Can anyone help me please What is the difference please and if someone buying a new laptop should choose a better processor or one with more memory ??
Thanks
Nick is right. What the lad wants to do with the machine is the deciding factor.
If modern games are the order of the day then a strong graphics card is a must. 4gb of ram and a faster dual core CPU (i3) will be fine.
I am a multi-tasking whore and use a laptop with an Intel Core i7 720QM with a Passmark CPU Mark of 3291.
While this score is beaten by some i3's and many i5 CPU's for sheer power, the ability of this CPU to multi-task is excellent.
While gaming, the CPU is just ticking over and the graphics card is going like the clappers and pegged at 100%
While rendering video the CPU is at 100% (that's when you find out just how loud the fans can be) and the graphics card is idle.
It all depends what you want to do.
Elaine, if your friend were to join us on here, and post the makes of laptops she/he is considering, I'll be more than happy to cast an eye over them and make suggestions for the workload you have described.
I hate stores like PC world misleading customers into buying whatever they have to push out of the stock room more than most, and like helping people get a good deal.
hth
Nick
Wow, not an easy question to answer Elaine , as Carl's processor breakdown shows, there are many i3's and i5's, so you really have to compare apples with apples.
Lots of memory is always a good idea, and the more you can afford the better. However the biggest bang for you buck today is to get an SSD disk drive, which really boost's performance in all cases.
All I can say if I were buying a laptop today, I would go for one with a second generation i5 processor or above, but always check exactly which one is in the case.
As with all things in life , the more you pay , the better the product, normally. I have a Dell E6410 with an i5 processor and a Lenovo X201 with supposedly the same processor, but there is no comparison in performance, the Lenovo leaves the Dell for dead. Machines like Apple and Lenovo just use better parts than the 399 euro laptops you can get anywhere.
I have to say though, what do you want the machine to do? If it is browsing the web, writing the odd document and playing the odd game, then most, if not all laptops will do that for you.
Regards
Nick
Hi all. Sorry to be a party pooper but Philips reply is not quite right.
An i5 processor has 2 or 4 cores depending on the model you have and some of the i5's have a really low performance to save energy.
In simple terms the Passmark CPU Mark is the power of the CPU. (Higher is better.)
As you can see there are i3 CPU's with far more grunt than some of the low-end/low price i5's
Hi Elaine - The i5 is quad core, the i3 isn't. The i5 has turbo boost, the i3 doesn't. The i3 has hyper-threading, while i5 doesn't. Overall, the additional cores and the turbo boost feature on the i5 makes it a much quicker processor for almost every use. Its all about speed, for most purposes you wouldnt notice the difference, unless you were playing the latest games or editing large video files that sort of thing - I hope this helps
Regards Phil