In what ways is 1.3Ghz slow?

I'm new to buying a laptop for myself (in the past they have been bought by my parent's friends etc.) so I'd like to learn some things before buying one from college.

I was looking at purchasing the Lenovo U350, but the processors speed is 1.3GHz. I've been told that this is slow.
But in what ways? What makes a processor slow?
My desktop is 2.95Ghz and it's still pretty slow (it's also old though).

 

Depends what you use your computer for.

If you are browsing the web and such, I would say any laptop nowadays will be good. 1.3 GHz is slow for loading programs such as Office, and basically any program since its frequency is 1.3 GHz, making it take longer to load or perform tasks.

What makes a processor slow? 1.3 GHz means 1.3 billion cycles per second. Sounds big, but when you have 4 GHz quad cores, it sounds like nothing. Low frequency + less cores = slow.

Your desktop is probably single core (old and slow?). I'd say go with at least 2 GHz processor if you're buying a new laptop, however there are other things that limit a computer's speed, such as amount of RAM, RAM speed, amount of free HD space, HD speed, FSB, etc.

 

For ultraportables, sometimes you don't have the option of any faster processor since they use LV (low voltage) or ULV (ultra low voltage) processors. Slow is relative really. It depends a lot on what programs you are using.

 

If you do any intensive type of things that require GPU power than the speed of your processor can bottleneck your GPU... also multi-tasking and general applications become much harder for your computer to handle at lower clock speeds... hope that helped a little, there are other things but to me these are the important things

 

Thanks, that makes a lot more sense now that people just telling me "Oh that's way too slow"



The only things I really will be doing is updating my iPod, writing papers, listening to music, social networking sites, stuff like that.

 

You'll be fine with 1.3GHz for those general tasks.

 

Yea the thing is alot of stuff even on web browsers use flash and Java which is somewhat GPU and CPU intensive so on a laptop like my parent's older one that is 1.6 or something and has a old intel intergrated GPU... it takes forever to load pages and simply cannot play videos like on youtube (lag)... but it also only has 1gb of ram and a very very small hard drive which is almost filled... not to mention caching and things like that... But I would recommend as a student if you can to a get a decent Dual core, like a 2.4 8600 which is cheap and fairly standard

 

So no to the Lenovo U350
It's so thin though lol

Well, I guess I'll find something faster then.
Thanks guys!

 

Well not really.. If your only doing those small tasks go for the Lenovo, nothing wrong with it.

Were saying that you really only need 2.0Ghz plus if your gaming, serious multi-tasking or doing CPU intensive work. The Lenovo would be fine, although Vista may make it run a little on the slow side as it loves to hog the RAM and use the CPU when it really is unnecessary, and maybe a fresh install of XP to avoid RAM caching and un-needed CPU usage would be a good idea. In the end, if you love Vista that much you can always change the themes, etc of XP to make it look like Vista without the performance drawbacks Vista itself may cause =)

Hope this helps a little. I have found on my own Dell Studio 1535 system with an 2.0Ghz Core 2 Duo T5750, 4GB of RAM, 320GB 5400RPM HDD, and Vista 64-Bit that Xp runs faster even though it is not officially supported by Dell on this laptop and I had to go searching elsewhere for drivers. Vista uses 2GB of my 4GB of RAM once it is fully booted including caching, where as XP barely uses 300MB +.

Lastly, I have undervolted my CPU and often when using the laptop on my lap lock the CPU to 1Ghz to avoid it getting too hot (as I have now). I am currently using Vista 64-Bit, iTunes open, 5 tabs open on Safari 4, watching a Youtube video, and having a conversation on MSN along with Rainmeter on my desktop and CDArt display for itunes and objectdock, and the system is running fine. Barely notice any difference in all these tasks. I only up the CPU to 2Ghz when playing games. I sometimes up to to 1.5Ghz and lock it at that for 720p films, but they run perfect at 1Ghz aswell, just 1.5Ghz for safety. All this undervolting and underclocking (locking the CPU to certain speeds) can be done via RM-Clock utility.. Read about it in the Undervolting thread, it's very easily done. =)

Hope I have helped. =]

 

My Thinkpad X301 runs at 1.4GHz and its more than enough power for what I use it for (mainly web-surfing and word-processing).

However, if it was my only computer, I would probably look for something a bit more performance-oriented. Though it too is nice and thin...

 

Also my HP 2510p with U7700 1.33 ULV cpu is more then enough for me. I surf the net with firefox open with 20 tabs sometimes. I also play older games like Age of Empires 3 or Rome Total war in 2d mode. I can also overclock the cpu to 1.51 when I plug it in.