Laptop suggestions

[Telecaster]

Hi,

Asking for a friend who has pretty specific requirements for a new laptop:

"I'm thinking of changing my existing laptop (Lenovo, 2Gb RAM, AMD processor, 500GB HD) for something a little faster...

My problem is that I use it mainly for music production and live music (Ableton Live) - if I'm running 10+ tracks with a variety of plug-ins and VSTs it can be slow and occasionally freezes for a few moments. This is obviously more of a problem if it's a live gig!

So what I'm wondering is, do I go for max processor speed? Or max RAM? Or max cache? Does TurboBoost actually work?
I don't play games so no need to worry about graphics, probably won't be watching movies so no need for ultra HD screens, but it will also be used for general net surfing and some Excel/Word use so a decent keyboard is a must.
And would touchscreen be an advantage?
Any thoughts gratefully received, even if it's "buy a MacBook", but only with an explanation of why I can't get better performance on a Windows-based platform for the money.

Which reminds me, I don't want to pay extra for fancy casework, just max bang-for-the-buck!
Cheers!"

I'll ask him RE: budget.

 

[OhEsEcks]

VSTs will chew through CPU. But lots of RAM and a high CPU would be the best combination. You can get rebranded Clevos were you can spec everything from the screen to the cpu, gpu, hdd, ssd, odd, et cetera. So it's probably best to look for those and he can choose to spend his budget where he needs it instead of buying something with a fixed configuration that doesn't meet requirements.

I have a Clevo W55SU1 and I spec'd it with a quad core / 8 thread CPU as I do a lot of code compiling and it reduces compiling times. It's only got onboard graphics, but I didn't need dedicated ones. So saving on a dedicated GPU that might have been fixed on a more expensive laptop, I was able to get this (just checked my receipt) for £620 delivered. Mine only came with 4GB of RAM though, so I made a saving there as I was able to pull 16GB of RAM I had in another machine out and throw it in this.