Understanding Geekbench results for comparing laptops.

[pne]

Hi guys, I am looking for a new laptop primarily because I want to edit 4k video shot from my gopro and S7. I'm currently using an old 2009 iMac 27", with i5 2.66ghz 4GB ram, ATI Radeon 4850 512mb graphics card, and a HDD.

I don't understand much about computers, and every few years I get sucked back into trying to research and learn about the latest specs and names of processors. And it seems like I have to wade through a lot of marketing and BS to get to the real numbers about how much faster a new computer will perform. Anyway currently my imac is pretty pathetic, it takes a full 1 minute 20 seconds to launch microsoft word to load a blank document. Similarly launching the photos app takes 52 seconds to fully load. Mail takes 30 seconds.

I ran geek bench 4 on my and got a score of 2500 single/ 6790 multi. This is in the ballpark of laptops I'm considering like the dell xps 13. My question is, does this mean my desktop has the same computing power as this laptop? And a lot of reviews and opinions out there saying do not get the i5, get the i7. Do not get the 6th gen cpu, get the 7th. I want to know roughly what is the actual performance gain from one generation of CPU to the next.

 

[hang-the-9]

It's a bit tough to compare a MAC to a PC, even with the same CPU since the operating system and how the programs run are different.

But you can easily compare CPU speeds on their own.

For a laptop for editing, a quad core i7 is good, second would be a quad core i5 (they will have a Q in their name). The U models are lower spec low power parts. Depending on the price, the newer CPU is better, but if you are looking at a $2-300 difference in cost, you can be OK with going with a last gen part.