Dream streaming laptop, ideally using Tux, your suggestions please

[captainchaos]

Budget of 2 to 3 thousand Euros, hoping to pick up a bargain next Black Friday, I need a decent laptop for streaming a show with lots going on - guests and callers via Zoom, multiple a/v inputs - and wonder if anyone might make any suggestions.

I may use Windows but would prefer to use Linux.

1. Intel Core 9 or AMD Razor 7? (I am not really an Apple kind of a guy.)
2. Presumably I need a separate video card?

Maybe I am over-wondering... you can get a lot of kit for 2 grand, and for much less. But are there any potential pitfalls, or advantages, I should consider... or if you've been blown away by any particular make, I'd be glad to know.

Thank you.

 

[stephematician]

As long as you have a solid GPU you should be OK. OBS uses OpenGL for blending, and GPU hardware encoding and decoding. Being able to offload that to a good GPU is really important.

Now, on Linux, the NVIDIA drivers are, frankly, not good enough. There are long-standing issues (bugs) involving freezing displays, and more recently, with freezing windowed applications (on X11) - let alone the issues with Wayland compositors. If I were to looking at a Framework 16, for example, I absolutely would take the AMD RX 7700S over the NVIDIA RTX 5070 - even though there's probably a 20% difference in benchmark performance (in NVIDIAs favour) at the same price.

Basically, I would not buy an NVIDIA laptop if I intended to run Linux. Just too risky.

I don't really mind either way between an Intel or an AMD CPU. I've always leaned towards AMD. Lately Intel has copped some flak for some instability with its very high end CPUs, but at the mid range I think both are great options.

I'm holding back a little bit to see what kinds of Ryzen AI Max systems we get - or if APUs finally offer something strong enough on the graphics side. The AI Max's look more promising in that regard. But I'm not sure I'll like the price - and I don't like the "AI" marketing gimmick.

 

[captainchaos]

As long as you have a solid GPU you should be OK. OBS uses OpenGL for blending, and GPU hardware encoding and decoding. Being able to offload that to a good GPU is really important.

Now, on Linux, the NVIDIA drivers are, frankly, not good enough. There are long-standing issues (bugs) involving freezing displays, and more recently, with freezing windowed applications (on X11) - let alone the issues with Wayland compositors. If I were to looking at a Framework 16, for example, I absolutely would take the AMD RX 7700S over the NVIDIA RTX 5070 - even though there's probably a 20% difference in benchmark performance (in NVIDIAs favour) at the same price.

Basically, I would not buy an NVIDIA laptop if I intended to run Linux. Just too risky.

I don't really mind either way between an Intel or an AMD CPU. I've always leaned towards AMD. Lately Intel has copped some flak for some instability with its very high end CPUs, but at the mid range I think both are great options.

I'm holding back a little bit to see what kinds of Ryzen AI Max systems we get - or if APUs finally offer something strong enough on the graphics side. The AI Max's look more promising in that regard. But I'm not sure I'll like the price - and I don't like the "AI" marketing gimmick.

What a splendid answer, thank you Stephen.

Now I will attempt to summon the intelligence to consider that answer, and doubtless to come back with some questions!!

Thank you.

 

[bcoyle]

It's hard figuring out specs sometimes. I brought a refurbished laptop for 290$ and got a bargain. A dell "mobile workstation" that ran at 3.7g, a 256g cdrive, raid, and 32g memory, and nvidea gpu. I also have a cooling plate under it to help with 24/7 operation. The funny thing, it had a europium keyboard with the @ key in a different place. I lucked out

oh, i'm running 3 obs instances on it, 2 at 720 and 1 at 1080p