Do I really need a fast processor?

[stevensfo]

I'm starting to think about a new laptop, after getting fed up with my very old netbook and various tablets. Will probably go for a 14" since I like traveling light but 10" was getting silly. It will be used mainly for documents and internet, with possibly photo software. 256 GB SSD and 8GB RAM will be more than enough.

I've noticed that similar models often come with i3, i5 or i7 processors and the price difference is huge. My computer savvy son laughed and said not to bother with anything less than i7, but then he's a gamer whereas I can't stand most computer games - apart from the occasional nostalgic replay of the incredibly old Duke Nukem.

So would you notice a significant difference between i3 and i7 if only using it for docs and internet?

Steve

[Howyoudoin]

So would you notice a significant difference between i3 and i7 if only using it for docs and internet?

Nope.

You won't notice any difference when playing Duke Nukem either.

HYD

[ReformedCharacter]

So would you notice a significant difference between i3 and i7 if only using it for docs and internet?

Steve

Yes, probably you would. Whether that would justify the expense is another matter - you could always plump for the i5 as a middle road. Of course there's no such thing as 'only docs and internet' really because Windows is doing a whole load of other things in the background and they will probably be the things that actually slow the machine down. Even the fastest machine will be slowed down by background tasks such as antivirus software, the fact that you may have Skype\iTunes\Adobe\MS Office components and the installation of Chrome that you accidentally installed because you were careless when installing something else, etc. all loaded at start-up and running in the background. That probably makes as much difference to the perceived performance of the machine than the actual processor speed.

RC

[Infrasonic]

I agree with RC, having had low powered and decent spec CPU machines I'd always plump for the latter from now on, just buy them on steep discount to lower the financial pain.
Even 'just internet' these days is taxing CPU's/RAM , hence why older machines sometimes struggle to even do that once you get beyond a few open tabs.

I have a quad core i5 (4460) desktop and I can get that to throttle in the normal course of events during a standard day, no fancy games or graphics packages anywhere in sight.

The analogy would be doing 100mph on the autobahn in a small underpowered hatchback that is at its limit versus a medium sized saloon that has plenty left to go.

[Howyoudoin]

I agree with RC, having had low powered and decent spec CPU machines I'd always plump for the latter from now on, just buy them on steep discount to lower the financial pain.
Even 'just internet' these days is taxing CPU's/RAM , hence why older machines sometimes struggle to even do that once you get beyond a few open tabs.

I have a quad core i5 (4460) desktop and I can get that to throttle in the normal course of events during a standard day, no fancy games or graphics packages anywhere in sight.

The analogy would be doing 100mph on the autobahn in a small underpowered hatchback that is at its limit versus a medium sized saloon that has plenty left to go.

I don't have any of these problems and my machine is a 7 year old Acer Aspire 5750 with single core i3 processor. The only change I've made to it is upgrade from 4GB of RAM to 8GB.

All I use it for is internet (inc films and streaming), Word and Excel. If I click on a weblink or document, it opens straight away. Not sure how a newer machine would do better than that. If you're the sort of person though that likes to keep a dozen tabs open at once, all doing different things, it would make sense to get a more powerful machine.

HYD

[Breelander]

It will be used mainly for documents and internet, with possibly photo software. 256 GB SSD and 8GB RAM will be more than enough....

The bit I underlined could potentially be the most demanding task, particularly if using software like Photoshop or Paintshop Pro. Not so much for processor power, but more for the memory. If you are doing serious amounts of image processing, particularly if you use RAW images, then I'd go for 16GB rather than 8GB.

I have a number of laptops, generally older machines, so I'm probably not best placed to recommend a processor. What I can say is that Windows 10 makes good use of multiple cores - the more the better. My lowest spec machine is a humble Intel Atom powered netbook, but with two physical and four logical cores it runs W10 1809 well enough for web browsing (it's my 'holiday take-away' machine). My top spec is an i7, on that I can run Hyper-V virtual machines under W10 Pro.

A lot of the background processes can be turned off in the Privacy section of Settings, which can help improve apparent performance.

This may help you make up your mind:

"Intel Core i3 vs. i5 vs. i7: Which One Do You Really Need?"
https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/intel-cor ... ally-need/

[Infrasonic]

The other thing to add is that a modern CPU (less than 2 years old say) is going to be a lot more powerful than an older one.
So a recent i3 would trounce my 4th gen i5 for example.
Some of the recent laptop chips are now quad core, whereas previously they maxed out at two.

