I started attempting the DAW thing back in the early 90's on a color Macintosh PowerBook with a MOTU interface for MIDI. Since then it's pretty much always been self-built towers until about 2 years ago when I tried to give laptops a serious try. Something I've admittedly not given much thought to since moving to laptops for DAWs is video processing. I do my gaming and movie watching on a Xbox, don't use my DAW for anything else crazy, so why would I need great video performance? Unfortunately as of late I've found I need to start caring more, to the tune of getting a new laptop, so I'm sharing this with you in hopes it helps someone else.

What I've discovered through a ton of digging (due to several performance issues) is that your video card can actually play a huge factor on overall system performance, at least in Windows 10. On the one hand this seems profoundly obvious, OTOH it bugs me that I didn't think this through the first time. Since upgrading my Acer Aspire Ultrabook to Windows 10 (from 8.1), I started having a variety of performance issues. The problems got worse when I upgraded to Sonar Platinum from X3. Projects that I had previously run on both a desktop (with "slower" procs) and the same laptop in Win 8.1 were barfing all the time. I was a bit confused at first as it's really a decent machine in general; i7 4500U w/ 4 MB cache (scales from 1.8 to ~2.7 mHz), 8 GB RAM, primary SSD, offloading additional projects to the well respected Corsair Flash Voyager GTX. I did the usual; started digging around for different drivers, changing BIOS settings, ASIO vs. others, latency settings, running performance utilities to see what was going on, etc. I started noticing that things were particularly bad when docked to my USB 3 port replicator (Plugable UD-3900), which I primarily use for connecting two 27" monitors via DVI. In fairness I hadn't pushed the laptop all that hard when it was on 8.1 though as I was still migrating away from my tower, which was older but a beast by comparison.

Long story short, the whole thing has come down to one issue; the on-board Intel HD Graphics 4400. It has a tiny bit of on-board memory (128 MB) and then uses shared system resources to scale to ~1.7 GB. This is pretty common for the ultrabook format, and apparently especially for systems that support 10 point touch. The result is that nearly everything I do in any application starts immediately pulling resources from the CPU because the GPU can't keep up. The tell-tale sign (besides looking at Task Manager or other utlities) is that the tiny fan will kick in to overdrive immediately. It seems to be worse when relying on the DisplayLink driver to bridge between the USB dock, but the issue is definitely still there otherwise, it just gets magnified. Using a utilities like ThrottleStop and Full Throttle Override only delay the evenitble briefly, though do a little to help distribute the load across virtual logical processors. Another thing that helps slightly is the Plug-in load balancing available in Platinum. It's actually amazing how quickly the whole audio engine can come to a halt by just touching the mouse or the screen during playback of a decent sized project (e.g. 8 audio tracks, 10 MIDI tracks, two instances of IK Kontakt, IK Guitar Rig, some AAS plug-ins.)

Based on all this, and because I still want to keep my primary DAW in laptop form for mobility (using multiple external audio interfaces), I'm now considering the following machines (trying to keep it under $1500):

HP Pavilion 17 Gamer
Processor: Intel Core i7-7700HQ
RAM: 32GB DDR4-2133MHz
Hard Drive: 256GB NVMe SSD + 1TB 7200rpm
Graphics Card: NVIDIA Geforce GTX 1050 4GB GDDR5
Display: 17.3" Full HD IPS UWVA anti-glare WLED-backlit Touchscreen Display (1920 x 1080)

MSI GL72 7RD-028
Processor: Intel Core i7-7700HQ
RAM: 16GB (16GB x1) DDR4 2400MHz
Hard Drive: 128GB M.2 SATA + 1TB 7200rpm
Graphics Card: NVIDIA's GTX 1050 2G GDDR5
Display: 17.3" Full HD eDP Non-Reflection 1920x1080
 
MSI GE72VR Apache Pro-447
Processor: Intel Core i7-7700HQ
RAM: 32GB DDR4-2400MHz
Hard Drive: 256GB M.2 NVMe 2280 SSD + 1TB 7200rpm
Graphics Card: NVIDIA Geforce GTX 1060 6GB
Display: 17.3" FHD (16:9) Super Clear Matte-Type IPS Screen (1920x1080)

MSI GP72 Leopard Pro-402
Processor: Intel Core i7-7700HQ
RAM: 32GB DDR4-2400MHz
Hard Drive: 512GB M.2 NVMe 2280 SSD + 500GB 2.5" SSD
Graphics Card: NNVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050Ti 2GB GDDR5
Display: 17.3-inch Full HD Display (1920 x 1080)

I'm still doing some hunting around but these seem to be the best back for the buck under $1500, while avoiding systems with known issues (like the Asus ROG). I've never been a fan of HP desktop or laptops, but the specs on the one above are really impressive for the money. I'll report back once I pick one and run my existing projects on it. In the meantime any constructive feedback is most welcome :-)
 

It is generally not so much the"quality" of the video subsystem the screws with your audio, as the priority video is given relative to other activity. Contemporary computers are generally designed for people who are using them for anything but computation, and primarily for displaying video content. So the average user wants a machine that never glitches on display. Typically the audio demand is limited to one stereo stream. To accommodate that market it is common to lock the video system into a high priority, so that conflicts with a demanding application that does not primarily engage the graphics, will be resolved by making the one that is not graphics intensive wait until the graphics are delivered. That is a recipe for problems with a high demand audio application. Buying a more expensive graphics adapter or one that smokes on a graphics benchmark may not solve the problem if it sucks up resources from your critical application. 

