Best laptop specifications for graphic design

laptop-specs-graphic-design

Choosing which laptop for graphic design can be a real challenge, as there are many technical features to check, as well as knowing everything that really matters to optimize the configuration of the laptop to the software that is usually used for design. Therefore, here we want to make it easier for you with this guide.

CPU

The CPU, or processor, is a vital component. It is in charge of executing the software that you are going to use for graphic design, so the performance that you are going to obtain will depend to a great extent on this component. Therefore, in addition to meeting the recommended requirements of the editing software to use, you should also choose the correct model.

  • Intel: If you go for laptop models for graphic design with an Intel chip, you should choose an i5 or higher. Less than that would not be recommended.
  • AMD: something similar happens in the case of AMD, which should opt for a Ryzen 5 or higher.
  • Apple: If you are going to choose a Mac platform, I would personally recommend an M1 Max or an M2 Pro, since the iGPU is superior in these, and since you cannot have a dGPU, it is a factor to have consider.

Graphic card

Many people assume that the GPU, or graphics card, is only important for gaming, but this is not the case. They are also important for other applications, such as in the case of graphic designers or in video editing, rendering, etc. Whether you want a laptop for 2D or 3D design, editing software will work better with a good GPU. In principle, I do not recommend an iGPU, or if you have one, you better also have a dGPU. In the case of Mac this is not possible, so you will have to be content with the iGPU of the M-Series SoC.

However, you also don’t have to obsess over whether your graphics laptop has one of the latest GPUs released, like the AMD Radeon RX 7900 Mobile or the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 Mobile, as that would be underutilizing your graphics hardware. But it does have a decent dGPU. For example, with an RTX 30 Series or Radeon RX 6000 Series model, or perhaps one of the lower-end RTX 40 Series or RX 7000 Series models.

RAM

RAM memory is also another factor to take into account when choosing a laptop for graphic design. The data necessary to run the software will be loaded into it so that the CPU has faster access to them, so it is important that it be fast and have an acceptable capacity.

It is best to have 16 GB of DDR4 or DDR5. Or if you buy a graphic design laptop for less, make sure it can be scaled up. In the case of a Mac this is not possible, hence the importance of choosing the right model.

Storage

On the other hand is the secondary storage medium. Compared to traditional HDDs, it is better to opt for a solid state drive (better an M.2 NVMe PCIe SSD). These drives allow faster access to data, which means your software will load faster and files can be accessed more quickly, which also means increased performance.

As for the capacity, it is not so important, and it will depend on each user. However, for graphic design, if you are going to store large design files, it is best to choose a computer with a minimum of 512 GB or more.

Screen size and type

Since the most important thing in graphic design is the visual aspect, the screen of the graphic design laptop will also be vital. And in this we must focus on two fundamental aspects:

  • Size: You should go for laptops that are 15 inches or larger than that, like 17-inch ones. If you have a small screen, such as a 13″ screen, the designs you create will not be able to be viewed in such a large size, forcing you to zoom in or you will not be able to draw details with such precision. Therefore, small screens must be ruled out.
  • Image quality: it would be important that it have a minimum resolution of 1920×1080 px (FullHD) or higher, better if it is 2K or 4K for this purpose. In addition, it should have a wide color gamut (DPI-P3, sRGB) and preferably an IPS panel.

I emphasize again the precision of color, since it is very important when it comes to obtaining good results in the professional. If you’re looking for a laptop for quality graphic design, it should be at least 100% Adobe RGB, or 100% sRGB.