would i3 or Pentium N3530 with 4Gb RAM run faster than Core2 Duo 1.86 GHz with 2GB RAM?

vaibhav5107

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Dec 9, 2014
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Hi Guys,
I am planning to replace my old Lenovo Y410 series laptop (that I bought in 2008) with a HP laptop. My old laptop has Intel Core2 Duo 1.86 GHz processor, 2Gb RAM. It runs quite efficiently and fast. It gets slow only when I work with Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 and above.
I know i7 is better than i5 and i3 due to various factors like caching, clock speed, cores etc. My question to you is, since my old laptop (Core2 Duo) worked quit well for me, so HP Pentium N3530 or an Intel i3 processor with 4Gb RAM would be same or more fast than my old laptop? I mean, if i buy Pentium Processor with 4Gb RAM then would it be a fast as my old laptop or should I opt for Intel i3, i5 or i7? My question is obscure but there is a lot of price difference between Pentium N3530, i3 and between i3 and i7.
Thank you.
 
Solution
Try to think logically. What is your budget? Pentium and i7 has a huge price difference. Try fixing the maximum money you are ready to spend and then see the best configuration for that price and don't do it the other way round. All the processors you listed are faster than your old one. Also, try to get at least a standard voltage i3 to ensure you can use it for a longer time. A cheap Pentium will force you to upgrade sooner.

Rit_86

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Jul 3, 2012
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Try to think logically. What is your budget? Pentium and i7 has a huge price difference. Try fixing the maximum money you are ready to spend and then see the best configuration for that price and don't do it the other way round. All the processors you listed are faster than your old one. Also, try to get at least a standard voltage i3 to ensure you can use it for a longer time. A cheap Pentium will force you to upgrade sooner.
 
Solution

f-14

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Apr 2, 2010
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both will be faster, however the pentium N has a 2MB on die Cache limit that will be the bottleneck for gaming if that is your plan.

i do not know what you're doing with your machine therefor i do not know what to recommend. if it's just stuff like visual studio and you like your laptop but want it more zippy, go on ebay buy a used mobile T9500 (2.6GHZ 6MB cache)-T9900(3GHZ 6MB cache) (800MHZ-1066MHZ FSB) core2duo processor. if your ram on the laptop is 800 or 1066 try to stay with a similar FSB CPU for the laptop.

if you're set on going with new go with the i3 hands down fastest GHZ you can afford unless it gets into an i5 that is a few hundred MHZ less then bump up to the i5 even on the low range due to it's extra capabilities will stomp on that i3 if it's within 600MHZ or so of the i3.