Help with new laptop (CPU) selection, please.

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testudoaubreii

Junior Member
Feb 6, 2014
14
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Hello,

I have been searching and researching for a new laptop, but the more I search the more confused I get on what to get...if that makes sense. I think that an AMD machine is out of the question, so my question is: Intel, i5 dual core or i7 quad core?

I am on a limited budget ($700). I need a new laptop because my late 2008 MacBook Pro 2.66 GHz/4 GB RAM died on me. I was really to starting to feel its age, anyway. Anyhow, I will be using it for web development. So, I will need to have Adobe Creative Cloud apps open, like Photoshop, Illustrator, Dreamweaver, multiple browsers and multiple browser tabs open and running at the same time. I would also like to use it for XBMC and streaming media files to the TVs on my home network.

The reason why I posted this in the CPU forum is because I need to know if a dual core i5 will be good enough to run what I need it to run, or do I really need to go for a quad core i7. I know that the quad core i7 will process faster and is overall more powerful, but will there be a huge difference in performance for the difference in price?

Thank you very much for taking the time to read this and thank you in advance for any and all help, advice and suggestions.

Thanks!
 
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davie jambo

Senior member
Feb 13, 2014
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An AMD cpu could do all of that work just as well as the intel tbf , what you're doing is not demanding

Pentium = dual core
i3 = dual core with hyperthreading
i5 = quad core
i7 = quad core with hyperthreading
 
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testudoaubreii

Junior Member
Feb 6, 2014
14
0
0
davie jambo said:
An AMD cpu could do all of that work just as well as the intel tbf , what you're doing is not demanding

Pentium = dual core
i3 = dual core with hyperthreading
i5 = quad core
i7 = quad core with hyperthreading
Click to expand...

Thank you very much for your quick response!

I thought that AMD was only good for gaming. If that is not the case, there are some pretty good AMD options out there for me to choose from. I don't know if I can post links, so I will just post these specs:

HP
AMD A-Series A10-5750M (2.50GHz)
12GB Memory 1TB HDD
Touchscreen
1920 x 1080
Windows 8 64-Bit
Price $499

I have read that HP are not that great, though.

I thought that i5 CPUs on laptops are dual core. Is that not the case?
 
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Enigmoid

Platinum Member
Sep 27, 2012
2,907
31
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testudoaubreii said:
Thank you very much for your quick response!

I thought that AMD was only good for gaming. If that is not the case, there are some pretty good AMD options out there for me to choose from. I don't know if I can post links, so I will just post these specs:

HP
AMD A-Series A10-5750M (2.50GHz)
12GB Memory 1TB HDD
Touchscreen
1920 x 1080
Windows 8 64-Bit
Price $499

I have read that HP are not that great, though.

I thought that i5 CPUs on laptops are dual core. Is that not the case?
Click to expand...

That is a great price.

How 'hard' would you say you are using your computer? Is the CPU performance that you are lacking?

The 5750m is about 10% slower on average than a non U i5, and about 5-10% faster than a U level i5.

If you don't need a terrible amount of CPU that that is an amazing deal with a 1080p screen. If you are a very heavy user an i7 quad is more than 2x stronger than the a10-5750m.
 
frozentundra123456

frozentundra123456

Lifer
Aug 11, 2008
10,451
642
126
i3 =dual core with hyperthreading
i5 = dual core with hyperthreading and turbo
i7 = quad core with hyperthreading and turbo

Edit: The above is for standard voltage mobile processors. It us even more confusing because for ULV processors, i5 is dual core with hyperthreading and i7 is dual core with hyperthreading and turbo I believe.
 
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testudoaubreii

Junior Member
Feb 6, 2014
14
0
0
monkeydelmagico said:
Lenovo Z50 is a good deal right now at $570.-. i7 4510u will outperform the older AMD A10 in most scenarios while using much less power (longer battery life). Decent specs and nice screen. Use coupon code D2BLENOVO3 to get an extra $20.- off
Click to expand...

Thank you for this!

So, do you think that this will do what I need it to do? I see that the i7 is a dual core, but if it does what I need it to, I think it is a heck of a deal. And will the amount of RAM hinder the performance? The coupon code didn't work, though. Thanks, again.
 
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testudoaubreii

Junior Member
Feb 6, 2014
14
0
0
Enigmoid said:
That is a great price.

How 'hard' would you say you are using your computer? Is the CPU performance that you are lacking?

The 5750m is about 10% slower on average than a non U i5, and about 5-10% faster than a U level i5.

If you don't need a terrible amount of CPU that that is an amazing deal with a 1080p screen. If you are a very heavy user an i7 quad is more than 2x stronger than the a10-5750m.
Click to expand...

Thank you for your response!

Yeah, I am on it at lease 8 hours a day with multiple apps and browsers and browser tabs open. Sometimes, I need to edit pretty heavy files and often have many, many layers and multiple Photoshop new document tabs open at the same time.
 
frozentundra123456

frozentundra123456

Lifer
Aug 11, 2008
10,451
642
126
That is in fact a great price for the A10. As for reliability, my personal experience with HP has not been good, but that could be just the luck of the draw. The most recent one I bought with an i3 has been good however. My wife is amazed at how cool it runs.
 
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testudoaubreii

Junior Member
Feb 6, 2014
14
0
0
frozentundra123456 said:
That is in fact a great price for the A10. As for reliability, my personal experience with HP has not been good, but that could be just the luck of the draw. The most recent one I bought with an i3 has been good however. My wife is amazed at how cool it runs.
Click to expand...

Would you say that particular A10 CPU is "old"? I am not sure what generation that would be considered.
 
