4th gen i5 vs 4th gen i7 for a laptop

[t-doggnite]

Hello everyone,

I am new to these forums, so forgive me if I make mistakes. I am looking to purchase a 17" laptop and am debating on a couple of components for it. My user profile for the laptop will be email/web browsing, some video and photo editing, but not much. Some gaming (i.e. wow or Diablo 3), but not heavy gaming. I will be doing some CAD viewing (no drawing of CAD) and will need to be able to share my desktop with others to review data, etc. Battery life is somewhat important, I would like to have 4hrs or more of battery life.

The system I am debating between in a HP Envy 17" touchscreen and a Toshiba Satellite touchscreen (see links at the bottom of the post for a bit more system info).

My question lies on these points.

- 4th gen i5 or 4th gen i7?

- dedicated vs non-dedicated graphics card

- Intel® Wireless-N 7260, 2x2 BGN + WiDi + Bluetooth 4.0 (300Mbps) vs 802.11b/g/n WLAN [1x1]?

- Should I upgrade the primary drive to an SSD or just leave the traditional spinning drives in there?

- Should I wait a few months and go for the 5th gen I5 or I7 chips?

Thanks in advance for everyone's input and advice!

T-doggnite

My budget is around 1000-1500 out the door.

http/www.toshiba.com/us/computers/laptops/satellite/S70/S70-ABT3N22

http/www.shopping.hp.com/en_US/home-office/-/products/Laptops/HP-ENVY/E2E11AV?HP-ENVY-TouchSmart-17t-j100-Quad-Edition-Notebook-PC-ENERGY-STAR-

 

[kawininjazx]

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I'm pretty sure you can put an MLC format SSD in this laptop.

 

[dasulman]

can i make a suggestion that you get the new asus n550jk? you can get it for $1099 and it'll do everything you want easily

 

[Prostar Computer]

ints.

- 4th gen i5 or 4th gen i7?

- dedicated vs non-dedicated graphics card

- Intel® Wireless-N 7260, 2x2 BGN + WiDi + Bluetooth 4.0 (300Mbps) vs 802.11b/g/n WLAN [1x1]?

- Should I upgrade the primary drive to an SSD or just leave the traditional spinning drives in there?

- Should I wait a few months and go for the 5th gen I5 or I7 chips?

Thanks in advance for everyone's input and advice!

T-doggnite

My budget is around 1000-1500 out the door.

You can get a system equipped with an i7 within your projected budget for within $1500 easily, and I think for all intents and purposes, an i7 will treat you better. In layman's terms, the i7 is like a Camero while the i5 is like a Mazda 6. (Nothing against Mazda, of course.)

Go with dedicated for what you need/want to use the laptop for. There are graphics built into the i5 and i7 processors, but they cannot match most of NVidia's dedicated chips. Since you'll be interested in gaming and video editing, look into laptops with an 850M or higher.

The latter is just the stock card, which are basically reliable but cannot match the performance of the Intel 7260. Of course, you'll only benefit from the Intel 7260 card if you have - or acquire - a router that supports the AC wireless protocol. The card will still work with routers that don't support it, it simply will run at whatever speed and protocol the router will handle.

SSDs are great, but they are costly. For performance and durability, a SSD is recommended. For storage capacity and value, go with a hard drive. If you plan to save a lot of data to the computer, especially videos you've edited and games, then a hard drive will accommodate them more. Or, better yet, if your budget allows both, then you can get a relatively small SSD for Windows and programs, then use a hard drive for personal data.

Intel's new Broadwell chip will only be a shrink in the die and maybe a few minor fixes, but I don't think they will be worth the wait. The scuttlebutt at the moment is that we won't see 5th gen Broadwell chips until sometime early next year, and that's still speculative. A 4th gen processor from Intel will be up to the task.

 

[t-doggnite]

Hey everyone,

Thanks for the input, here is a bit more information or other questions I have.

Here is the router that I use in my home currently - http/www.netgear.com/home/products/networking/wifi-routers/R6300.aspx

If it does not come with a better wifi card, is it something that is easily upgraded or no? Are there any recommendations for cards for the AC + bluetooth upgrade?

Will I see a significant decrease in battery life by going to a dual setup SSD (128GB) + a 1+TB HDD (5400rpm vs 7200rpm - should I go for one over the other?)? Should I look to just purchase 1 large 7200 rpm hdd?

The HP laptop that I am leaning towards has 2GB of GPU memory, so that should be plenty, and with the system I have the ability to disable the GPU when not needed.

For the I7, what processor speed should I shoot for 4700/4800/4900MQ processors, will I really notice any differences in what I am looking to do with the laptop? Will I notice any significant changes in battery life by choosing one of the processors over the other?

I am really would like to keep battery life around 4+ hours with this build.

Thanks in advance again everyone.

T-doggnite

 

[Prostar Computer]

It can be upgraded, but only "easily" if you have experience. This is also relative to where the card is located on the system.

Significant = no. 7200 RPMs will help some in performance, but if the drive is being used purely for data, it's not necessary.

A 4700MQ should suffice. The performance bump the 4800MQ has over the 4700MQ is not very noticeable, although the 4800MQ has a couple of technologies the 4700MQ does not. The 4900MQ will give a noticeable bump in performance due to the extra 2 MB of cache on the CPU. But these are just some general specifics, and again: a 4700MQ should suffice.