Laptop Processors

[Tony_S]

Once upon a time I knew something about computers but my "best by date" is somewhere in the past.

My son is off to university soon and doesn't want to take his desktop PC away with him. For this I am grateful as it is very heavy (fluid cooled gaming thingy). My brother has very generously offered to contribute towards a laptop for Matthew to take to university. One of the options is a Sony laptop identical to the one my wife has that seems very usable. This has an Intel i5 processor and 6gig of RAM. The latest version of the same laptop has an i7 processor with 4gig of RAM but costs £200 more. I would hope that any purchase would be usable during his time at university! As my son has a problem holding pens he has used a fairly robust Samsung netbook for taking notes etc during his time at sixth form college and then uses his desktop at home.

 

So my question is, is it worth paying more for the better processor with less RAM on an otherwise identical machine?

 

Tony

[spamcan61]

Depends what he's going to use it for really, if I was doing gaming or heavy duty video editing or complex 3D CAD modelling then maybe the extra would be worth it, for word processing /web surfing / Facebook / Youtube then just about anything will do the job.

[bennyboy]

As they are difficult to upgrade you should always spend as much as you can afford when you buy a laptop. However I wouldn't buy a Sony one as you are paying a lot for the name. Try a Toshiba as they have a good reputation and won't be quite as expensive.

[skipepsi]

We have been using Toshiba latops for the last seven years at least across the county and you have to drop them down stairs to break them, you can make them overheat using them on a duvet but even the excluded kids had to resort to violence to break them.

[beast66606]

If they aren't running 64bit versions of Windows then the RAM won't be accessed above approx 3GB anyway - although they probably are running W7 64bit, but check.

 

It's impossible to compare without a lot more info - for example the speed of the memory may make the lesser one faster !

[Tony_S]

If they aren't running 64bit versions of Windows then the RAM won't be accessed above approx 3GB anyway - although they probably are running W7 64bit, but check.

 

It's impossible to compare without a lot more info - for example the speed of the memory may make the lesser one faster !

 

They are supplied with the 64 bit version of Windows 7. I'll see if I can find the memory speed from Sony's site. It wasn't on the sticker in PCWorld and assistants were absent even though we would have purchased if we could have got a plausible answer! Using computers at university is rather different compared to my time. We got 20 minutes a week at a terminal for one term to enter our BASIC programs. My son will have a 20Mbit/s connection to his room apparently. We don't even get that at home.

 

Tony

 

 

 

[Adrian]

They are supplied with the 64 bit version of Windows 7. I'll see if I can find the memory speed from Sony's site. It wasn't on the sticker in PCWorld and assistants were absent even though we would have purchased if we could have got a plausible answer! Using computers at university is rather different compared to my time. We got 20 minutes a week at a terminal for one term to enter our BASIC programs. My son will have a 20Mbit/s connection to his room apparently. We don't even get that at home.

 

 

For what it's worth my two penneth worth.

 

Buy the cheaper laptop and spend the money you save on a good external hard drive for backups. Don't bother with any network backups at Uni, he is better off having having his own backup system. Several of the external drives offer a one touch plugin and press the button to backup, you can get 2Tb drives for about £150 these days. It doesn't matter how quick the processor or the system is, if the disk crashes or he accidentally deletes a file then he needs a system to recover the data. Nothing can replace the hours spent on a project so IMHO this should be his top priority.

 

[edit] p.s. forgot to ask - what course is he doing and what software is he likely to be running?

 

Regards

 

Adrian

 

 

[SRman]

For a laptop, I would always go for the fastest processor (CPU) I could get because this is the least upgradeable compnent. RAM and hard disk drives are relatively cheap and easy to install/swap over later.

 

Depending on the intended use for the laptop, you should also look at what graphics card or processor is included - a very fast CPU will still not deal with fancy graphics, video or games if the graphics card is not up to scratch. Also check out the screen resolution available.

[Morphaniel]

I am afraid I have to drop in a note of caution. Your son has a cool gaming machine at home (in both senses of the word!) and therefore he may well be expecting his new laptop to play games to a similar standard. This will probably not be the case for most mainstream laptops.

 

My own gaming requirements these days are fairly limited but I do have a long standing attachment to the lady on the left and to ensure that I can play with her I make sure that I buy a laptop aimed at the gaming fraternity.

