buying a laptop, need help from nerds

[gh02]

....one of the new i3 i7 etc, and nothing below 2.0ghz speed

an i7 with over 2.0ghz? really?

[Erebus-7]

....one of the new i3 i7 etc, and nothing below 2.0ghz speed

an i7 with over 2.0ghz? really?

i would, especially for live applications, wouldn;t my shit crashing mid set cause of an overloaded of cpu power or anything, i got quad i7 3.2ghz in mine haha

[AxeD]

i7 3.2?!?! That's insane. I can probably run 3 instances of Live at the same time without any problem and I've got a i3 2.6.
Intel screws you over with their new i cpu's though so watch the specs

[Recessive Trait]

so an i3 2.26 would be enough? that one is $700, which is pretty good.

[AllNightDayDream]

i5

Just gonna throw that out there

[Recessive Trait]

but for the price i can get an i5 i can get an i7. mind the i7 is 1.6ghz. what does that mean? is an i3 2.26ghz better than an i7 1.6ghz? (daaaai i like compooterz)

[gh02]

Intel screws you over with their new i cpu's though so watch the specs

In what way? I assume an i3 laptop would be faster than the core2 duo 2.66ghz desktop I have now... no?

[Ldizzy]

i know this might sound a bit premature at first...

but the biggest part of ur soon-to-be weapon's performance is ur behaviour and general hygiene. Dont install crap on it. dont install msn on it. dont download ur music from shady warez sites on it. create folders for everything u put there.... and dont underestimate the eventuality of a usb 2.0 harddrive... as filling the hard drive is the worst thing for speed. do maintenance often...

... the reason im mentionning this is crucial.. as it will help u choose ur computer..

NOW THIS GOES AS A SUBJECTIVE OPINION, BASED ON MY EXPERIENCE OF BOTH MACHINES... Ive went thru basically everything u could wish not to go thru with computers.. ive owned many, ive kicked many towers in a rage, ive lived the mac vs pc dilemma, ive tried a core duo mac then upgraded to an i5 and ive tried i7s long enough to feel a difference.. still... what i say will sound a little stupid... that is cause im french, not cuz im wrong...

so in my opinion

it all depends on HOW u behave on a computer...

the mac vs pc quesiton is basically unresolvable... simply because it depends on the owners workflow... and all those cues about what to buy make u anxious cause deep inside u wish someone would give u an answer with cojones... sorry, i am no cojones-answering man.. but still.. ill try to help

:


if i were a dirty bitch, who cant take 3 minutes to create a folder for things he creates, and keeps copy pasting shit everywhere and bouncing stuff on his desktop... id go mac without a doubt... as theyre low maintenance and dont necessitate defragmentation...

if i stole or cracked programs, id go mac...

if i were a neat and organized freak... who understands the importance of buying each and every plugin he uses and who naturally will do defragmentations and backup disks often, just cause it makes him feel good... id prolly save myself some money for something else and bid on a not-as-powerful, but new, pc... (which would still have to be the bomb)

as for the performance... the most important adivce was already given by Deadly Habit... think in long term proportions...

Id go with the i7 and id inject a little more money to go above 2 ghz... as its been mentionned. u will feel the difference after a while. not in the beginning, but ull see..

for macs, i5 is fairly enough for me.. for pcs... id prolly ask myself if quad cores are a stable technology yet, but thats just because im a whore...