Phynaz

Phynaz

Lifer
Mar 13, 2006
10,140
819
126
davie jambo said:
An AMD cpu could do all of that work just as well as the intel tbf , what you're doing is not demanding

Pentium = dual core
i3 = dual core with hyperthreading
i5 = quad core
i7 = quad core with hyperthreading
Click to expand...

This is not how the mobile CPUs line up.
 
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testudoaubreii

Junior Member
Feb 6, 2014
14
0
0
Enigmoid said:
That is a great price.

How 'hard' would you say you are using your computer? Is the CPU performance that you are lacking?

The 5750m is about 10% slower on average than a non U i5, and about 5-10% faster than a U level i5.

If you don't need a terrible amount of CPU that that is an amazing deal with a 1080p screen. If you are a very heavy user an i7 quad is more than 2x stronger than the a10-5750m.
Click to expand...

This is a wee-bit over my budget, but what do you think about this one?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...9SIA29P1ZC0731
 
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Enigmoid

Platinum Member
Sep 27, 2012
2,907
31
91
testudoaubreii said:
Thank you for your response!

Yeah, I am on it at lease 8 hours a day with multiple apps and browsers and browser tabs open. Sometimes, I need to edit pretty heavy files and often have many, many layers and multiple Photoshop new document tabs open at the same time.
Click to expand...

An i7 quad will blow through photoshop about 80% as fast as the desktop 4770k.

Its hard to find recent photoshop benchmarks on mobile processors but

Photoshop.png


Its old but the a10-5750m is at best 20-30% faster than the a10-4600m while a i7 quad will be about 2.5x faster than the i5 there (2x cores + mhz bump + IPC improvements) Intel tends to dominate in the mobile space for heavy usage.

The problem is price. This will likely be over budget.

The a10-5750m will do the job. It will be faster than the mac you had. It comes with a large amount of RAM and HDD space. Unless there is some knockout sale elsewhere that looks like a good deal. Where is the link?

The z50 mentioned earlier is more expensive but has a better processor but you would need more RAM and 4 GB isn't enough for heavy photoshop.
 
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testudoaubreii

Junior Member
Feb 6, 2014
14
0
0
Enigmoid said:
An i7 quad will blow through photoshop about 80% as fast as the desktop 4770k.

Its hard to find recent photoshop benchmarks on mobile processors but

Photoshop.png


Its old but the a10-5750m is at best 20-30% faster than the a10-4600m while a i7 quad will be about 2.5x faster than the i5 there (2x cores + mhz bump + IPC improvements) Intel tends to dominate in the mobile space for heavy usage.

The problem is price. This will likely be over budget.

The a10-5750m will do the job. It will be faster than the mac you had. It comes with a large amount of RAM and HDD space. Unless there is some knockout sale elsewhere that looks like a good deal. Where is the link?

The z50 mentioned earlier is more expensive but has a better processor but you would need more RAM and 4 GB isn't enough for heavy photoshop.
Click to expand...

Enigmoid said:
Will fly through photoshop and has sufficient RAM and HDD space. Looks pretty good but is a 17.3" notebook, perhaps useful for photoshop but definitely less portable.

Worth the $200 over the a10-5750m unless there are major problems with it.
Click to expand...

Thank you very much!

Here is the link for the A10:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...hj%3Cbr%20/%3E

How about the HP brand? Are they really as bad as I have been reading about?
 
sm625

sm625

Diamond Member
May 6, 2011
8,172
137
106
It is highly doubtful that you need 4 real cores. It is amzing how fast a modern haswell can feel even when you disable all cores but one. lol.
 
frozentundra123456

frozentundra123456

Lifer
Aug 11, 2008
10,451
642
126
That will give far superior CPU performance to the A10. Unfortunately, I don't really know how much CPU performance you need for those apps, specially when running multiple ones at once. Are you going to usethe computer professionally? In other words, does time saved = money earned? If so spending more on the initial purchase is easier to justify.

Also, you mentioned working from the cloud. How much writing do you use to and from the hard drive? If it is a lot, an ssd would speed things up. I am actually surprised no one has mentioned this. Unfortunately it may be difficult to find a machine with one in your price range.

Edit: referring to the link in post 12
 
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Enigmoid

Platinum Member
Sep 27, 2012
2,907
31
91
frozentundra123456 said:
That will give far superior CPU performance to the A10. Unfortunately, I don't really know how much CPU performance you need for those apps, specially when running multiple ones at once. Are you going to usethe computer professionally? In other words, does time saved = money earned? If so spending more on the initial purchase is easier to justify.

Also, you mentioned working from the cloud. How much writing do you use to and from the hard drive? If it is a lot, an ssd would speed things up. I am actually surprised no one has mentioned this. Unfortunately it may be difficult to find a machine with one in your price range.

Edit: referring to the link in post 12
Click to expand...

I agree with the SSD. Ultimately the OP's budget isn't enough to get a perfectly rounded system. Getting a 1080p screen, decent CPU, and enough RAM are first. SSD massively helps though I'm guessing that for heavy photoshop work the OP is going to need a lot of space and a small and cheap SSD may not be sufficient.

If you are making money on this machince frozentundra is right. Don't be afraid to spend a little more money.
 
Gunbuster

Gunbuster

Diamond Member
Oct 9, 1999
6,852
23
81
IMHO there are zero cases where you should get a laptop without an SSD. No matter what CPU you get, if you pair it with a laptop spinning disk it will feel like garbage on day to day tasks.
 
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testudoaubreii

Junior Member
Feb 6, 2014
14
0
0
monkeydelmagico said:
Nice find! That is a top shelf processor. 4 full cores plus 4 threads and Hd4600 graphics. If I was a road warrior who had to do graphics work that would be a great laptop at a nice price.
Click to expand...

Thanks. What do you think about the HP brand? I have concerns because of some of the bad things that I have read about that brand.
 
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