An i3/8GB RAM/SSD boot drive machine is going to handle 99% of the stuff you can throw at it without issue (unless you are a power user...).
How much future proofing and overall system headroom you want is subjective and largely a financial decision for most.

[stewamax]

A faster processor will - other things being equal - reduce battery life (time between recharges).
If you go for a 14 inch screen, make sure it is full HD (1920 x 1080) and not 1280 x 720 ('HD')

[Howard]

In my experience you don't need an expensive machine.

Six years ago I bought a Medion E4057 desktop PC from Asda for £349. For the type of use the OP describes it is lightning fast.

Using Chrome and Windows 10. It will open a "fast" internet site like the BBC or Google Finance so quickly (I'm guessing a quarter of a second) that I couldn't time it. Some websites are slightly slower to open because I guess they use slower servers? And it opens an Excel spreadsheet or Word document even faster than the eye can blink!

I think it has a quad core AMD chip - it is an A10-5700.

For fun, I added an SSD about a year ago to see if it would speed up the boot up - which takes about 30 seconds, but it isn't much faster than the original hard drive.

I have used friends' expensive newer machines which are much slower. Possibly because their virus protection drags the speed down? And my wife's Ipad is glacially slow at surfing the internet.

I know we are discussing laptops rather than desktops so it may be relevant to mention the only faster machine I have experienced is my very good value Acer Chromebook which does everything at warp speed. I occasionally use it to view a Prime video linked to a Samsung TV. The Chromebook doesn't have an HD screen but the picture on the TV is perfect.

So I would be wary of paying a high price for a fancy chip unless you are a gamer. In which case you will know a lot more than me.

regards

Howard

[stevensfo]

Thanks for all the advice. I think I'll just go for a newish i5 then. The comments about stuff running in the background are spot on. I had terrible problems with my old netbook and one day spent hours going through the settings, using CCleaner and Firefox to eliminate or turn off as much as possible. There was a dramatic improvement in boot-up time and speed overall. The problem is that I have no idea what half the things are so am not sure if I should turn them off or not.

I've always used Avast A/V which seems okay. Many years ago, I had Panda on our old desktop and it became ridiculous, slowing the PC down for hours.

Steve

[Infrasonic]

Things that will speed a Windows 10 PC up...

Use the built in AV, Windows Defender rather than third party. It's perfectly up to the job and does as well as all the others in impartial tests.

In Task Manager/Startup order the startup column to show high usage apps first. Right click on them and disable if you don't need them to start up immediately. You won't break anything (fully reversible), just stop it swamping start up (boot).

Use metered connection as this will prevent many of the MS start up apps from trying to connect to the internet and again speeds up boot.
Also has the added bonus of giving you manual control over when you download and update Windows Updates, so no machine being tied up for ages just as you wanted to do something urgent immediately after boot...

[scotia]

I'm coming to this a bit on the late side, since you seem to be heading for an expensive I5. However I strongly support the contributors who maintain that you will never notice any significant difference in moving up from an I3. I have developed software for several major companies over many years, and I have never found the need for any processor more powerful than an I3. The only task I came across which would have required a more powerful processor was when developing Android software, and requiring to run an Android Emulator on the PC. However I got round this limitation by simply attaching a real Android device to the (I3) PC - and this was probably a more thorough test set-up than using an emulator.
I would also have suggested that you should use the cash saved on an I3 by purchasing a large stand-alone monitor. Then, back at base, you would have a dual screen setup which I think you would find extremely useful. A wireless keyboard and mouse (not expensive) would also make for a more usable "back at base" setup.

[ten0rman]

Ok, I'll just stick in my 2 pennorth.

I am currently using an 11 year old Toshiba laptop with a Celeron M 530 @ 1.6 GHz.
My backup machine is another old Toshiba laptop, this time with a Pentium Dual CPU, T2380 @ 1.8GHz
I have another ancient Advent laptop with a Centrino Duo T5250 @ 1.5GHz which I use as a portable machine.

All three machines are generally satisfactory for my needs - internet browsing, emails, letters, a small amount of personal CAD work. Where they do seem to fall down is that I have a DOS based database which runs via DOSemu under Linux Mint. Here, searching 27K records can take a few seconds.

I think one other thing that should be considered is what can one individual do satisfactorily? In other words, most of us can only single task properly, and whilst it is handy having a number of programs open simultaneously, the average human being can only really use one program at once.

I fully expect now to get chewed up, and spat out, but I really do think that often, we want the fastest machine when we don't actually need it. After all, what did we do 50 years ago?

