Inexpensive daily use, laptop selection

[John P. Myers]

It would be quite difficult to get anyone around here to vote for a Dell. From my personal experience when i used to repair computers for a living, Dell laptops are prone to having the LCD screen backlight burn out prematurely. A very labor-intensive fix.

[denim]

It would be quite difficult to get anyone around here to vote for a Dell. From my personal experience when i used to repair computers for a living, Dell laptops are prone to having the LCD screen backlight burn out prematurely. A very labor-intensive fix.

Thanks for the heads up. The two I had used in the past, work machines, had no issues that I can recall.

[zombie67]

Thanks guys. I will look back at the ASUS and probably pull the trigger here in a day or so. Surprised no votes for the little Dell's.

I like the specs for the Asus. The only downside is the graphics. Intel HD Graphics 3000....probably not able to crunch even in the future as projects add intel apps.

[denim]

I like the specs for the Asus. The only downside is the graphics. Intel HD Graphics 3000....probably not able to crunch even in the future as projects add intel apps.

Well crap, that's not good. Don't want to order something that will be GPU WU obsolete for our efforts.


Will the HD Graphics 4000 be enough?

[DrPop]

Yeah, that's just it Denim. I don't know if you can upgrade the GPU in any of those Intel laptops or not? The other trade off with AMD is that their built-in GPU is better, but the CPU is not nearly as powerful as Intel's i5 or i7, so I don't know what to think?

It seems kind of like either you buy better CPU power or better GPU power - and to get high performance in both is going to be costly.

Another way to look at it, is what can you do with your desktop better? For example, if you could eventually (down the road) get a strong GPU in your desktop rig, then I would be more apt to go for a better CPU in your laptop. All else being equal, you could get a lot more credits crunching with a desktop GPU than a laptop GPU because of the power and heat limitations on the laptop.

[denim]

Yeah, that's just it Denim. I don't know if you can upgrade the GPU in any of those Intel laptops or not? The other trade off with AMD is that their built-in GPU is better, but the CPU is not nearly as powerful as Intel's i5 or i7, so I don't know what to think?

It seems kind of like either you buy better CPU power or better GPU power - and to get high performance in both is going to be costly.

Another way to look at it, is what can you do with your desktop better? For example, if you could eventually (down the road) get a strong GPU in your desktop rig, then I would be more apt to go for a better CPU in your laptop. All else being equal, you could get a lot more credits crunching with a desktop GPU than a laptop GPU because of the power and heat limitations on the laptop.

Well said. I will pull the trigger on the one with good CPU and a usable GPU.

Thank you.

[denim]

Ok, one more.... (I feel like I have asked way too much on POV for an inexpensive lappy, but I am so hell bent on finding the best cruncher with in the budget)

With the lack of GPU work for Intel HD Graphics 3000, I think I am going to pass on the great ASUS refurbs from Newegg, despite them having an i7 (but only a dual-core i7 BTW). Skipping the Dell's due to screen issues from the experts. So with the suggestion of wanting at least 8GB of RAM, and coming to my senses on realizing I could order a lappy with less then 8 and buy a second stick, my options opened back up. Which gave the possibility to spend less on RAM that comes with the machine, and budget more towards CPU and possibly a GPU that can do some work.

So I found a couple options that I could buy a second stick of RAM and have 8GB+ of RAM, a decently fast CPU, and a GPU that is stronger then the Intel HD 4000.


Thoughts on these guys or ones close to them? I will order tonight:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16834216458

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16834256721

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16834216467

[DrPop]

EDIT: Denim, please see my post below, I deleted all the behind the scenes deliberation post for you.

[DrPop]

EDIT: After looking at benchmarks for a while, this is the best bang for $499, the A10 ...
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16834256941

Here is a second, smaller model with the A10 CPU/7660G GPU combo - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16834256880 - it is $50 more ... but if you don't want the big screen, then here's a small one.

It's a quad core, at 2.3GHz w/ 3.2GHz turbo; and has the better 7660G graphics. That has 384 shaders. 381 GFLOPS, Open CL 1.2 (so it can crunch), OpenGL 4.1 and DirectX 11.1 (gaming) w/ shader model 5.0.
Compare this to the Intel HD 4000, which is somewhere around 83 GFLOPS. In OpenCL computing it will roughly double the output of the HD 4000.

Now, the 4 CPU cores are still not going to be quite as powerful as a nice i5 with HyperThreading, but they should get close, and the GPU should crunch about 2x as fast as the best Intel GPU.

Last edit: The absolute best CPU you're going to get for $500-ish in a laptop is the Intel Core i5-3210M. The price is directly comparable to the AMD A10-4600M units I listed above. The trade off with going Intel at this price point is certainly faster CPU cores, with the sacrifice of roughly half the GPU OpenCL crunching power.
A link to a good candidate is here: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16834230927

I guess in the end only you can decide if you want better CPU cores or better GPU, because that's the trade off at this price point.

Hope that helps, I'm done.

[denim]

EDIT: After looking at benchmarks for a while, this is the best bang for $499, the A10 ...
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16834256941

Here is a second, smaller model with the A10 CPU/7660G GPU combo - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16834256880 - it is $50 more ... but if you don't want the big screen, then here's a small one.

It's a quad core, at 2.3GHz w/ 3.2GHz turbo; and has the better 7660G graphics. That has 384 shaders. 381 GFLOPS, Open CL 1.2 (so it can crunch), OpenGL 4.1 and DirectX 11.1 (gaming) w/ shader model 5.0.
Compare this to the Intel HD 4000, which is somewhere around 83 GFLOPS. In OpenCL computing it will roughly double the output of the HD 4000.

Now, the 4 CPU cores are still not going to be quite as powerful as a nice i5 with HyperThreading, but they should get close, and the GPU should crunch about 2x as fast as the best Intel GPU.

Last edit: The absolute best CPU you're going to get for $500-ish in a laptop is the Intel Core i5-3210M. The price is directly comparable to the AMD A10-4600M units I listed above. The trade off with going Intel at this price point is certainly faster CPU cores, with the sacrifice of roughly half the GPU OpenCL crunching power.
A link to a good candidate is here: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16834230927

I guess in the end only you can decide if you want better CPU cores or better GPU, because that's the trade off at this price point.

Hope that helps, I'm done.

Wow, holy crap. I feel like I owe a consulting fee now. That is some excellent info. Not sure how, but I missed or passed over both of those models. I will really take a peak tonight. Thank you!!!!