[Phigure]

@above I'm sorry, but you have no clue what you're talking about

but the biggest part of ur soon-to-be weapon's performance is ur behaviour and general hygiene. Dont install crap on it. dont install msn on it. dont download ur music from shady warez sites on it. create folders for everything u put there.... and dont underestimate the eventuality of a usb 2.0 harddrive... as filling the hard drive is the worst thing for speed. do maintenance often...

no shit? pretty sure you're just pointing out the obvious fact that if you install a bunch of bloatware, your computer isn't going to run in tip top shape. Filling the hard drive is not the worst thing for speed, in fact, it has little effect on speed, relative to other things you can do. The effect it has is negligible. Why USB 2.0 hard drive? Why not a 3.0? Why not another internal hard drive? Why not eSATA?

the mac vs pc quesiton is basically unresolvable... simply because it depends on the owners workflow... and all those cues about what to buy make u anxious cause deep inside u wish someone would give u an answer with cojones... sorry, i am no cojones-answering man.. but still.. ill try to help

once again, you're really just pointing out the obvious. The needs of the user obviously affect what type of computer they require.

if i were a dirty bitch, who cant take 3 minutes to create a folder for things he creates, and keeps copy pasting shit everywhere and bouncing stuff on his desktop... id go mac without a doubt... as theyre low maintenance and dont necessitate defragmentation...

Why? Folders and junk on the desktop have absolutely nothing to do with operating systems. They're not necessarily low maintenance, and although OS X handles data somewhat better to reduce fragmentation, it's still not a bad idea to defrag every once in a while.

if i stole or cracked programs, id go mac...

What? Why, so you have a "lower risk" of getting a virus? Wrong. If you're dabbling in piracy, the likelihood of infected software rivals the likelihood on a PC.

as for the performance... for macs, i5 is fairly enough for me.. for pcs... id prolly ask myself if quad cores are a stable technology yet, but thats just because im a whore...

Again, what? Quad cores are as stable as any other number of cores. And the processor is merely one tiny component of overall PC performance. It's not going to help you at all if you've got some leet overclocked quad core if it's being bottlenecked by 512MB of RAM.

[dubmatters]

hard drive is always the biggest bottleneck. Go for 7200rpm or ssd.

go for the best cpu you can afford.

[deadly_habit]

i can't wait for ssd to go down in price for the larger sizes

[AxeD]

so an i3 2.26 would be enough? that one is $700, which is pretty good.

Most likely yes, but I would spend a little more to get at least a 2.6. The amount of RAM is also very important, 4gb is recommend for your purpose I think.

Intel screws you over with their new i cpu's though so watch the specs

In what way? I assume an i3 laptop would be faster than the core2 duo 2.66ghz desktop I have now... no?

That's true but anything above i3 (i5/i7) is equiped with something called 'Intel Turbo Boost'. That costs a lot of money, I did a search on it a while ago and I think it's not worth it. So i5 or i7 is better than i3 but you're also paying for a feature that many don't
need. I'm not an expert on this stuff though, I just wanted to know some of these things before buying mine.

[Ldizzy]

Phigure is right :

I was pretty much baked when I answered yesterday, reading that .. most of it is wrong. I excuse myself. Obviously, RAM and processor speed would stress me more then hard drive capacity when buying an computer…

I work in the computer field. But im no specialist.

So, Ive asked 3 friends of mine about it cause I was really concerned about the quality of information I shitted at 5 am yesterday… + I was curious ( ive asked 3 computer nerds, ones doing a phd, two other are at the major level… so im kinda sure they have different views on the thing).

Thus, Im doing this because I feel its important to give out quality information, and because phigure made me feel incompetent and I cant affort my therapist for another 3 year

The memory question :

For the memory, it may only seem that itll slow ur computer once u reach a level where ure close to maximum capacity, as programs need memory to run.

One of my friends said that, once uve reached that point, it matters : because saving files on ur hard drive will more often occur going from the outer parts of the hard disk, then moving towards the center. He said that for physical reason, the computer accesses the outer data more quickly, and is more likely to be fast when little data is stored on it because the computer is more likely to save it on the outer part first. Another of my friends added that this fact is not that important to consider if u defragment ur compter often. He said that defragmentation was basically a way of taking care of such an issue.

They all agreed on the fact that an almost full full drive slows down your computer a lot, but that a reasonably full one wont if u do maintenance.

