Total n00b needs guidance in shopping for laptop?

Question

I'm going to buy a new laptop because my current one is terrible. I am on a budget and looking to spend no more than $700, MAYBE $800 if that's what's necessary to get a decent machine. Now, I really don't know ultimately what to make of specs. I know that processors with more Ghz and bigger caches run faster, I know that more RAM causes it to run better, I know that more hard drive memory is better than less. But I ultimately don't know how these specifications translate into a particular level of performance; I don't know just how good of a computer I really need.

The only benchmark I have been using for comparison is my current laptop, i.e. "totally bad." It's a Dell Latitude D610 running Windows XP service pack 3, witn an Intel Pentuim M processor 1.86ghz, and 2GB of RAM at 1.86ghz. Whenever I use it to play music, video, or any game (even something as simple as Final Fantasy!), it gets super slow and super hot within like 10 minutes. Sometimes it just performs terribly for no apparent reason at all.

So, I basically just want a computer that will continue to run smoothly and NOT be a piece of crap when I try to use it for music, video, games, or pretty much any other commonplace computer activity. By the way, the most advanced game I play on computer is Elder Scrolls: Arena, so I don't think I need a state-of-the-art gaming system. I have also decided that I'm going to get a computer with Linux pre-installed, as I have grown increasingly disdainful of Windows, and I've never been too crazy about Apple. Besides, I want to really learn a thing or two about computers, and I think a Linux OS would facilitate that.

So the laptop I have in mind is the System76 Pangolin Performance. Here's the link:
http://www.system76.com/product_info.php?cPath=28&products_id=118
I'm just having trouble deciding how to customize it. My main question is, will the default (no extra cost) specs suit my purposes or not? But here are a couple more complicated questions:
I'm pretty sure I don't want to pay for one of the fancier hard drives. I'm really not sure, though, about the processor and RAM. First of all, I don't even really know how important the RAM speed is, but I hope it's not too important, because I noticed that all of the RAM options for this machine have fewer Ghz than my current laptop. Also, I am very reluctant to go with the default 2GB, because that's what my current laptop has. But should I even be worried about that? Is the RAM even the culprit of my computer's poor performance, or is it the processor, or something else? Or, do the other letters and numbers in the RAM description (which mean nothing to me) mean that the RAM will work significantly better despite being the same size? What RAM option would you recommend for my purposes? And I don't know if the default processor will be fine for my purposes or not. How much benefit is added by having a 6MB cache as opposed to 3MB, and more importantly, do I need it? I don't even know the size of my current processor's cache. And, how much benefit is added by an extra .2Ghz of speed, and do I need that?

Thanks so much for any help, and when answering please remember that I hardly know anything about computers.

Answer 1

RAM speed is not important: the amount is, but more than 6 GB will usually go to waste. 2 Gb is the same as a MacBook has. You don't see them running slow, do you? It was your processor and GPu that was the problem. The (i5) processor is state of the art, and will handle anything you throw at it, short of finding the last number in pi. The GPU will run the games your looking at, but not games like crysis 2. You're overthinking this. Don't worry. This laptop will be more than enough for your needs.







However, This computer is faster, and cheaper. It comes with windows 7 (which is a vast improvement over xp), but when you're saving 100 euros, who cares?



http://configure.euro.dell.com/dellstore/config.aspx?oc=n00x5m03&c=uk&l=en&s=dhs&cs=ukdhs1&model_id=xps-l502x



BTW, many of your old programs (coughgamescough) will not be compatible with linux.

Answer 2

okay, thats a long question so i'll answer it piece by piece (i'll edit my answer several times).



Linux is for techies with lots of computer knowledge and lots of time. It's like windows but everything is manual and without support. It's not for games, period. I'd recommend dual booting it with windows 7. That way you get to try it out but don't have to use it (cause it's not easy). Just google how to dual boot it. Anyway, don't get it with linux pre-installed, you're clearly not ready for that. Also, you will find Windows 7 much nicer than xp.



For your price range you want the following:

-4GB of ram, speed is irrelevant

-Windows 7 home premium 64bit

-An i5 or i3 second generation CPU (i3-XXXXm or i5-XXXXm or qm) 2.0-3.0GHz (higher if i3)

-A low end discrete gpu (this will vastly improve games) the laptop you selected uses the cpu for graphics (new feature) but this doesn't work too well.

-500+ GB hard drive. 7200rpm. don't worry about the other hard drive specs



As for a specific one to buy, i always pick from cyberpower. With the exception of the occasional good sale from other companies, they offer the best prices by far.

Use this config: http://www.cyberpowerpc.com/system/Xplorer_X6-9200_Gaming_Notebook/

and change the cpu to the i5. That makes a $750 laptop that is WAY better than the one you picked.

Why? it has a discrete 2GB gpu that will vastly improve game performance, more ram and a bigger hard drive. It also comes with windows, which is worth about 100 bucks.



Additional info:

for you questions about cpus: cache ghz and number of cores all contribute to speed. Other, less visable things contribute as well (like the cpu's architecture). The best way to tell which is fast and by how much is through reviews and benchmarks. Tomshardware.com gives great reviews and benchmarks. If you want to learn about computer start there.



Also, other people are saying you only need 2 GB of ram. For a $700 computer 4GB of ram is a must! Try opening 10 tabs on 2GB of ram, massive slowdown. This is because the computer starts to use the page file (file located on your hard drive that acts like ram) which is way slower that ram.

< $500 pc = 2-3 GB of ram

< $800 pc = 4-6GB of ram

< $1200 pc = 6-8GB

> $1200 pc = 8-16GB (8 for gaming, 16 for video/picture editing)

Answer 3

In a nutshell the choice you made is just fine. it should give you decent performance considering that you are a light user. 2GB ram is more than sufficient. the processor is the real culprit the ram usage usually never crosses 1gb. the difference between 3mb and 6mb is that there are four cores in the latter as opposed to two in the 3mb version. usually apps use singe core of the processor hence being slow. I recommend going for the third option i7 2630. this will give you quite good performance.