If your workflow requires you to edit 4K videos, run complex simulations, or render 3D graphics, you'll need one of the best workstation laptops. These machines are built to handle almost anything you can throw at them while maintaining a laptop form factor.
While some creatives can get away with using one of the best gaming laptops instead, most creative professionals accept no substitutions. The laptops on this list feature workstation-optimized Nvidia RTX A-series or Ada Generation GPUs and powerful CPUs like the Intel Core Ultra 9, AMD Ryzen 9, or Apple M series processors for demanding creative applications like Adobe Premiere Pro, Blender, or DaVinci Resolve.
Most professionals who need workstations require quality visuals, so these laptops also feature stunning, highly color-accurate displays. But be prepared to pay extra for all that power and color fidelity. While we have a few budget-friendly choices on this list, the more powerful professional-grade workstations don't come cheap.
My current top pick is the Lenovo ThinkPad P1 Gen 7, which offers robust performance, a long-lasting battery, and a relatively affordable price. Depending on your budget, macOS fans may consider the 16-inch MacBook Pro M4 Pro or MacBook Air M4. You'll also find these among our best laptops overall and if you're looking to save some money, we're always tracking the best laptop deals for you.
At Laptop Mag, we review over a hundred laptops yearly, rigorously testing processing power, graphics, and display quality. The workstations on this list combine top-tier displays with powerful CPU and GPU combos for the most demanding users.
The Lenovo ThinkPad P1 Gen 7 may not have the most powerful CPU on this list, but its Intel Core Ultra 7 165H and Nvidia RTX 1000 Ada Generation GPU offer incredible workstation performance regardless. The ThinkPad P1 Gen 7 offers impressive performance without being prohibitively expensive, which makes it an easy choice for our top pick for most users.
Madeline Ricchiuto writes in our review, "While it may not be the most powerful workstation we've ever seen here at Laptop Mag, the Lenovo ThinkPad P1 Gen 7 has enough power and performance to handle photo and video editing, 3D rendering, or heavy data analysis you'd want out of a workstation machine."
As far as performance, the ThinkPad P1 Gen 7 has a Geekbench 6 multicore average of 12,974, a file transfer rate of 2,071 MBps, and can compress a 4K video to a 1080p 30fps format in just 4 minutes and 22 seconds. While its performance isn't quite up to par with workstation powerhouses like the HP ZBook Studio 16 G10 or Apple MacBook Pro 16 (M4 Pro, 2024), it is far more capable with high-performance tasks compared to more budget-friendly options like the Apple MacBook Air 13 (M3, 2024) or Asus ProArt PX13.
The ThinkPad's weakest point is its display, which covered a respectable 78.6% of the DCI-P3 color gamut with an average brightness of 386 nits. Neither score is bad, but they could always be better.
Additionally, the ThinkPad P1 Gen 7 lasted 17 hours and 23 minutes on the Laptop Mag web surfing battery test, which is far better than most workstations.
This workstation is a little pricey as the starting configuration is priced at $3,369, but it is often available at a discount, giving you an even better value for the money. This is the workstation we would recommend for most users, as it has the performance, display quality, and battery life to withstand most high-intensity tasks.
The Apple MacBook Air 13 (M4, 2025) is a pint-sized powerhouse that can keep up with hard-hitting creative applications like Adobe Premiere Pro and Blender. The M4 model of the MacBook Air is cheaper than its M3 predecessor, with pricing starting at $999, with Education pricing and sales dropping it even further below the $1,000 mark.
Sean Riley writes in our review, "The MacBook Air 13-inch M4 feels like the return of the original M1 Air. It's an undeniable value that will give you years of excellent performance, even if you pick up the base model."
In terms of performance, the MacBook Air 13 M4 competes against more powerful workstations like the Lenovo ThinkPad P1 Gen 7 or Asus ProArt PX13. On the Geekbench 6 CPU benchmark, the MacBook Air 13 M4 averaged a multicore score of 14,849. On our video encoding test, the MacBook Air converted a 4K video to a 1080p 30fps format in 5 minutes and 57 seconds.
The MacBook Air houses a 13-inch Liquid Retina display panel, which covers 79.6% of the DCI-P3 color gamut with an impressive average brightness of 463 nits.
Additionally, the MacBook Air 13 (M3) lasted 15 hours and 24 minutes on the Laptop Mag battery test, which is more than enough to get you through the day on a single charge.
The only things holding this laptop back from perfection are a lack of ports and expensive upgrades.
The Asus ProArt PX13 is a stylish 2-in-1 creator laptop with impressive performance courtesy of its Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 CPU and Nvidia RTX 4050 GPU. With a starting price of $1,699, this AI PC workstation offers an incredible bargain of performance and price, all without giving up a Windows operating system.
Stevie Bonifield writes in our review, "The Asus ProArt PX13 is a top choice for creators looking for a compact laptop that can easily get the most out of demanding apps like Adobe Photoshop and Premiere Pro."