Under normal use a GPU shouldn't need a very large memory footprint to support 2-D graphics.
 
I have a cheap Acer Aspire, with Intel HD Graphics 4400, that runs Sonar Platinum and Windows 10.  It's not my main DAW, but it doesn't seem to struggle like you describe.
 
My Acer Aspire is a E5-571-588M with 4th Gen Processor Model i5-4210U (dual core).  Processor Speed 1.70 GHz Cache 3 MB 64-bit Processing (turbo to 2.7 Ghz).  Memory 4 GB DDR3L SDRAM.
 
With that conservative number of tracks you are using in Sonar, performance should not be an issue.
 
If things go south when you move your mouse, it's likely that something else besides graphics is acting up.
 
When I run LatencyMon http://www.resplendence.com/latencymon on my systems, I frequently notice the USB port driver having one of the highest DPC counts, meaning it is keeping the CPU busy frequently. 
 
You might find some clues if you dig around in that tool.  Or maybe try a process of elimination starting by unplugging that USB port replicator, or anything else external that you have connected, to see if you still experience the same symptoms.

I recently built a new PC, a tower not a laptop, and using the Intel HD Graphics 530 with my i7 6700K CPU.  I have the latest Win 10 Creators upgrade.  There is no deterioration or system/Sonar Platinum issues because of the video I'm using.  Even the 3D introduced with the Creators upgrade works.   

abacab
Under normal use a GPU shouldn't need a very large memory footprint to support 2-D graphics...

Thanks for the info, I will definitely check into this. You obviously have a very similar spec to my current machine.

garrett.scroggin

abacab
Under normal use a GPU shouldn't need a very large memory footprint to support 2-D graphics...

Thanks for the info, I will definitely check into this. You obviously have a very similar spec to my current machine.

I will just add that my desktop DAW is running two monitors with 3rd gen Intel Core HD Graphics 2500 just fine (one HDMI, one DVI).  Everything is fluid and smooth, no lagging or video artifacts, with no unusual spikes in CPU usage.  No audio dropouts either, unless I crank the ASIO buffers down below 256.
 
Recently I was trying to troubleshoot another intermittent freezing issue with my system (annoying, like twice a week), after I installed Windows 10.  At first I thought it may be bad RAM, so I tested thoroughly, and it was clean.
 
Then I thought maybe the HD 2500 drivers may be too old for Win 10, so I threw in a GeForce GTX 950 with the latest drivers.  Still had the same problem, so that wasn't it.  While the benchmarks with the GTX 950 for gaming 3D were impressive even with my CPU, I could tell no difference in DAW performance from the HD 2500.  So I pulled the GTX and sent it to my living room PC, and went back to the HD 2500 for the DAW, no regrets.
 
It turned out to be my Netgear USB Wi-Fi adapter drivers causing the freezing issue.  To test this I deleted the drivers, unplugged the dongle, and installed another brand with a different chipset.  No more problems.  Then I found a newer driver for the original adapter.  Tried them and all is well now.  So it can be something as simple as a driver version, but sometimes you have to rule everything out to discover what it is.

abacab
 
...It turned out to be my Netgear USB Wi-Fi adapter drivers causing the freezing issue.  To test this I deleted the drivers, unplugged the dongle, and installed another brand with a different chipset.  No more problems.  Then I found a newer driver for the original adapter.  Tried them and all is well now.  So it can be something as simple as a driver version, but sometimes you have to rule everything out to discover what it is.

Thanks for the info, I will definitely check this out as well!

While 2D graphics is not "intensive," it is true that a GPU (even a cost-efficient one) will ease load on the CPU simply because the information is "thrown over the wall" to be processed on the GPU. Even the high-end GPU's do not have much 2D advantage over their cheaper counterparts... they are geared around 3D performance. DAWs are primarily 2D, so a simple GPU would suffice to ease CPU loading (plus video is not as critical about dropping frames at high speed, or getting that data "back").
 
The only real caveat to a higher GPU is for 3D or video processing where CUDA can be employed... in that situation, video processing is sent to the GPU and expected back intact (Adobe has used this with NVIDIA cards for years now).
 
Another reference is http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/ to check performance versus price. Realize that this is an overall test listing and that the 2D performance between cards is negligible... I couldn't find a quick listing of just 2D testing, but there may be one available.

I have run my last 4 computer builds using AMD CPU's with built-in graphics, and run two displays in Sonar with no performance issues whatsoever.  The primary display uses the HDMI port, and the other one uses the DVI output from the computer - with an HDMI connector on the other end of the cable, running into the 2nd display.
 
I used to have a 3rd display, running with a VGA cable.
 
I saved enough money in each build to upgrade other components, such as memory or hard drive storage.
 
Bob Bone
 

I tried a GeForce GTX 950 in my system and saw no DAW performance difference between that an the onboard Intel HD 2500 graphics.  My CPU never redlines, so it has many cycles to spare.  No need to offload anything.
 
A system only benefits from graphics hardware acceleration if the app is coded to take advantage of it.  In most cases the integrated GPU stuff today is far advanced over the crap they used to sell.  It is now on par with a low end discrete PCIe GPU based on benchmarks that I have seen and run.