 

Currently, my machine of choice is an AlienWare MX11 NetBook. The processor and memory options on this unit are quite adequate for typical computing but the graphics have a dual option that allows you to use battery friendly graphics when using Word or RMWeb and mains powered gaming graphics when blowing away the latest threat to makind. The AlienWare MX11 is a reasonable cost machine when compared to other NetBooks.

 

For the very serious gamer (or for CAD or graphic modelling use etc) then you will need to be looking at the expensive machines in the AlienWare or Rock ranges. I have previously had a Rock gaming laptop and it really was a beast! These things are very expensive though...

 

My own son is about to go off to Uni (new railway room - yippee!) but happily plays his games on an XBox. Serious hardware, pocket money price

 

 

[Tony_S]

I am afraid I have to drop in a note of caution. Your son has a cool gaming machine at home (in both senses of the word!) and therefore he may well be expecting his new laptop to play games to a similar standard. This will probably not be the case for most mainstream laptops.

 

My own gaming requirements these days are fairly limited but I do have a long standing attachment to the lady on the left and to ensure that I can play with her I make sure that I buy a laptop aimed at the gaming fraternity.

 

Currently, my machine of choice is an AlienWare MX11 NetBook. The processor and memory options on this unit are quite adequate for typical computing but the graphics have a dual option that allows you to use battery friendly graphics when using Word or RMWeb and mains powered gaming graphics when blowing away the latest threat to makind. The AlienWare MX11 is a reasonable cost machine when compared to other NetBooks.

 

For the very serious gamer (or for CAD or graphic modelling use etc) then you will need to be looking at the expensive machines in the AlienWare or Rock ranges. I have previously had a Rock gaming laptop and it really was a beast! These things are very expensive though...

 

My own son is about to go off to Uni (new railway room - yippee!) but happily plays his games on an XBox. Serious hardware, pocket money price

 

 

 

My son hasn't hidden the fact that he would like to still be able to play some games so I had thought something more capable than just an Office capable laptop would be required. I've overheard so many parents buying a PC who seem to think it will only ever be used for a bit of wordprocessing. The logical thing to do would be to put his favourite game (whatever that is) on his mother's Sony laptop and see how it runs. However we have been warned off touching that particular machine quite firmly! I have told him that academic institutions may block access to certain online game sites anyway but I'm sure he'll soon find that out anyway. I did suggest that while he was away I could put up one of my small layouts in his room but I think he was worried I might disturb his filing system. He really does file things in heaps but does know where everything is!

 

I'll be reading through everyones suggestions and we'll make Thursday our decision day.

 

Many thanks

Tony

 

 

 

[noiseboy72]

I have a Dell Alienware Mx17r2 at work for video editing and graphics work. It has twin graphics cards, twin hard drives, an I7 processor and 8Gb ram. It is an amazing machine. It also weighs more than my other 3 laptops put together, munches its way through its battery in about 40 minutes and cost more than £2500.

 

For general uni work plus some gaming, I would not buy this machine. It is just too heavy and power hungry. The equivilent non- gaming version without the twin drives and dual graphics cards is over £1000 cheaper and a lot lighter.

 

I have never had an issue with the "Professional" Dell machines. The lower end ones can be a bit problematic, but the studio and xps series are superb.

 

I would go for the i5 processor and more ram. Battery life will be better and you will not see much difference in performance unless you decide to render video or try to compute the meaning of life.

 

I have a Sony Vaio. Great build and totaly stable. No BSOD in 2 years of ownership. I also have an Acer. A few crashes and niggles with drivers for the biometric sensor and web cam. My 3rd machine is my Lenovo Idea Pad Net book. Windows XP, 7 hours battery life and a tiny keyboard. Built very well, designed to take the knocks. The Vaio was £899, but that included a 500GB hard drive, Core 2 extreme processor, 1Gb graphics card and blu-ray re-writer. It has a metal chassis and feels solid and well built. I really did not feel that I paid for the name...

[skipepsi]

To be fair to Becky her course is the art of games design so cgi, 3d computer modelling and art and photo manipulation, an apple laptop would be entirely appropiate as noted earlier but the cost is beyond us and even if she gets a part time job she will struggle to afford one. The truth is she will have to stay late at the uni buildings to use their imacs etc due to the high prices Mr Jobs charges for his boxes.