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    What processors speed do I really need?

    Discussion in 'Hardware Components and Aftermarket Upgrades' started by glindawantsme17, Apr 6, 2009.

  1. glindawantsme17

    glindawantsme17 Notebook Consultant

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    When I go and configure potential notebooks to see the price, I always find myself drawn to a 2.4GHz or 2.53GHz processor option. But do I really need that much? The Macbook starts at only 2.0GHz with I would've thought way to low....

    I'm going to be a college student and this is what I'd do:

    - Word Processing (obviously)
    - Internet
    - LIGHT gaming (Age of Mythology, Sims)
    - Some GIMP
    - Video streaming (Hulu, YouTube, and friends)
    - iTunes

    Do I need such huge processors or will 2.1-ish do me fine?
     
    glindawantsme17, Apr 6, 2009
    #1
  2. MidnightSun

    MidnightSun Emodicon

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    For your purposes, a 2.0 GHz Core 2 Duo would be fine, and should give great performance.
     
    MidnightSun, Apr 6, 2009
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  3. glindawantsme17

    glindawantsme17 Notebook Consultant

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    Well, I guess I can save a ton of money by not going crazy like I was about to. What about memory? Is 3GB enough?
     
    glindawantsme17, Apr 6, 2009
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  4. Commander Wolf

    Commander Wolf can i haz broadwell?

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    Any modern dual-core process should suffice in your case. 3GB of memory is also more than enough, even for the wonderful, wonderful Vista.
     
    Commander Wolf, Apr 6, 2009
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  5. cat mom

    cat mom Notebook Evangelist

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    3 GB is plenty unless you are compiling programs or batch editing in photoshop, or high end gaming. For what you say you will be doing , you don't need to buy a high end laptop. Use your money for school.
     
    cat mom, Apr 6, 2009
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  6. MidnightSun

    MidnightSun Emodicon

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    Even 2GB of RAM in my T500 right now runs Vista 64-bit great, I can multitask and game with no problems at all.
     
    MidnightSun, Apr 6, 2009
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  7. jackluo923

    jackluo923 Notebook Virtuoso

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    A 500mhz-1.5ghz dual core will be more than enough for what you're doing. I can do all of the above and more (adobe premiere, after effects..etc) with 1.6ghz single core atom (usually kept at lowest cpu frequency @ 800mhz, so it's about 100-200mhz core2duo speed) with 1 gig of ram. Of course, my netbook is very optmized and not very many people can have that. Even Vista 32bit, W7 run great on the nettop (both performs better and the battery last longer than windows XP, what a surprise)

    The most important factor determining the "responsiveness" is having a fast harddrive, multithreaded cpu, and 1GB+ ram.

    Anyways.. any dualcore laptop with 2GB or more ram, 160-500GB hdd should be more than what you need. In fact, the laptop will probably spend 99% of the time idling for what you're doing.
     
    jackluo923, Apr 6, 2009
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  8. stevezachtech

    stevezachtech Notebook Evangelist

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    3GB is really a huge amount of memory judging from your needs, and I really don't think you need that much of a processing speed by upgrading your processor since Age of Mythology and TheSims are not very heavy video games.. You have to consider the fact that your processor and graphics card must also be able to catch on with each other in terms of processing speed..
     
    stevezachtech, Apr 6, 2009
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  9. glindawantsme17

    glindawantsme17 Notebook Consultant

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    This is all so much to think about. I'll figure it out.
     
    glindawantsme17, Apr 6, 2009
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  10. Bog

    Bog Losing it...

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    I agree with this post; I am a moderate gamer, running the Witcher, Mass Effect, Brothers in Arms, C&C3, and a host of other games along with virtualization and a bit of encoding. The 2.1GHz T8100 that comes with the Studio 15 is very much sufficient for my purposes, so a 2.0GHz C2D should be enough.
     
    Bog, Apr 6, 2009
    #10