I think I have decided to move the Asus route for my next laptop. But there are so many different modells available, that is difficult to choose for me. Any recommendations?

The focus - ideal for music production (Studio One, plenty of vst's etc.)

Here my rerference list

• 16 inch monitor. OLED not a must.
• 32gb ram. Ideally upgradeable, but apparently not possible anymore.
• Intel Core I9 (better than Ultra?). AMD a possibility.
• Two ssd slots preferred.
• Additional graphic card, but as I am not intenting to use it for gaming the most entry level would suffice.
• At least one thunderbolt connection.

It does not have to be a 2024 model. But I suspect that 2023 year models are mostly not available anymore.


thanks for your thoughts.

 

Last edited: Jan 6, 2025

@Thomba, what budget do you have available?

 

if money not an issue :
https://www.amazon.co.uk/ASUS-FA608...asus+i9+laptop+32gb+ram+16+inch,aps,94&sr=8-6

 

I bought this one 6 months ago :

ASUS Vivobook S 16 Flip OLED (TP3604)


https://www.asus.com/ch-fr/laptops/for-home/vivobook/asus-vivobook-s-16-flip-oled-tp3604/techspec/

at a special sale price of 700€

Memory :
8GB DDR4 on board
8GB DDR4 SO-DIMM

I swapped the 8GB SO-DIMM to 32GB SO-DIMM (same type) for a total ram of 40GB.

Intel i9-13900H, 16inches oled display, replaced one SSD for a total of 3To.

Video card is a basic one (no Nvidia/AMD) but it's better for audio.

DPC Latency check => no audio dropouts (Ableton 12).

Very nice, fast and leightweight computer. Very small power adapter.

I use an old NI USB Audio-10 soundcard.

100% recommended (list price at that time was around 1500€)

 

Hi. I am based in Europe. So I guess everything around 2.000€ would be Ok. thanks

 

Thanks. I will look into that. Thom

 

ASUS Vivobook S 16 Flip (16", Intel Core i9-13900H, 16 GB, 1000 GB, DE), Notebook --> 1299 EUR

https://www.galaxus.de/en/s1/produc...um=cpc&utm_content=11376169&supplier=11376169

 

Wait for Snapdragon laptops. Cool=silent and powerfull like the newer Apple ARM CPUs. ;-)

 

For music production, single core performance is very important. The number of cores is not very useful after a specific numbers. You could have 16 cores and still face audio glitches if the single core performance is not upto the mark. So, I would suggest the laptop with best singel core performance that your budget allows, with 8+ cores. An integrated GPU is sufficient for music applications, so it is optional.

 

Bad idea. Snapdragon laptops are ARM. You need ARM-compatible software. Not many audio-related software are ARM compatible today (on the PC side)
Maybe in 3-4 years ... but for 2025 I would still go x86.

 

Mine has a 3200 x 2000 screen, there are different versions of the S16 Flip Oled.

The one I have is here :

https://www.interdiscount.ch/fr/pro...ntel-core-i9-16-go-ram-1000-go-ssd-0014092004

1200 chf = 1280 €

 

Be warned with gaming laptops : as far as they feature gaming GPU (NVidia RTX/AMD) they need to a strong cooler system, which is very limited in a notebook.
So CPU suffers from lacks of cooling and it leads to DPC latency very quickly (audio lags -> cracks in sound -> audio dropouts) because of throttling.
Solution is to disable gaming GPU in Bios/Windows, but if you disable gaming GPU for your audio software to run smooth it's useless to buy gaming notebook ...

 

Last edited: Jan 7, 2025

Unfortunately shops models are most of the time either gaming notebooks or customers models (generic and "wide target").
Most important thing for audio-related notebook is the DPC latency.

https://www.notebookcheck.net/ is a good ressource to check if the notebook is DPC latency free ... a good starting point to find an audio-compatible notebook.

Best DPC latency checker (free) is here : https://www.resplendence.com/latencymon

 

I feel like I've answered this question many-a-time on these forums, so there's probably already discussions if you searched.

I own an ASUS ROG Strix GL503GE 15" laptop. It's has an i7-8750H 6C/12T CPU. 32GB (2x16GB) RAM, 2TB OS NVMe and a 4TB SSD, 144Hz screen, plus a GTX 1050 Ti GPU. I bought this several years ago when 8th gen Intel CPUs were current. This is still working flawlessly for me to this day and is my go to laptop for mobile music production when I travel etc. It's not the lightest, but it was crazy powerful at its time for a laptop. The current models of this range of ASUS laptop is in the same vain, being crazy powerful and about as good of a Windows laptop as you can get that provides upgradeability of RAM and drives (so not soldered in like some laptops) for prolonging its lifespan. The fans do whir up when pushed, so you may want to consider this if it's your sole music production device (and will be the case with all powerful laptops as they'll all need active cooling with higher spec components).

I believe the current equivalent laptop in ASUS' range is the ASUS ROG Strix G16, which has various spec options, most of which fulfil your requirements. ASUS also have the SCAR models too.

 

Last edited: Jan 7, 2025

I have a Rog Strix G16 (i9-13980XH). Great machine.

For silence I have placed all equipment in an adjacent room. Be aware, that Thunderbolt cables are not as long available as HDMI. Therefore I have connected it with TB/USB C -> Adapter -> HDMI.

I usually have switched the Nvidia GPU off. It can be activated via software (when TB-out is used).

Fans = zero, if sequencer not running.
DPC latency numbers very good.

I can recommend it.