Double the processor speed for laptop

[Raz316]

Hi all,

my boss wants to upgrade his laptop. He currently has a Acer Aspire 7741Z with an Intel P6000 1.86Ghz.

Are we realistically able to buy a new laptop that doubles the processing power yet still remains around the £500 mark? It is mainly for the processing of complex Excel spreadsheets.

I've been trying to compare CPUs online with CPUBoss ( http://cpuboss.com/cpus/Intel-Pentiu...Core-i7-3610QM ) but to be honest it doesn't mean too much to me these days!

Any tips?

Ta!

P.S. If anyone can specifically recommend a laptop, we require at least a 17" screen and Windows 7 64bit (not Windows 8)

[DanceswithUnix]

Difficult one to answer, probably depends on the spreadsheet.

Looking at this benchmark:

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/CPU/43

I think the Acer would score around 60s based on clock speed and that elsewhere on the chart 3MB of L3 cache doesn't buy much improvement.

A desktop i7-3770K scores 10s, so 6x faster. If you halve the speed to fit it in a laptop, that would still get 20s or 3x faster.

i5 looks nearly 50% slower, so should drop you back to double your current speed.

Disclaimers: Your spreadsheet may not behave the same, my guessing as to how badly they cripple the CPU when they stick it in a laptop is just an educated guess.

Note that from that chart a cheap desktop CPU would do the job nicely, do you really really need a laptop??? They are horribly compromised if you want speed.

[kalniel]

It's a bit tricky to get an exact comparison. Sites like notebookcheck are better than that awful one (CPUboss)!
http://www.notebookcheck.net/Mobile-...st.2436.0.html

Excel seems to be fairly multi-threaded, depending on how you are using it - I would *guess* that something like the 3dmark06CPU score might be a vaguely relevant benchmark.

Using that, you're looking at a score of around 3000 or higher to get double the performance in purely CPU limited scenario, so the upper core i3 3000M series and the i5 2400/2500M upwards.

A quick search brings something like this:
http://www.dabs.com/products/toshiba...51220000&src=3

Or cheaper
http://www.ebuyer.com/476109-toshiba...FUzHtAodcn8ArQ

4GB should be fine for excel, but depends on size of your data - check existing usage to be sure, but upgrading RAM is always cheap and easy to do yourself rather than paying more at a shop.

[Unique]

i think for £500 you should be able to get something much faster, even from pcworld, etc type places. it looks like the basic spec of the existing model only has 3gb ram and a 5400rpm HDD. if you updated the existing laptops RAM it should make some difference, max it out if you can, although it may only take 4gb max and you would need 64 bit windows to use all the RAM. again, replacing the HDD with a SSD would make it a bit perkier, £60ish would get you a 120gb or £120 a 240gb SSD so unless he wants to fork out cash, he will lose some internal HDD space, but if large storage internally isn't essential and he has 64 bit windows, then for about £80ish you could make the machine a bit faster, and of course disable start up programs and rubbish that eat up RAM

if getting a new one again i'd suggest SSD, and more RAM as for spreadsheets it's often that those are the two most important parts rather than actual CPU speed

[Raz316]

Hi DWU Thanks for your reply.

I had initially suggested that maybe some work could be done to improve the spreadsheet, but I don't know anything about it's inner workings really. Desktop is "not an option" even though I had explained that there would be much better options if we did.

I've seen a few i5 laptops for around the £500 mark, so it's good to know I've got options.

I appreciate your disclaimer too I've as good as said "double the speed" is very subjective, but it means little to nothing.

[Raz316]

Kal, Unique : Thanks Actually, to all who respond I appreciate that what I am asking is a very amateur vague question, but I've tried being the voice of reason directly and it's not good enough apparently...

From what I can tell, the spreadsheet in question isn't using all of the RAM in the current laptop, so I don't think that's an issue. As far as I understand upgrading to an SSD will increase the speed in which things are loaded from the disk, but would have no impact on the actual processing of equations within the spreadsheet.

Kal, I've suggested the laptop you linked to as a potential option.

[DanceswithUnix]

No worries, I'm sure we have all had vague requirements from a boss at some point in our lives

17" is a monster screen for a laptop, do they not have a 24" monitor & a keyboard to dock onto at the office?

I think you are right that an SSD shouldn't help processing speed, unless you are out of ram and swapping in which case more ram would sort it anyway.

The new Haswell CPUs are out in a month. For desktop use I expect it to be a bit "meh", but it should make for a better laptop.

[kompukare]

+1 to Dances's suggestion about a monitor and keyboard. In fact, I'd go further and recommend a business-class laptop with a docking station.

Ok, theoretically outside the £500 budget but something like a Thinkpad T420/T430 used but with 2 years remaining warranty (maybe from someone like Tier1?) with a dock. Or even a X220/X230 which is more portable - handy if the machine will live most of its time on the dock but occasionally used as a portable?

[Raz316]

Thanks again, Komp DWS, I had recommended a docking station (I've got my own at home which I use with a small Thinkpad, I love it ) but nopes, has to be a big screen on the laptop because he moves around a lot.

[scaryjim]

... has to be a big screen on the laptop because he moves around a lot.

"I need to carry my laptop everywhere with me, so I want the biggest heaviest laptop I can buy!"



I'll never understand boss logic.

I think for a 17" laptop with double the P6000's processing power he'll need to up the budget a little. £500 is pretty tight for a decent laptop.

[Pob255]

You'd need to look at the actual usage first, how much is the cpu being loaded by the spreadsheet?
You might be able to upgrade the cpu if you're willing to take it apart to get to it.
The P6300 (2.26ghz) should work in that fine or maybe the i3-390M (2.66ghz) but compatibility can be a right headache in laptops, even if the socket is correct the power and cooling might not cope or bios not be compatible, the P6300 should be ok as it's the same range, the socket G1 i7's would be right out as they have a much higher power demand and thermal output.

An SSD could well make a major impact if there's a lot of hard drive access, which can be caused not just by data caching but also be things like anti virus constantly checking all data being read and written to the drive.
Closing down and programs and/or services that are not used or needed could well help too.

For a new laptop, I've found in general the 3rd gen i3 ,ie the 3110m (2.4ghz) or 3120m (2.5ghz), are great for general office work
Something like the Samsung Series 3 350E would fit the bill nicely
http://www.misco.co.uk/product/19893...op-Notebook-PC

Look at the current drive space usage, esp if most of the storage is done on a network then you could well be under 100gb so you might well be able to squeeze a 120-128gb ssd into the budget as well.
If you get one of the kingston upgrade bundles you can then keep the hard drive as a portable for storage or backup.
Or just get an ssd and an empty portable drive casehttp://www.scan.co.uk/products/icy-box-ib-231stu-g-external-enclosure-for-25-sata-hdd-to-usb-20-host-brushed-aluminium-grey then use some other bit of software to back up to it (windows7 has some back up software built in and most laptops come with their own backup software these days), you can use this as a good reason to upgrade to an ssd

EDIT: for portability I personally find a 15" laptop too big, generally I'd not own anything over a 13", but I don' work on giant wide spread sheets
PS I'd fully recommend the HP Pro Book laptops lovely high build quality and aluminium cases but they would be out of the price range.
PPS As this is for business use, is there a way the VAT can be claimed back as an expense? that would give you a nice 20% boost to the budget.

[kompukare]

"I need to carry my laptop everywhere with me, so I want the biggest heaviest laptop I can buy!"

To get some nice healthy exercise perhaps? Then why not get a toughbook and use it as dumbbell!

[Jasp]

After carting around a 21" laptop for years i can't understand the logic of a 17" being heavy lol.