is it worth it to pay 24gb ssd for my needs?

qwertino

Honorable
Dec 28, 2013
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10,510
im about to buy a laptop. i know im going to buy this asus brand laptop with i5-3317U. no haswell yet for that equivalent model...

im going to use it to do word processing split screen with internet browsing

This asus model im about to buy has 2 options
i5-3317U / mid-end nvidia / 500gb hdd ($750)
and i5-3317U / mid-end nvidia / 750gb hdd + 24gb ssd ($960)

i'd assume the 24gb ssd is an ssd cache.
$200 difference...

is it worth it?
 
You could be experience lag because of not enough RAM. If you have 50 - 60 tabs opens, then I recommend 8GB of RAM.

As for the price difference between the two laptops, there has to be something else that is different between the laptops. 250GB of additional storage and a 24GB SSD cache usually does not increase the cost by $210. I would think at most it would be $100 assuming the 500GB HDD is 5400RPM and the 750GB HDD is 7200RPM.

If those are the only differences, then it is absolutely not worth paying the extra $210.
 
The basic difference between the Core i3 and the Core i5 is Turbo Boost which allows for an automatic overclock above the max standard speed. The actual "overclock" depends on the i5 / i7 CPU model and as long as the CPU is not too hot. It can be from 500MHz to 700MHz and that is assuming only one core is being used; again, depending on the model. If two (or more for the i7) core is used then the max Turbo Boost clockspeed will probably then be 300MHz - 500MHz.

A SSD will improve load / save / boot / shutdown times. It will not improve gaming performance. A HDD with SSD cache is not going to be better than a pure SSD. Generally, I would stick with the i5 since it is easier to replace the HDD with a larger capacity and SSD cache in the future than it would be to upgrade the CPU.