From a personal persective, ill add that you can not defrag a full harddrive. From experience. (unless u do a total backup of ur drive, which wont help u to save time)

The defragmentation question :

One of them is a mac specialist and owns a couple of em. He said macs do a better job at defrag stuff automatically. He said a full drive would matter a lot more on a mac then a fragmented disk, for the reasons explained above (two different sources pointed that fact). He also added that using a third party program to defrag ur mac could basically wreck it. I did not try it. I do not want to. Im scared.

The saving on desktop question :

I was wrong. It seems that the only thing that loads on a desktop is the icons. If you have a lot of icons, its obviously going to take longer to load them. But the desktop itself is a specified folder. So it doesn’t make a difference unless u have a hundred icons on ur desktop page.

The external hard drive question :

Usb 2.0 : I shouldve specified ‘’at least’’ (of course)… what I was trying to point out is the fact that ive experienced minor bugs from using a usb 1.0 harddrive. 3.0 is not a bad idea, obviously.

May not be as relevant as it should for this thread, but it was still cool to learn.
---------------

As for your choice : Im maintaining the fact that the most important thing is to think in the long run as Deadly habit pointed out.

I would go i3 vs Core 2 Duo. And I would wait and go for an i5 or even i7 over an i3 anyday.

That I know from the time I bought my latest computer and read a lot about it. I3s are usually faster, have DDR3 type ram, bigger L2 cache size, and it does make a difference.

but from my experience, id def push it and go i7 : long term investments ! the main reason is the fact that its faster + runs the top end ddr3 + features hyperthreading (which will make a difference if u run various apps at the same time), im really keen about it (althought i own an i5). i7 is cool cause in the end u have a faster processor and optimized ram power.

Hope it helps…

[Phigure]

I would go i3 vs Core 2 Duo. And I would wait and go for an i5 or even i7 over an i3 anyday.

Do you know that there's other processors out there besides Intel? Those aren't the only options, AMD has killer processors as well. In fact, personally, I'd take a top of the line AMD over a top of the line Intel any day. I've found AMD lends itself to overclocking a bit better and they're far cheaper than Intel, most often with better performance as well.

You can get an AMD Phenom II quadcore 3.4 GHz for about $170 on Newegg, while the closest rival intel's got (i7-975) is a quadcore 3.33 GHZ for about $1000. AMD's got 100% more (ie, double) L2 cache, while Intel has 33% more L3 cache.

Do you realize what that means? It means that with AMD, you get a slightly superior processor, for 1/5th of the price. That's a fucking MASSIVE difference. And the AMD will overclock better, if you're into that.

[Ldizzy]

at least my posts keep u bringin the knowledge...

but no seriously, thats pretty awesom indeed... didnt know.

[Phigure]

at least my posts keep u bringin the knowledge...

but no seriously, thats pretty awesom indeed... didnt know.

AMD 4 lyfe

[mks]

AMD's are actually pretty awesome! My last two desktops have been AMD's and they have performed extremely well. My laptop is an Intel core 2 duo, and it's doing it's thing, it's cool. But yeah, I wouldn't rule out AMD processors at all. I believe they were the one's that invented 64 bit processing.

[Recessive Trait]

My laptop is an Intel core 2 duo

and do you do live sets? how does it hold up (any hiccups)?

i could get one for $600 tomorrow if it would be good enough.

[mks]

My laptop is an Intel core 2 duo

and do you do live sets? how does it hold up (any hiccups)?

i could get one for $600 tomorrow if it would be good enough.

Man, if you want me to tell you the truth, it took a good several months to work out all of the kinks and hiccups (and I did have a lot of audio hiccups), but this ultimately was due to the laptops chipsets (Dell Studio 15) and not the processor. It works great now after a BIOS update (Dell knew they fucked up... loads of people were complaining) so I have nothing bad to say about an Intel core 2 duo processor. It runs all of my software just fine and have not been having any problems with it lately.

Like someone else said, just do loads of research before you buy but to be quite honest, even a couple of year old system will do you fine. It depends on how much you want to spend.