Major factors in choosing CPUs and GPUs

I am currently looking for a replacement for my old dying laptop(the GPU has been baked thrice) and have not been keeping up with the tech scene for a long long time. Sad to say, i now find the process of choosing a laptop quite intimidating.

Would anybody be kind enough to tell me what are the major factors we should look out for when choosing CPUs, GPUs, and every other components in a laptop?

 

I don't know what classifies as major factors. It depends what you'll be doing with it. I suppose the bigger things are:

CPU - dual core i5/i7s vs i7 quads or wait til sandy bridge

GPU - get a GDDR5 gpu if you can/do you want dx11

Hard drive - classic HDD vs SSD or hybrid setup with 2 drives

Optical drive - DVD or blu ray or no ODD at all and use the spot for another hard drive

RAM - pretty much its all DDR3 so doesn't matter besides how many GBs you want

Others:
Do you care/believe in USB 3.0?
Want an Esata port?
screen resolution?
do you want a full keyboard with numeric keys?
blah blah blah the list goes on

 

CPU/GPU: how hot/loud does the laptop get
GPU: if it can handle SC2 at acceptable settings

personally, a core 2 duo 1.8ghz would be the acceptable minimum for me, and since virtually every processor is faster now.. processor speed doesnt matter to me as much as how much heat it produces and how much often the fan spins up and how loud it gets

and for gpu.. best to pick something with optimus technology so it will save battery life, performance is not as important to me since i don't really care if all of the effects are on in games, just as long as it can handle sc2 with textures on medium

 

By major factors i mean, what are the things to look for in a graphics card? The RAM, memory clock, core clock, fillrate, GFLOPS etc. What are the more important things to look for when choosing a GPU?

For CPUs, how important is clock speed, the number of cores, caches, do we have to worry about manufacturing methods (32nm, 45nm, 22nm) etc

 

i think this would be useful for your first question: Notebookcheck: Computer Games on Laptop Graphic Cards

for cpus, higher clock speed = faster, but = draws more power, lower clock speed on newer cpu architecture = faster than higher clock speed on older architecture, smaller dies w/ same architecture = use less power, smaller dies = allows for more cores on same chip = better performance, more cores = better at multitasking and better at applications optimized for more cores, but will use more power, more cache = better performance

here's a useful link for your second question: Notebookcheck: Mobile Processors - Benchmarklist

 

Most machines are limited by their hard drive, NOT by their cpu or gpu.

It's foolish to buy the latest/greatest cpu or gpu and not feed it with the fastest possible hard drive. If you build a system that is constantly starving the cpu/gpu for data, all you've done is to buy a box of very expensive wait states.

 

it all depends on what you plan to use this laptop for, there are no right answers for everyone

 

newsposter is right! hard drive is the most important thing right now

but.. for me, my gpu is lacking everything on low for sc2!

 

Thank you. This was actually the same situation we faced 5 years back. There was a huge bottleneck in the hard disk, to the point where a 2.0Ghz processor performed almost as well as a 3 Ghz processor.

And yes, i know there is no perfect answer for everyone, its just that it would be nice to know where the bottlenecks are, and what can be sacrificed without losing too much in terms of performance and efficiency.

Found this, very informative... Should have read stickys before posting.
I do wonder if there is something like that for GPUs and other components...
http://forum.notebookreview.com/wha...or-information-guide-read-before-posting.html

 

The major factor is how you intend to use the machine. Once that's determined, then you can choose the factors that will best suit your needs.