How important is processor speed?

[Grummer]

It's waste money to buy Windows 7 and NOT ALL laptops with UEFI would allows you downgrade to Windows 7 from Windows 8.

Easy? For BIOS yes, For UEFI? No.

yikes, didn't know about this...hmm looks like i need to learn abit about the unified extensible firmware interface...

 

[Grummer]

even the BIOS isnt that easy, its risky for many users too. It just another way of locating a fireware, but with more programability i suppose...and thanks for highlighting this, wow everything is changing, fluidity as a concept is being utilized in society (real world) AND in the digital world (computers and networks)..how fascinating...

 

[Blind7125]

Thanks Blind7125. I could get the computer you mentioned - that's the top of my price range (better if I can go cheaper but I can do it) and I really like the fact that it has a built-in DVD drive. I go through times when I use DVDs alot and I just don't have the space for any more external stuff here. With so many laptops moving away from that it's a significant find.

But I had a bad experience with Lenovo in the past. It was about a year ago, the first time I attempted to replace my current laptop. Out of the box it immediately started crashing. All I was doing on it was watching DVDs (They were ASL footage, so I was pausing and backing up alot when I didn't catch something, not sure if that's what did it, but I need to be able to do that.)

It had an AMD E-450 processor. Do you think if I go to the A6 I can abandon my worries about the brand?

Lenovo's and Asus computers are easily some of the best around (Asus fanboy with a new rig I built) so you must of had a dud. Asus typically offers a kickbutt warranty though because most of their laptops come with 1 year Accidental and 2 years limited.

My wife used 1st Gen of Macbook Air for almost 5 years and no problem with VR and FT but lag on full HD (1080p) for edit video. So Finally updated to new 6th gen of Macbook Air and everything FAST enough for us. It's only 1.3 Ghz i5 Intel to make longer battery life like 9-10 hours and auto changed to 1.8 Ghz when open HD video or VRS/FT/skype. They running pretty QUICK and smooth. Thanks to SSD. Mostly HDD's speed like 100-150 mb/sec and Mostly SSD's speed like 500-700mb/sec. Plus SSD's watts is around 1-5 watts and 2.5" HDD's watts is around 10-20 watts. Low watts = less heat and better battery life.

Don't forget about number of cores. Like Quad cores @ 1.8 Ghz is FASTER than dual cores @ 2.4Ghz. Also Dual cores @ 2.4Ghz is FASTER than single core @ 3.8 Ghz. Not just processor speed.

True and False. A single threaded cpu with destroy a dual or even quad core cpu in single threaded applications. The application has to support multi-threading to even see a benefit from more cores or threads. The clearest example of this is throwing an i3 in skyrim (which is only dual-threaded) and comparing the performance to similarly clocked i7 because there won't be a tangible difference. Also, Macs run a butchered version of FreeBSD which is tons better at stock due to it not leaving programs cached in the back like Mac OSX (that runs your battery down the more programs you open.)

It's waste money to buy Windows 7 and NOT ALL laptops with UEFI would allows you downgrade to Windows 7 from Windows 8.

Easy? For BIOS yes, For UEFI? No.

Nearly all laptops have Legacy boot when you disable secure boot. This mode enables booting from non-UEFI devices (this legacy feature won't go away for a while since cd drives and most usb drives don't support UEFI yet.)


*Before I switched to sign interpreting I was a major in computer science for years.*

 

[The Highlander]

True and False. A single threaded cpu with destroy a dual or even quad core cpu in single threaded applications. The application has to support multi-threading to even see a benefit from more cores or threads. The clearest example of this is throwing an i3 in skyrim (which is only dual-threaded) and comparing the performance to similarly clocked i7 because there won't be a tangible difference. Also, Macs run a butchered version of FreeBSD which is tons better at stock due to it not leaving programs cached in the back like Mac OSX (that runs your battery down the more programs you open.)

She is not interesting on game like skyrim. That's right, the number of processor cores performance do not matter for SOME games but it's DOES matter for edit video as vblog, speech, etc. I already explained about HD edit video and I never said anything about games at all.

http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/cpu-charts-2013/compare,3175.html?prod[5754]=on&prod[5775]=on

You see i7 @ 3.3 Ghz beat i3 @ 3.3 Ghz for edit video, Crysis II (few games do matter), photoshop, etc.

osx - How does disabling a core affect running processes? - Stack Overflow

You will see why dual cores is better than single core for OSX.

Again, Her old 1st Gen Macbook Air got battery life last around 3-4 hours when she use edit video and other programs as safari, email, and other. Then 5th gen of macbook Air got battery life last around 6 hours.

I play around with DOS, Windows and MacOS since 1987 then finally learned some Linux since 1998. I built first computer when I was around 14 years old. If you want best games? Get Windows 7, If you want best edit video and battery life? Get OSX, If you want best server, Get a Linux. It's all depend what you NEEDs.

 

[Grummer]

I play around with DOS, Windows and MacOS since 1987 then finally learned some Linux since 1998. I built first computer when I was around 14 years old. If you want best games? Get Windows 7, If you want best edit video and battery life? Get OSX, If you want best server, Get a Linux. It's all depend what you NEEDs.

I agree with that

 

[Blind7125]

She is not interesting on game like skyrim. That's right, the number of processor cores performance do not matter for SOME games but it's DOES matter for edit video as vblog, speech, etc. I already explained about HD edit video and I never said anything about games at all.

Compare Core i7 3770K Quad Core Processor (3.5 GHz, 8 MB L3 Cache, 1 MB L2 Cache, Socket H2 LGA-1155), Intel Core i3-530 (Clarkdale 2c/4t)

You see i7 @ 3.3 Ghz beat i3 @ 3.3 Ghz for edit video, Crysis II (few games do matter), photoshop, etc.

osx - How does disabling a core affect running processes? - Stack Overflow

You will see why dual cores is better than single core for OSX.

Again, Her old 1st Gen Macbook Air got battery life last around 3-4 hours when she use edit video and other programs as safari, email, and other. Then 5th gen of macbook Air got battery life last around 6 hours.

I play around with DOS, Windows and MacOS since 1987 then finally learned some Linux since 1998. I built first computer when I was around 14 years old. If you want best games? Get Windows 7, If you want best edit video and battery life? Get OSX, If you want best server, Get a Linux. It's all depend what you NEEDs.

Again, true and false. With an APU I would never touch cpu rendering since OpenCL is so much faster. GPU > CPU for rendering. With Windows and Linux video/image editing on par with MacOSX there is only a single reason left to get a mac and that is for extreme audio editing since unfortunately the mac only Pro Tools is not available anywhere else.

Edit: My skyrim example was more of an everyday usage case benchmark.

 

[shimo]

I don't know if someone has already mentioned this, but on laptops, sometimes the GPU relies on the CPU and onboard RAM to provide some or all of the graphical processing power.

If you want nice fluid videos, a nice webcam (be prepared to drop around $100 for a really nice HD one) is important, but having that fast processor is important too. Slower processors cannot handle HD.

Personally I would buy the laptop with the highest processing speed at the budget I have, because RAM and hard drive space can be upgraded later, while CPU cannot be upgraded.