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Thread: Quad-core laptop... worth it? |
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Thread Status: Active Total posts in this thread: 6
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gordoma
Veteran Cruncher Windsor, UK Joined: Jul 21, 2005 Post Count: 729 Status: Offline Project Badges: 
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Hi All
----------------------------------------I'm looking at getting a laptop to replace my desktop as I no longer have space in my house for a dedicated office. As I do a lot of photography and video editing I'm keen to get something that's meaty, with a big screen (pref something like 18.4 HD) as it won't be taken out of the house much so portability isn't an issue, also plenty of memory and a BD-ROM. For the sort of price that these go for, there are some which come with a quad-core processor - in most (all?) cases, this is the Intel Q9000 which I understand is the bottom end of the mobile quads (feel free to correct me) and runs at 2Ghz. The downside of this is that I feel I can get more for my money (or spend less) if I get a dual-core processor, which will apparently not get as hot and use less battery power. Will I get much more benefit from getting a quad-core laptop in terms of both crunching and video processing than if I get a higher spec dual-core machine? For graphics processing, I am looking at a minimum of 1Gb dedicated memory. Any thoughts you have on this would be appreciated. |
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Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
Hi gordoma,
This is just my personal opinion. Laptops are compromises built with some tough constraints on power and cooling. I do not think that it makes sense to put 4 cores in a laptop unless they draw only half the power of the current quad-cores. Stick to a mobile dual-core with low power requirements. Lawrence |
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Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
Hi Matt.
I think you need to ask yourself whether you need a laptop or a desktop. A modern desktop need not take up a significant amount of space. |
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gordoma
Veteran Cruncher Windsor, UK Joined: Jul 21, 2005 Post Count: 729 Status: Offline Project Badges:
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Laptops are compromises built with some tough constraints on power and cooling. I do not think that it makes sense to put 4 cores in a laptop unless they draw only half the power of the current quad-cores. Stick to a mobile dual-core with low power requirements. Thanks Laurence. That was the conclusion I was gradually coming to - there's far more choice of dual-core machines out there. I think you need to ask yourself whether you need a laptop or a desktop. A modern desktop need not take up a significant amount of space. Yeah - it's a question that's been going round my head Didactylos. I've given it a lot of thought. At the moment I have a full tower with 19-inch monitor, Multifunction Printer, 7.1ch surround sound (with big sub), webcam, microphone, network gubbins, external drives, USB Digital TV tuner, full-size keyboard and mouse and even a UPS. I've looked at ways to bring this down to the bare minimum, but the problem I've got is that the spare room/office is soon to become a proper bedroom for a 2-year old, so I can no longer have a load of stuff or even leave it on to crunch 24/7... along with my work laptop and old IBM Netvista that lives under my printer. I'm looking at trying to get as much of the functionality that I can into something I can turn off and put away (out of reach) at the end of the day. I've found somewhere to put my DSL boxes and printer which are both on the WiFi, but I have no space for a permanent box anywhere else in the house. I agree that what I need is probably a desktop, but that will need to wait until I find a bigger house - which isn't going to happen in the current "climate", so this is really an interim solution for a couple of years. |
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damir1978
Senior Cruncher Joined: Apr 16, 2007 Post Count: 397 Status: Offline Project Badges: 
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Being that you work with Photo Editing you should know that Photoshop & other photo editing related software is one of the few fields that are using parallel processor work.
----------------------------------------So, the many processors you have, the faster it will process your filters and effects on the images or other conversion you might be doing. Also, being that you actually looking for a replacement desktop, you should not be so interested in power consumption due to the fact that the most powerful laptop you can buy will still be way less consuming on the watt side than a any desktop. On the Photo editing arena there is not such thing as enough processors. Also you might want to get a lot of RAM with that. GPU does not need to be very powerfull for image editing. My 2 cents. |
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gordoma
Veteran Cruncher Windsor, UK Joined: Jul 21, 2005 Post Count: 729 Status: Offline Project Badges:
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Thanks Damir
----------------------------------------I think I've made my choice now. Going for a P8600 (2.4Ghz Dual-core). If it takes a bit longer to process photo effects than the Q9000 then I can live with that. It comes with Photoshop Elements and Lightroom on it too which is a bonus for photo editing and a BD-RW drive which is perfect as my video editing application will download the AVCHD format from my video camera and can burn to blue-ray... Hi-Def Home Movies here I come! On a side note, I still have a couple of months before I need to get rid of my office, so I can have this crunching alongside the desktop until then!  |
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