Is it a good idea to buy an ultra low power CPU?

[SNJ]

I am looking to buy an inexpensive laptop for office work. Most laptops that fall within my budget come with the i3 5005U. While it looks good at first sight(5th gen CPU), I just noticed that it is an ultra low power chip, meaning performance would be significantly lower.

The laptop will be used primarily for office work: typing out documents, browsing the web and making presentations. It will also be used watching HD movies. The most important requirement is long term usability. I want this laptop to be usable for a minimum of 6-7 years. Seeing as how operating systems, programs and websites are getting hungrier each year, is it a good idea to get a laptop with an ultra low power CPU?

Here are some of the laptops I am considering.

 

[coercitiv]

Seeing as how operating systems, programs and websites are getting hungrier each year, is it a good idea to get a laptop with an ultra low power CPU?

The short answer is Yes. At 2.0Ghz and higher the low power i3 is actually fast enough to use as a light Photoshop editing machine, let alone do office/browsing. Intel will launch a new gen of CPUs in January, so come that period you may be able to buy a low cost laptop with a Skylake i3, maybe a 6100U @ 2.3Ghz. (that would be ideal, but i3 5005U will be ok as well)

You will be far more limited by the storage system, the mechanical HDDs will slow down the system considerably more than a slower CPU would. In fact, unless you consider adding a SDD, you may actually be surprised to notice the new system will suffer from the same slowdowns your previous systems did.

I strongly recommend you prioritize adding a SSD to your system, as well as buying a laptop which has 1 memory slot free, since long term you want to get that system memory to 8GB. As long as you don't go bellow i3 @ 2Ghz, your CPU choice is adequate for your needs.

 

[MarkizSchnitzel]

That is not an ultra low power chip, despite the naming. It's a full i Core, not atom. So for office work, browsing and media, it should be fine. Though, newer cores should have additional functionality in media core, so that is something to think about as well.

 

[SNJ]

You sure? I got my info from here:

http://www.notebookcheck.net/Intel-Core-i3-5005U-Notebook-Processor.127836.0.html

Are ultra low power and ultra low voltage different things?

 

[coercitiv]

Are ultra low power and ultra low voltage different things?

I think we have a language & tech vocabulary barrier/confusion here.

SNJ, you are probably referring to the power usage limit the processor has. At some point Intel called their 15W TDP processors ULV - Ultra Low Voltage, so it makes sense that common consumers call them "low power" or "ultra low power" CPUs.

However "power" means both "energy usage" and "strength". In the tech industry we also call "low power core" the CPUs designed for mobile products (including phones), with the alternative name "weak cores". I think by now you realize where this is going: some low cost laptops use these "weak cores" mainly designed for weak performance mobile applications (these cores are also cheaper to make), while others come with CPUs based on the high performance architecture, but limited to low energy usage so they can make the laptops thinner and less noisy.

To give you an example, in your list of laptops from amazon.in there is a laptop with the following processor Pentium N3540 - it's a CPU that looks very good on paper - quad core, 2.6Ghz boost clocks - but this product may actually be weaker than a similarly named Pentium 3558U - a dual core at 1.7GHz. The difference lies in the core architecure, the first has small "weak" cores while the latter has bigger "high performance" cores. Normally Intel should not have purposely mixed the "Celeron" and "Pentium" brands with CPUs based on completely different architecures, but nevertheless they did.

The good news in you case is that as long as you stick to laptops with "Core i3" in them, you are not affected by this issue: all Core i3 products are made with the so called big cores, and all Core i3 CPUs with 5xxxU, 6xxxU and 7xxxU names are adequate for your needs, obviously including the Core i3 5005U.

If you can, look for laptops with Core i3 6100U in them, they should start offering good prices for them since the new 7xxxU series is gradually replacing the 6xxxU series. And don't forget to pick a laptop which has 1 memory slot free if it only comes with 4GB of RAM, and also plan to buy a SSD the make the most of your investment.

 

[DidelisDiskas]

I want this laptop to be usable for a minimum of 6-7 years.

The cpu might be fine, but you should also consider how long other parts may last. They keyboard, fan, hardrive, speakers, screen will be hard pressed to last 7 years, especially on cheaper laptop models with cheaper parts. I have a 2008 toshiba laptop and while the cpu runs fine, everything else is either broken or half broken (the hardrive somehow still manages to chug along though).

 

[MarkizSchnitzel]

Grok, thanks for explaining. Yes, this is exactly what I thought. Low and high power CORES. Low power CPU can still be high power in performance.

 

[SNJ]

coercitive, thanks for that explanation. Really helpful.

