Decent laptop for $600-800?
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@dangeRuss 8gb isn't enough.
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@lucas1 But is that a laptop?
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@dangeRuss Doesn't matter 16gb is now the minimum if you are doing dev with VS 2015.
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@lucas1 you either get 16GB or a bit more patience. Being a Poland-born cheapskate, I have lots of patience.
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@Gąska Either get something good or pay the same later to upgrade again.Your choice.
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Dell also has this one, which is the same model that I'm using now:
Latitude E5570 Laptop Tech Specs Processor: Intel Core 6th Generation i5-6300U Processor (Dual Core, up to 3.00 GHz, 3M Cache, 15W) Windows 10 Pro 512GB PCIe M.2 NVMe Class 40 Solid State Drive 8GB (1x8G) 2133MHz DDR4 Memory Non ECC 15.6inch FHD (1920x1080) Display Intel HD Graphics Dell Outlet Latitude E5570 Laptop $839.00 Certified Refurbished Windows 64 Bit LCD Bezel Non-Touch with Camera and Microphone 4 Cell Primary Battery, 62W/Hr Intel Dual Band Wireless 8260 (802.11ac) W/ Bluetooth Internal Dual Pointing Keyboard (English) McAfee Security Center, 30 Day 125V Power Cord 90 Watt AC Adapter Non- Touch LCD Back Cover Shroud Smart Card Reader (Dual Pointing) Palmrest Outlet Price$839.00
Slightly higher than the $800 budget (especially if you include tax, but a pretty nice config. This laptop can take up to 32GB as well.
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@dangeRuss I have problems finding anything even close to what you've posted. Where did you get it from?
Edit: I'm talking about this Precision stuff.
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@Gąska said in Decent laptop for $600-800?:
@dangeRuss I have problems finding anything even close to what you've posted. Where did you get it from?
Edit: I'm talking about this Precision stuff.
Dell outlet
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@dangeRuss now I have dilemma. Is $250 and non-gaming GPU a good price for 4 cores instead of 2, in a computer I will most likely use only until I settle down and could get a real PC?
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@Gąska said in Decent laptop for $600-800?:
@dangeRuss now I have dilemma. Is $250 and non-gaming GPU a good price for 4 cores instead of 2, in a computer I will most likely use only until I settle down and could get a real PC?
Not really following you. The # of cores matters less than the actual CPUs. What CPUs are you picking between?
As far as GPU I can't help you with that, I'm not really into games.
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@dangeRuss said in Decent laptop for $600-800?:
@Gąska said in Decent laptop for $600-800?:
@dangeRuss now I have dilemma. Is $250 and non-gaming GPU a good price for 4 cores instead of 2, in a computer I will most likely use only until I settle down and could get a real PC?
Not really following you. The # of cores matters less than the actual CPUs. What CPUs are you picking between?
i5-6200U (Acer Aspire) and i5-6300HQ (Dell Precision).
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@Gąska
To me the support department difference between an Acer and a Dell justifies the $250 difference. (Also, $70 of the difference is Windows Professional on the Dell vs Home on the Acer)Also, the Intel HD Graphics lines are to the point where they're fairly good display adapters from a "playing games with a laptop" perspective (or a super budget desktop, but most people that want to play games on a desktop don't pinch pennies that tightly)... and laptop manufacturers have moved toward a model of "use the Intel GPU for actual video rendering and include a graphics chipset for 3D rendering that will then hand off to the Intel GPU". Which can cause major headaches for a laptop like the HP Envy I have for work - it's got an "Nvidia GTX something or other", but it only uses that for 3D rendering, and HP hasn't issued an updated version of the video driver that actually works well on Windows 10, so my graphics adapter wigs out a few times a day, locking up and having to be crashed/reinitialized by Windows. From a cursory search, it appears that the 940MX used in the Acer is in fact a dedicated graphics card (per the GeForce website), so my reservation here may be meaningless.
The Core i5-6300HQ doesn't have hyper-threading, so you get 4 true cores but no hyper-threading; the Core i5-6200U has 2 cores but also includes hyper-threading. The i5-6200U is a "low power" model, with a 15W TDP, while the 6300HQ is a "standard power" with a 45W TDP. Which means both that the 6300HQ will generate more heat and consume more battery, as well as that it will be more performant when running full out.
All else equal, I would lean toward the Dell Precision because of the personal value I place on the Dell brand, and the slightly better performance profile of the CPU. But I wouldn't call someone the worst of the worst for going with the Acer.
