how much does clock speed matter (comparing Ci5 1.7ghz and Ci5 2.5ghz)? Help choose between two laptops

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KhurramSyed

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Hi Guys.. firstly I apologise that my first post in this forum is a question, but frankly i'm sort of a noob in this field so I wasn't quite able to answer or contribute to any other question on this forum.

Now to my question, I did search for this question here but the results didn't quite answer what I was looking for. I was going over laptops and got stuck between two choices (similarly priced) HP PAVILION SLEEKBOOK 15-B002EE and DELL INSPIRON 5520. The Inspiron is CORE i5 2.5GHZ MAX TURBO FREQ. UP TO 3.1GHZ and the Sleekbook is CORE i5 1.7GHZ MAX TURBO FREQ UP TO 2.6GHZ. Now I wonder, if both of them are Ci5, but one is 1.7ghz and the other 2.5ghz, how much performance difference could I expect between the two?

My confusion arose when the Sleekbook had to offer a 2gb dedicated graphic card and inspiron offered just 1gb and the sleekbook was 'slightly' cheaper than the inspiron. I've been getting recommendations that clock speed doesn't matter and I should get the sleekbook as its good for the price and graphic card is better than what inspiron offers. Not really having much technical knowledge, I'm kinda confused here.

To brief you all about my need, I mostly use my laptop for work (excel files, some basic imaging softwares like Photoshop, video editing softwares like Sony Vegas and Audio editing softwares like Cubase etc). My computer usually lets me down cause I tend to multitask and open a lot of files, softwares and browser tabs together. Also that I'd like to have a laptop good enough to be used for gaming as well, not that heavy gaming maybe, but somewhat decent. To give you an idea of my price range, here are the two laptops I got to shortlist:
http://www.galaxy.com.pk/hp-sleekbook-15-B002EE-core-i5-windows8-graphic-card.html
http://galaxy.com.pk/dell-inspiron-n5520-core-i5-4gb-750gb-grey.html (the one with 500Gb hard disk is bit cheaper, almost as much as the sleekbook).

I really do hope I'm able to get some help on this, I appreciate your time and consideration!

Thanks !
 
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to be honest, i am a desktop guy, i dont like laptops since cannot upgrade them (eexcept for ram and hdd). so i dont really know which brand is durable or better. but in the past i heard that HP are not good in terms of durability. while asus is famous for gamers.
if desktop is not an option then i can only help you in specs :)

.8ghz is actually pretty big, all other things being equal. as an example, i own a i5 2500k which is an unlocked processor (you can overclock it), default is i think 3.1ghz? or 3.3, i forgot. now i am at 4ghz (overclocked) and it did wonders to my gaming, of course i have a good gpu too, a 670 (680 was the fastest)
in your line of work, number of cores matter as well as clock speed (games tend to use only 4...

Cons29

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a few things, 1gb vs 2gb, 2gb is significant if the game has heavy textures or if you use high resolution in-game. if the gpu is slow, even if they give it 8gb of video ram it wont matter as it is still slow.
i would take a good gpu with 1gb over a slow 2gb gpu.
and a 630m is slow, 7670m is better. GPU ram is not that important compared to other things which i wont mention to keep things simple for you.

now clock speed, all things equal, higher clock is better. unless one is quad and the other has 2 cores.
 

KhurramSyed

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Hi, thanks for the reply. so basically you're saying the 2gb GPU ram in HP is no good, because Dell's GPU is better and it'll offer a better performance graphically? And thus I should expect less 'hanging' or 'lagging' problems in Dell as compared to HP .. ?
so in a nutshell, you're saying I should go for dell over hp right ? (in this case at least)



So since they both are core i5, it does matter that there's a difference of 0.8 ghz between the two .. i mean considerably? I've been told that apparently i am 'clueless' to talk about clock speeds in today's technology (i.e. ci3, ci5, ci7) and that they're more or less the same thing.

Generally speaking: What would you recommend as far as brands are concerned... Dell's better than HP, in terms of reliability and performance? As I hear HP is only good till its warranty lasts, and that they aren't capable of handling the workload (multitasking thing i mentioned in my initial post) as much as dell, they hang often.?

Lastly, what's your take on Samsung and Lenovo ? They're on sale in UK, i heard ci7 lenovo for 1TB is available for around 400 GBP, which is more or less 40 GBP more than these two options (dell and hp) i'm pondering upon currently. What would you suggest? or is there any other brand and model you could suggest me ?

Thanks again.
 

Cons29

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Feb 10, 2010
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to be honest, i am a desktop guy, i dont like laptops since cannot upgrade them (eexcept for ram and hdd). so i dont really know which brand is durable or better. but in the past i heard that HP are not good in terms of durability. while asus is famous for gamers.
if desktop is not an option then i can only help you in specs :)

.8ghz is actually pretty big, all other things being equal. as an example, i own a i5 2500k which is an unlocked processor (you can overclock it), default is i think 3.1ghz? or 3.3, i forgot. now i am at 4ghz (overclocked) and it did wonders to my gaming, of course i have a good gpu too, a 670 (680 was the fastest)
in your line of work, number of cores matter as well as clock speed (games tend to use only 4 cores)
in terms of games, just dont expect much from both of them though the 1gb model is a bit faster. unless you resolution is higher than 1080 then go with the 1gb model.

please pick a solution if it solved your problem. thanks
 
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KhurramSyed

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Jul 8, 2013
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Hi.. I'm still indecisive though, was hoping to get few more opinions on these two laptops... but well just one last thing, how do I find out how many cores the laptop has, when making a choice ?
 
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