However, if your projects contain dozens of gigabytes of video, you should upgrade to 32 GB. Memory: On both Windows and Mac laptops, we recommend a baseline 16 GB of RAM for photo and video work.

Even higher-end GPUs tend to ship in gaming laptops that are typically heavier, bulkier, and louder than the ultrabooks we consider for this guide. Laptops with Nvidia’s latest RTX line of graphics cards have become cheaper and easier to find, so in our latest round we tested laptops with RTX 3050 to RTX 3060 Ti graphics. Since 2020, creative-software giant Adobe has worked to expand how GPUs can speed up editing tasks in its Premiere video-editing software, making exports up to five times faster than in previous versions of the software.

Graphics card: Video editors and those who work in motion graphics should pay special attention to a system’s graphics card, or GPU.

And if you’re buying a Mac, choose a system that uses an M2, M1 Pro, or M1 Max chip, as those are two of Apple’s newest custom-built processors. If you’re looking at AMD, seek out processors with the Ryzen 5000 or 6000 designation. For Intel, we recommend the latest, 11th or 12th generation of the Core i7 chip.

Windows users have to choose between a processor from Intel or one from AMD. Processor: Also referred to as the CPU, the processor is the most important component of any editing laptop.

Best video editor for macbook air