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Well the dell is almost twice as fast as the Acer. Also I probably would not go with the acer personally.
On the other hand, I would probably stay in the middle and get the Latitude.
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@dangeRuss I don't put much trust into that site. They don't explain their methodology, and put AMD FX above i7 (unlike every other benchmark, except for easily parallelized, pure mathematical computations). I think that the reason why it has twice as many points is simply because it has twice as many cores.
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@Gąska
Yeah, though the Dell CPU does score about 10% higher on a single thread performance, which makes sense given the tech specs of the two processors. Otherwise, the aggregate score does look a lot like comparing 4 true threads (cores) versus 4 threads on 2 cores.
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@izzion said in Decent laptop for $600-800?:
@Gąska
Yeah, though the Dell CPU does score about 10% higher on a single thread performance, which makes sense given the tech specs of the two processors. Otherwise, the aggregate score does look a lot like comparing 4 true threads (cores) versus 4 threads on 2 cores.Yea, while the single thread performance may be similar, one CPU has 4 of those cores, while another one has 2. So while for real world applications things may not be twice as fast, they may be depending on how much stuff you're doing.
On the other hand the power consumption may be more important for you.
I have a i5 6200U myself, and it's good enough for me. I also love the 10hr+ battery life.
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Also if price is an issue for you, you may be able to get about 10% back from Dell if you call and ask to return the system during the return period.
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Another Latitude:
Latitude E5570 Laptop Date & Time: 3/28/2017 3:33:30 AM SYSTEM COMPONENTS Latitude E5570 Laptop Qty 1 Dell Outlet Latitude E5570 Laptop Windows 10 Pro Unit Price $699.00 Dell Outlet Latitude E5570 Laptop C31D4 Software 0P1H1 Shipping Material 22F28 AMD Radeon R7 M360, 2GB Discrete Graphics 2CGJJ Shroud 2H61F Software 2HF94 LCD Bezel Non-Touch with Camera and Microphone 36J4J Software 417KX Non- Touch LCD Back Cover 4NN41 Service Software 4P84D Information 4WJ77 Software 767MJ Information 7DDKD Processor: Intel Core 6th Generation i5-6300U Processor (Dual Core, up to 3.00 GHz, 3M Cache, 15W) 89MMT Software 8CX5K Windows 10 Pro 8G8J6 Dell Power Manager 91PDM 65 Watt AC Adapter 9TM5Y Software C3V85 Windows 64 Bit CD0PV Software FK3C5 Shipping G25JX 8GB (1x8G) 2133MHz DDR4 Memory Non ECC GF4Y2 Placemat GNHD4 Service Software J0KR8 New J8069 Information J94W8 4 Cell Primary Battery, 62W/Hr KHWXC Intel vPro Technology Enabled KNP5G 128GB SATA Class 20 Solid State Drive M3TVF No Resource CD M4821 Smart Card Reader (Dual Pointing) Palmrest MMT0W Software MTYW0 Miscellaneous MX962 Power Cord N0X5J Label N1J8F 15.6inch FHD (1920x1080) Display N9PW1 Software NJW79 Label NRDH9 Software P4V68 Bracket P5Y8H Software P6XPR Intel Dual Band Wireless 8260 (802.11ac) W/ Bluetooth TJJRT Information TK0K9 Information W753G Internal Dual Pointing Backlit Keyboard (English) WX9Y6 Cable XC6HC None Qty 1 Unit Price $0.00 LT E5570 : 1 Year Hardware Service with In-Home/Onsite Service After Remote Diagnosis (Included in Price) Qty 1 Unit Price $0.00 TOTAL: $699.00
Easily upgradeable to 16GB of RAM. Smallish (128GB) SSD, but should be easily upgradeable to a bigger drive once you're ready. AMD Radeon R7 M360, 2GB Discrete Graphics. I assume this is good?
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@Gąska said in Decent laptop for $600-800?:
Am I the only one here who can live with projects loading 30 seconds?
My computer has 16GB of RAM and it takes about that long to load a VS project.
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@ben_lubar why did you put 16GB in Chromebook?
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@ben_lubar The bottle neck isn't the ram it is the Hardrive.
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This one is not quite a full SSD, but you can probably swap one in pretty easily if you wanted to.
This isn't bad for $538.
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@Gąska If your goal is running VS, number of cores and an SSD are by far the most important things.