The Asus ProArt PX13 actually outperformed the Lenovo ThinkPad P1 Gen 7 and Apple MacBook Air 13 (M3, 2024) in pure CPU performance, with a Geekbench 6 multicore average of 15,203. It also sped through our 4K video encoding task, completing the 1080p 30fps format compression in just 3 minutes and 36 seconds.
The ProArt PX13 has a vivid and bright display, covering 80% of the DCI-P3 color gamut with an average brightness of 350 nits.
As far as battery life is concerned, the ProArt PX13 is on the lower end, surviving 9 hours and 49 minutes on the Laptop Mag battery test. This is actually pretty good for a workstation laptop with a discrete GPU, but not enough to close the gap with the ThinkPad for the title of best overall. However, it is a fantastic little workstation at a very affordable price.
The MacBook Pro 16 (M4 Pro, 2024) is one of the most powerful workstation laptops we've ever tested at Laptop Mag, with unmatched performance, an astoundingly bright display, and almost 21 hours of battery life. With an M4 Pro 14-core CPU and M4 Pro 20-core GPU, we couldn't find a task this MacBook couldn't handle.
Sean Riley writes in our review, "It's almost simultaneously the most powerful premium laptop we've reviewed while also offering the second-longest battery of any laptop we've tested."
The M4 Pro chip outperformed even the M3 Max chip from last year's MacBook Pro 16, with a Geekbench 6 multicore average of 22,822. It absolutely crushed our Handbrake video encoding test, compressing a 4K video to 1080p 30fps format in just 2 minutes and 38 seconds.
The MacBook Pro 16 (M4 Pro, 2024) has a 16-inch Liquid Retina XDR display, which covers a solid 81.4% of the DCI-P3 color gamut and hits an average peak brightness of 565 nits.
Lastly, the MacBook Pro 16 lasted 20 hours and 46 minutes on the Laptop Mag web surfing battery test, the second longest we've seen yet.
If you need a MacBook that can do anything, the MacBook Pro 16 is the way to go. It has a high starting price, but if you've got the money to drop at least $2,499 on a laptop, it's absolutely worth it.
The HP ZBook Studio 16 G11 packages an Intel Core Ultra 9 185H vPro processor, Nvidia RTX 3000 Ada Generation GPU, 64GB of memory, and 1TB of SSD storage into a workstation that knows few limits. Its sticker price is similarly sky-high, with its starting configuration costing $3,559. Our fully-stocked review unit costs an astronomical $7,283 at full price.
Madeline Ricchiuto writes in our review, "There was practically nothing I could throw at the Studio that it couldn't handle, between editing my latest travel photos and blazing through video editing. There wasn't a number of Chrome tabs or Photoshop tasks that would cause the ZBook to falter."
The ZBook's performance is top-of-the-line for an Intel Core Ultra processor, with a Geekbench 6 multicore average of 13,754 and a Handbrake video encode time of just 3 minutes and 50 seconds for a 4K video compression. It also boasts a transfer rate of 1,401 MBps.
The real star of the ZBook Studio is its gorgeous DreamColor display, which covers 113.6% of the DCI-P3 color gamut with an average peak brightness of 398 nits that will cut through even the worst office glare.
Of course, all of that power comes at a price, so the ZBook Studio lasted just 4 hours and 43 minutes on the Laptop Mag battery test. Considering the specs, this isn't bad battery life for such a powerful and thin workstation.
We review dozens of laptops annually, and while some simply don't have what it takes to make our buying guides, they are still strong options that came up short for one reason or another. Here are some of our most recently reviewed laptops that didn't make the cut for "Best workstation laptops", but could still be solid machines for your creative workflow.
There are different budget classes for workstations, and our recommendations above try to reflect that, but there's no question that this is one category where the assumption is that you almost need the best of the best across the board. Here's a look at the hardware specs we recommend for the best workstation laptops in 2025.
CPU: Top of the line is the order of the day when it comes to selecting a CPU for your mobile workstation. In 2025, that will be an Intel Core Ultra 9, Intel Xeon, AMD Ryzen AI 9 300 series, or, if you go the MacBook route, an Apple M4 Max.
GPU: True workstations in 2025 will usually feature an Nvidia RTX 4000 or 5000 Ada Laptop GPU. These GPUs are specifically designed to handle sustained intensive tasks that are expected in a workstation.
RAM: 32GB is the bare minimum any workstation laptop buyer should consider, and most will benefit from at least 64GB for the kind of heavy tasks expected. This isn't the place to save money; you'll create a bottleneck for the rest of the performance in your laptop if you don't have enough RAM. If you can afford it and the laptop offers it, go higher, particularly if the laptop uses soldered RAM that cannot be upgraded later.
