Processor speed help! 2.4 vs 2.7 GHz
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Hi All,
Could I get someones opinion on a computer choice that I am too educated about. I plan to get a laptop (I get a new one every 5-6 years). I have figured out all the bells and whistles I think appropriate....except the following. I have a choice between:
1 - i7 3630QM - 2.4GHz (6MB) L3 Cache)
2 - i7 3820QM 2.7GHz (8MB L3 Cache)
There is a $200 (US) difference in price. Is it worth the money? My primary speed concerns is I plan to be doing renderings with Shaderlight, and if I plan to do animations that take days to do, will this investment be a good time saving investment?
Thanks for any advise given.
Matte -
If you plan to use this laptop for the next 5-6 years i think the $200 more will be not very much... ~$30 per year?
The points for me would be:
- do you really think you're still able to do serious 3D work on this laptop in 6 years? For office work etc. it could be ok. but for rendering?
- i don't think it is a good idea to buy a laptop as render machine and let it render for days (continuous load, heat). If you need the portability then it's ok, but otherwise almost every desktop quadcore will be faster and cheaper.
- why did you choose the 3630QM not the 3740QM ( http://ark.intel.com/products/70847 ). Not available? I don't think the additional 2 MB Cache will give you anything for 3D and rendering and the clockrate is the same (2,7/3,7 GHz) for ~$200 less
( http://www.notebookcheck.com/Mobile-Prozessoren-Benchmarkliste.1809.0.html )
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Thanks Numerobis for your reply,
I need to get a laptop for other reasons, and was just trying to get the "best" options for my price range. I do not often do 2-3 day renderings, but it does happen now and then when it takes hours per image on an old HP dv9000, 2meg ram machine. I just didn't know of these two available options with 16 gigs of ram was much of a difference between them?, (they are the ones that come with "the laptop") I can not get anything for another 2-3 months and I will of course look again at that time as things change so quickly. I figured I would only know the difference on extreem time extended activities. But If I could reduce the price from $1,700 to $1,500 it would really be prefered.
Thanks again for your help. -
+1 for numerobis' assessment. Laptops are not a great choice for rendering. Laptops these days aren't built to withstand the demands of rendering and will have a reduced longevity if used for such, unless you buy a high performance gaming laptop, but then the price goes up a lot. Get a less expensive system with adequate memory for what you need and at least a 2 core or more processor, especially if you plan on modeling with it. Save rendering for a better desktop.
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Thanks escape artist for your help as well,
Since I can only get a laptop, I think this might work OK;(Sorry I don't know how to properly add a hyperlink)This is my "measuring stick" unit for now. It sounds like I will not notice much/any differance between the 2.4Ghx/6Mb and the 2.7Ghz/8Mb. I noticed the price just went up $100 from last week!, I'll have to compare again at the end of the month when finances become available.
Thanks again for your help,
Matte -
@matte said:
no ssd? i think this would make a real difference, especially compared to a slower 2,5" notebook hdd.
...and i would go for the 3820QM - if this is really for the next 5-6 years (and it's at least 7-8% faster)
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ohhhh SSD,
Not familiar with that one, I am now. I only know enough about laptops and the newer hardware to be dangerious! (To making an uninformed decision anyway). "Luckly" for me I have to probably wait another 2-3 months before I can pull this off anyway, maybe newer stuff like solid state hard drives will be the norm by then? Probably not....I envisioned them as soon as I sat the first Jump/Thumb drive years ago, so who knows? But so far this seams to be the best bang for the buck laptop I have found with a 17 inch plus monitor and minimum of 12Gigs of ram (I was told thats a good amount to run Revit with?) My old 6 year old HP stills runs the newer Acad, Sketchup fine, its starting to get into the animation stuff with numerious images is where I figured I would notice dtuff. Thanks again for your input, it is helping me to feel comfortable aqbout whatever choice I am going to make.
Matte -
Might be worth it to get the regular laptop and put in an SSD later, they keep falling in price. Just built my wife a Win 7 system with an SSD and RAID backup, it runs so quietly and such a cool temperature it's amazing. Boots from cold in ~15 second. If you can't/don't want to upgrade later, consider an SSD if you can afford it.
But make sure you maintain good backups of your system and important info.
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@matte said:
"Luckly" for me I have to probably wait another 2-3 months before I can pull this off anyway, ...
If you will have to wait 2-3 months you maybe should wait one or two more and buy a Haswell based notebook... i think i would be worth it.
http://www.anandtech.com/show/6355/intels-haswell-architectureAnd add a (good) SSD! It will speed up your whole work.
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