 

[Valantar]

A bit off-topic, but:

It's worth mentioning that the kind of longevity you're asking for is hard to reach, even with built-to-last business laptops. Unless you can find a cheap ThinkPad, Latitude or ProBook in your price range with your desired specs, careful treatment and regular maintenance is an absolute must. It's required with business laptops too, just usually easier to do. Find a hardware maintenance manual for the PC you buy (at least HP and Lenovo ones are quite easily found through Google), and clean out the fan and heatsink of your PC several times a year. For most cleanings blowing it out with pressurized air (no disassembly required) is good enough (and given how easy this is, doing it monthly or more often is a good idea), but at least for something that sees regular usage, I'd recommend a full heatsink cleaning every 1,5 or so years. If you use it in a dusty environment, on your lap, blanket, bed sheets, or anything else other than a clean flat surface, this might be necessary more often. Replacing the stock thermal paste after 3-4 years is almost required as well - thermal paste hardens and loses its thermal transfer abilities with time.

Other tips for longevity:
-Get an SSD. HDDs are prone to failure (especially in portable equipment). Not to mention that an SSD is the biggest performance boost you can give any PC that doesn't have one. It will keep it feeling snappy far beyond its years.
-Always use a sleeve or bag when transporting the laptop. Always. No exceptions.
-Keep it clean. Not just the fans, everything. Keyboard, screen, touchpad, casing. A dirty laptop will die far quicker than a clean one. A broken keyboard due to dirt and grime makes a laptop just as unusable as a cracked screen.
-If you're in a dusty or dirty environment, get some rubber port protectors to keep dust and grime out of unused ports.
-If you use the laptop in one place for long periods, remove the battery (if possible). Keep it at 60-70% charge when removed. This will keep it from wearing out due to constantly being at full capacity.

My ThinkPad X201 is going on seven years (bought May 2010), and is still working nearly perfectly. To get it this far, though, I have
-upgraded its RAM twice (from 2 to 4GB, then to 8GB)
-ditched the HDD for an SSD
-cleaned it regularly with pressurized air
-disassembled it 4-5 times to clean it out properly
-changed the thermal paste twice
-kept the batteries (I have two) as healthy as I can

Even with all this, the batteries are at around 60-70% capacity today (I'm pretty happy with that after 6 1/2 years!), the LCD has started getting a couple of dead pixels (doesn't bother me yet), and it's starting to feel slow. Most likely, it's lasted this long simply because it isn't my main PC any more. It's seen some heavy use earlier, though.

 

[superstition]

My Powerbook 540C is still working. It has a whopping 32 MB of RAM, the ultra-rare type C PCMCIA adapter, a 56K Viking modem (requires the type C connector), original hard disk, non-broken door hinge, etc.. It needs to be recapped, though. The screen is getting a bit noisy. I take it out every so often to play AD&D Gold Box games. I'm sure I replaced the CMOS battery at some point but that's about it. It has been very resilient. Of course, the batteries are kaput.

I sold my Lisa 2 fairly recently. It was also fully working, including a 5 MB ProFile. It's funny that I've been fortunate to be able to keep really old hardware working but have also managed to be burned by the biggest tech bombs, like the IBM DeathStar and OCZ Vertex 2.

I even have a Fairchild VES from '76 that runs.

In terms of very low-power CPUs, I made a Hackintosh out of an Atom netbook for a friend and she is still using it happily. I also made a recording machine out of an ECS LIVA for a jazz musician, complete with the external antenna mod. An older guy who is a friend of my mother had my ancient Sempron 3100+ system. I upgraded it to 2 GB of DDR1 so he could run Windows 8.1 on it. He's happy with the machine's performance. Not everyone needs the latest CPU.

In terms of usability, the only very low-power CPUs I would advise to avoid are the AMD E processors which aren't in the market anymore anyway. Fast storage, adequate RAM, and keeping the system malware-free make more of a difference for office/productivity work than the CPU in general.

 

[frozentundra123456]

In the last few years, Intel has pretty much doubled the performance per watt in this class mobile processor. They, and the manufacturers have decided to use the improvement to decrease the tdp instead of increase performance. This allows thinner, lighter laptops, with perhaps longer battery life, but they have also cheaped out and installed smaller batteries, so the improvement is not in proportion to the decreased TDP. Bottom line, the new ULV chips are 15 watt tdp vs 35 watt for the previous laptop chips. So performance is about equal at 1/2 the TDP. Personally, I wish they had used the improvement to increase performance, but "it is what it is".

The i3 chips are adequate for the use you mentioned, but if you want to keep the machine for many years, I would at least try to move up to an i5 and get a "7th generation" Kaby Lake processor. Both i3 and i5 mobile chips are dual core with hyperthreading, but the i5 models have turbo. Kaby Lake has been roundly criticized (probably rightly) for not being a true new generation, but process improvements have brought increased clockspeed and ability to better maintain turbo for mobile. For instance the Haswell i3 5005U has a set 2.0 ghz clock, while the kaby lake i5 7200U has a base of 2.5ghz, a turbo of 3.1, some IPC gain, and a better igp.

 

[SNJ]

7th gen CPUs aren't available in my market yet. The most i can get is a Dell with an i3-6100U

I proabably will get only a 4th gen i5 within my budget, that's why I am looking at i3s