Storage: The size of your storage needs will vary depending on precisely what task you are undertaking, 512GB is probably the minimum anyone with workstation-class needs should consider, but the real key is speed. You'll want an NVMe PCIe 4.0 SSD as opposed to SATA for the fastest speeds. Not all NVMe PCIe 4.0 SSDs are created equal, though; check our reviews and buying guides for the SSD speeds in our testing through our SSD transfer speed test or the BlackMagic Write and Read benchmarks.
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Can I use a gaming laptop instead of a workstation?
If you need to do light photo and video editing, a powerful CPU with an integrated GPU can handle most programs. If you need to get into more in-depth AI-generated editing or data computations then you'll want a discrete GPU. Gaming class graphics cards can handle most of these tasks pretty well, allowing you to use a gaming laptop as a workstation.
This can help you save some money, as workstation laptops, however, there are cases where you won't be able to use a gaming laptop, like editing 4-8K video, intensive 3D rendering, or complex data computations. Of course, you don't want to use a creator laptop for intense gaming either. Workstation GPUs and gaming GPUs may pack a lot of power, but the optimization differences between the two GPU classes mean that any intensive workstation tasks won't run well on a gaming machine and vice versa.
Why are workstation laptops so expensive?
Workstation laptops are expensive because they pack some of the most powerful processors, like the Intel Core Ultra 9, Intel Xeon, AMD Ryzen 9, or Apple M series chipsets which come at a high cost. Workstations also come with powerful workstation GPUs which don't retail cheaply either.
Workstations also often come with enterprise business pricing, so they're often sold for less than their "list" price when design firms purchase them in bulk as part of an IT fleet. Workstations can also see hefty discounts throughout the year as components age and new laptops are announced.
Why don't we recommend a Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite laptop as a workstation?
While Qualcomm has been moving more and more of the Adobe Creative Cloud suite to work natively with Windows on Arm, and Qualcomm has ported a number of music creation apps to Arm, the app support for Snapdragon-powered laptops is more limited than its Intel, AMD, or Apple competitors.
While BlackMagic's DaVinci Resolve and Adobe Photoshop and Lightroom run natively on Qualcomm processors, other applications like Adobe Premire Pro and Illustrator will only run through emulation. That can be a lot slower than the native versions of the application and other software is incompatible with Windows on Arm, which can cause issues with team collaboration for designers and scientists.
There are also plenty of STEM and design applications that just don't run on Snapdragon laptops at all, even through emulation.
Qualcomm's Snapdragon X platform also lacks support for discrete GPUs and the integrated Adreno graphics tile just can't compete with the recent iGPU advances by Apple, AMD, and Intel.
This could change as the Snapdragon platform enters its second generation and onward, but for now, the lack of native application support and lack of discrete GPU options keep the Snapdragon X series from making it in the "Workstation" class.
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We put each laptop through extensive benchmark testing -- both synthetic and real-world -- before they end up in the hands of our reviewers. We evaluate each aspect of the laptop, including its performance, battery life, display, speakers, and heat management.
In our benchmark testing, we use a Klein K10-A colorimeter to detect the brightness and DCI-P3 color gamut of the laptop's display. For performance testing, we run the laptop through a gauntlet of benchmarks, including Geekbench 6 and 3DMark professional graphics tests. With workstation laptops, we also run the machines through several SpecWorkstation and PugetBench Adobe tests.
To determine real-world performance, we task the laptop to convert a 4K video to 1080p resolution and to duplicate a 25GB multimedia file. Our real-world graphics test is Sid Meier's Civilization VI: Gathering Storm benchmark with medium settings at 1080p resolution.
We also run heat tests by playing a 15-minute full-screen video and measuring temperatures in different areas of the laptop. Last but not least, our battery test consists of continuous web surfing over Wi-Fi at 150 nits of brightness. For premium MacBooks and Windows 11 laptops, a runtime of over 10 hours is considered a good result, whereas dedicated workstations that can stay powered for longer than 5 hours deserve praise.
To truly understand a laptop, we combine technical tests with extensive user experience assessments. Following lab evaluations, our expert reviewers live with the laptop, integrating it into their daily workflows. This allows them to provide you with a comprehensive understanding of both the hardware capabilities and the overall software experience, giving you the full picture.
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Laptop Mag reviews over a hundred different laptops every year, from paperweight ultralights to everyday workhorses to lumbering gaming notebooks that scorch the frame rates of even the hottest AAA games. We're not just experts in the laptop field, as we go one step further by meticulously testing smartphones, tablets, headphones, PC accessories, software, and even the latest in gaming.
We are 100% independent and have decades of experience to help you buy with confidence. In fact, Laptop Mag has been testing and reviewing products for three decades, and we continue to deliver trustworthy reviews you can rely on.
Our experienced team of writers and editors scour the available information about the laptop and put it through its paces to determine which is best for you. But before they start, the testing team subjects each system to a rigorous regimen of synthetic and real-world tests to see how a system handles the type of work and games you're most likely to throw at it.
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