Which Surface Pro 4 for Digital Art/graphic design?

[rumyas]

Hi,
I am looking to purchase an SP4 as a second portable computer for my work. I am an illustrator and designer, primarily working in Photoshop, Illustrator, Indesign. And light editing on Premiere.

I have a Dell M4800 workstation which is 3.2 yrs old and running fine w/o issues (on Win 10 Pro now).
But its a huge and heavy system and I would love a smaller one I could cart around when I travel and still manage atleast 50% of my work on. (Primarily Digital art on PS - that's why the Surface Pen excites me!)

My main query is - I have a i7 4800MQ processor + 16 GB ram + nVidia Quadro with 2GB Vram right now, which might even be unnecessary for my needs. (I splurged when I bought this.)
Comparing to this (3 yr/old system) - I am on a budget and wondering which SP4 to go for.
I have 3 options:
i5 + 8GB ram
i7 + 8 GB ram
i7 + 16 GB ram (not unless the 8 to 16 GB Ram is really worth it?!)

i7 + 16 GB Ram seems closest to my current setup - but do I even need that? My PSD files go upto 1/1.5GB but not more than about 20 layers usually. But I've heard the Iris graphics make a difference over HD graphics on the i5.
Will 8GB ram be sufficient for heavy PS usage? Does the i7 + 8GB make sense? Will i5 suffice?
I doubt the SP5 (if it comes soon) will be in my price range so planning to get the SP4 now.

Sorry for the long post and TIA! :sweaty:

 

[onlysublime]

Hi,
I am looking to purchase an SP4 as a second portable computer for my work. I am an illustrator and designer, primarily working in Photoshop, Illustrator, Indesign. And light editing on Premiere.

I have a Dell M4800 workstation which is 3.2 yrs old and running fine w/o issues (on Win 10 Pro now).
But its a huge and heavy system and I would love a smaller one I could cart around when I travel and still manage atleast 50% of my work on. (Primarily Digital art on PS - that's why the Surface Pen excites me!)

My main query is - I have a i7 4800MQ processor + 16 GB ram + nVidia Quadro with 2GB Vram right now, which might even be unnecessary for my needs. (I splurged when I bought this.)
Comparing to this (3 yr/old system) - I am on a budget and wondering which SP4 to go for.
I have 3 options:
i5 + 8GB ram
i7 + 8 GB ram
i7 + 16 GB ram (not unless the 8 to 16 GB Ram is really worth it?!)

i7 + 16 GB Ram seems closest to my current setup - but do I even need that? My PSD files go upto 1/1.5GB but not more than about 20 layers usually. But I've heard the Iris graphics make a difference over HD graphics on the i5.
Will 8GB ram be sufficient for heavy PS usage? Does the i7 + 8GB make sense? Will i5 suffice?
I doubt the SP5 (if it comes soon) will be in my price range so planning to get the SP4 now.

Sorry for the long post and TIA! :sweaty:

if the i7 is in your budget, go for it. I have the i7 with 8 GB RAM and it's been fantastic. I have almost the same workflow. I do wish I had 16 GB for Premiere and for Lightroom. But 8 GB is fine. I do a lot of 4K video edits no and the mobile i7 is not good enough for 4K editing no matter how much RAM you have. But at 1080p editing, it's fine (though 8 GB is weak). I do my edits on my SP4 and then push the assets to my desktop for rendering.

For Photoshop (at 20 layers), 8 GB is plenty fine.

 

[rumyas]

Thanks!