Tootle pip,

ten0rman

[James]

Ok, I'll just stick in my 2 pennorth.

... Here, searching 27K records can take a few seconds....

...I fully expect now to get chewed up, and spat out, but I really do think that often, we want the fastest machine when we don't actually need it. After all, what did we do 50 years ago?

Tootle pip,

ten0rman

We used manual adding machines and index cards. 27k index cards is a very big pile of index cards.

[ten0rman]

James,
In fact, I wouldn't have had a database, full stop. So in reality, I'm using modern technology to provide something I don't really need, and is only of use to me. Adding machines? What were they? Those strange machines usually operated by attractive young ladies in offices? (Just for the record, 50 years ago I was a single young man so any young lady was attractive!) Index cards? Are those those A5 sized things found in circular filing systems or large wooden trays?

FWIW, the database concerned contains a set of more or less accurate records of expenditure from 1993 onwards, together with entries from old bank books and anything else from 1965 to 1993. Obviously these earlier entries are somewhat lacking in detail, eg 01 Apr 70 Cheque No. 1234, debit £9999, which as you will realise doesn't tell you anything. Fortunately, large amounts can usually be sorted out some other way, so a figure of, say, £345 in 1967 was probably for my Morris 1000 Traveller.
The main reason for the database now, is that it enables me to get rid of paper records, and it acts to some extent as a historical record of events, eg where did we go in 2000 for our holiday? A quick look and I can tell from where the money was spent where we were.

Regards,

ten0rman

[BobGe]

In my experience you don't need an expensive machine.

But surely worthwhile to get an 'expensive' machine at a nice price, I would have thought?

[JonE]

Adding machines? What were they? Those strange machines usually operated by attractive young ladies in offices?

Those were probably comptometers - a class above the humble adding machine and not readily operated by mere mortals.

The adding machines I was using 50 years ago were made by Addo and featured a manual crank on the side of the plastic-shrouded body which printed the input value on the tally roll or, if you'd pressed the sub-total or grand-total keys, performed the requested function and printed the result (£sd only). Couldn't find an image of the exact model but this is a very, very similar bit of kit:
http://www.johnwolff.id.au/calculators/ ... anual5.jpg

Around the time of decimalisation those machines were replaced in the office where I worked with Olivetti electric adding machines that could be switched between decimal and £.s.d. No manual crank and, in practice, slower in operation as an experienced operator could hand-crank faster than the electrically-powered machine could print (though enthusiastic cranking could cause the machine to wander across the desk). At the same time a Singer-Friden desk computer was introduced to the office (that's 'desk computer' and not 'desktop computer') with built-in Flexowriter and paper-tape punch/reader.

Mechanical aids for simple arithmetic weren't an essential tool (unless the tally roll was required for verification/evidence). My colleagues and I would often not bother and just cast a short/medium column of figures mentally 'cos it was quicker - with one guy casting all three columns (£sd) simultaneously!!

Cheers!

[Howard]

In my experience you don't need an expensive machine.

But surely worthwhile to get an 'expensive' machine at a nice price, I would have thought?

Yes, as you will see from my post, that's what I purchased. It gives a quality performance and is far faster than my wife's Ipad and friends' computers for all the tasks I need. As others have said, it's pointless to pay a premium for a processor whose performance you won't use.

Scotia's advice above is very sensible. If you have the space, having saved on not buying an over-specified laptop, it's worth buying a large, quality monitor and a separate keyboard and mouse. As long as your reasonably priced computer works at lightning speed for the tasks you perform, the real interface with the user is the screen.

regards

Howard

[James]

Adding machines? What were they? Those strange machines usually operated by attractive young ladies in offices?

The adding machines I was using 50 years ago were made by Addo and featured a manual crank on the side of the plastic-shrouded body which printed the input value on the tally roll or, if you'd pressed the sub-total or grand-total keys, performed the requested function and printed the result (£sd only). Couldn't find an image of the exact model but this is a very, very similar bit of kit:
http://www.johnwolff.id.au/calculators/ ... anual5.jpg

Cheers!

We had the simpler home version; something not dissimilar to one of these.

https://www.retrothing.com/2007/06/mechanical-adde.html

[ten0rman]

http://www.johnwolff.id.au/calculators/ ... anual5.jpg

These were indeed the things I remember. never used one though.

Not sure about compometers though, unless they were the things I saw being used in computer centres, not that I saw many old computer centres.

Look, come on, please stop me reminiscing about days gone by!

ten0rman