Old or new generation

[OD01]

Hi everyone,

I have a question about a notebook that came out in the summer of 2012: an ASUS N56VZ-S4035V-NL. If you want to get specs in english you'll probably have to lose the NL at the end.
I have a budget of max 700 euro's. That's around 900 dollars or 550 pounds, but you can't really compare these because you can get way better hardware in the us for 900 dollars than you can in europe for 700 euro'sor 550 pounds.
The best model I could find in my price range was an HP Pavillion 15-p035nd (699 euro).
A friend of mine won an ASUS N56VZ-S4035V in an auction about 1.5 years ago and has been holding on to it ever since. Never even opened the box, so its brand new, never used. He said I could have it for 550 euros.

My question for you is: If you compare these 2 notebooks, which on comes out on top?

I've done a little research myself, but I'm not an expert in this field. This is what I came up with so far:
cpu: Asus i7 3610QM 4-core beats the HP i5-4210U 2-core even though its from a previous generation processors.
gpu: The performance of Asus's Gt 650m is about the same as the 840M thats in the HP.
Both screens are 1920 x 1080.
Both notebooks have 8gb ram
I don't know how the SSHD 5200rpm compares to the 7200rpm Hdd .
The Asus runs on windows 7 home premium, while the Hp runs on windows 8.1
That is pretty much what I know. Even though the Asus is 2 years old, it still seems pretty good to me, and for 150 euro's less than the newer HP model I think its worth considering. What do you think?

Thanks in advance!

 

[velo3100]

I would go for the asus as it has more power. It will benefit you in the long run

 

[Guest]

"cpu: Asus i7 3610QM 4-core beats the HP i5-4210U 2-core even though its from a previous generation processors."

i7 is newer than i5, what made you think i5 was newer? Anyway, the i7 has higher clock speed/frequency and double the cores.

"gpu: The performance of Asus's Gt 650m is about the same as the 840M thats in the HP."
Yes, it's almost the same perfomance-wise but the 840m should have way better battery-life

"I don't know how the SSHD 5200rpm compares to the 7200rpm Hdd ."
HDD at 7200rpm means that it will have made 7200 revolutions in a minute, or 7200rpm*1hz/60rpm (1hz equals 2pirad/s, and 2pirad/s are 1 spin as perimeter = 2piradio and 2piradiorad/radio = 2pirad ; sorry if the formulas look confusing on screen). I believe it is measured in revolutions per minute as it sounds higher. 5200rpm applies the same logic but this time it will spin 5200 times per minute. HDD is a mechanical Hard Drive and SSHD is a Solid State Hybrid Drive, if your OS is installed in your SSHD it will boot faster than if it was in an HDD, Load times will be faster if the file in question's size is lower than the cache on the SSHD, otherwise it will run at HDD's native speed. If it's worth it or not may depend on your budget but don't expect to have higher framerates or something, it will just load faster. Do you happen to know what's the SSD cache in that SSHD? It should be pretty long, maybe about 8GB?

In conclusion I can tell you the HP option will have better battery-life and will have faster load times for not so huge files and definitely better boot times. The Asus option will have worse battery-life and have slower load times for not so huge files but will have faster loading times for files larger than the SSHD's cache. The Asus's processor is better but I can't tell if HP's CPU is a bottleneck or if it's enough

it's a pretty tough decision, huh? There's also the factor of new/used product and although he said he hasn't even opened the Asus's box there must be a reason for his behaviour, or atleast that's what psychologists tend to believe, and there's also the fact that it was sold through an auction. You are ATLEAST the third owner

 

[OD01]

Thanks for the tips!

Velo3100: I think I'll choose the asus, thanks.

Buenopure4:
"i7 is newer than i5, what made you think i5 was newer? Anyway, the i7 has higher clock speed/frequency and double the cores."
Either I am confused or you are http/ark.intel.com/compare/64899,81016 Launch date of the i5 is Q2 "14 and of the i7: Q2 "12.

About the battery time, I need 3 hours max on the battery so I hope the 650 will be good enough. The SSHD indeed has 8GB cache. I think the 7200 has better writing/reading times, but I'm not sure. Would it be a good idea to swap the 7200Hdd for a 500gb SSD? How much difference would you think that will make?

My friend is a bit weird, he roams the internet for cheap deals on things he doesn't need. I can thrust him if he says he didnt open it and he bought it at an official asus dealer webshop that auctions new products once in a while as advertisement. But thanks for the heads up!