Whether we’re exploring interactive content online, diving into immersive gaming worlds, or catching up on the latest streaming shows, we’re constantly benefiting from the hard work of creative professionals who use cutting-edge software to push the technical and artistic boundaries of visual effects. Now, powerful AI-driven tools are further expanding the scope of what creators can do with video editing and other media-related apps, but those tools require serious computing power. For professionals who want to harness the power of AI for media and entertainment work, it may seem convenient and cost-effective to run workloads in the cloud, but the reality is that running resource-intensive apps locally on high-powered workstations instead could pay off significantly in both performance and value over time. 

We compared the performance of an HP ZBook Power 16 G11 A Mobile Workstation PC equipped with an AMD Ryzen Pro CPU and NVIDIA RTX 3000 Ada GPU to that of a workstation-grade AWS EC2 G4dn cloud instance on four popular AI-driven media-creation apps—Adobe Premiere Pro, Avid Media Composer, DaVinci Resolve Studio, and Autodesk Maya. We used the data from our test runs and the current costs of both the ZBook Power 16 and the AWS instance to calculate the amount of work each solution could complete in a standard work month—and how much it would cost. With the monthly costs for each solution and workload scenario in hand, we were able to calculate how long it would take for the purchase of the ZBook Power to become a more financially sound investment than continuing to pay for cloud costs. 

While the AWS instance could not run the Avid Media Composer workloads due to compatibility issues, the ZBook Power 16 successfully ran all four apps without any problems. With the three apps that we were able to run on both solutions, the ZBook Power shaved off enough time from routine tasks that users might expect to pay off their investment in well under a year—as little as 5.3 months in the case of Autodesk Maya work. In contrast, if you ran those apps in the cloud, you’d continue to pay monthly costs indefinitely. 

While the upfront costs of investing in powerful workstation PCs can sometimes be significant, the truth is that they can pay for themselves quickly. In contrast, a decision to run workloads in the cloud ensures that you'll continue to pay recurring costs that can really add up. Based on our testing, we estimate that a decision to provide your team with HP ZBook Power 16 G11 A Mobile Workstation PCs instead of cloud-based apps can empower creators to produce more on day one and lower costs over time—paying off both now and in the future. 

To learn more about how we tested AI-driven media and entertainment apps on the HP ZBook Power 16 G11 A and in the cloud, check out the report and infographic below.