
I'm not sure touch screen will be a ton of help with resolve. I got pretty handy mainly using the keyboard and a little bit of trackball before I got the Speed Editor. Nothing wrong with having a touch screen, but I don't see it being much of an advantage.
You're probably going to be doing simpler things than I was (hiding the background on someone's home video and placing it between two static images so they looked like they were somewhere they weren't, dealing with multiple cellphone video formats, mixing audio from multiple sources, read-along text for prayers and hymns). I'd imagine it'd be more editing clips together. But Im just guessing.
If it were me I'd lean toward the first two listings, deciding whether I preferred new or 4K video.
FWIW I have gotten by with just the MSI laptop for editing, but I also have a large monitor I can use at home and it helps (dual screen mode ftw).
For anyone still following along, the touchscreen P15 seller just sent me an offer of $500 to buy it. (Go figure) I probably would have jumped at that price, but just wanted to finally get my hands on a computer so I could start screwing up videos by editing them ASAP, and didn't want to wait out offers from sellers. I would imagine if you sent an offer of $500 to the seller, they would likely take it.
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