Comparing performances of different laptops

ronz91

ronz91

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Hey guys

Are benchmarks the best way to compare performance of laptops against one another?

Thanks
 
In b4 PostmanpolPot brings his Apple jihad into the thread.

What are you looking to compare, and for what reason? Thinking of upgrading?
 
.QQ. said:
In b4 PostmanpolPot brings his Apple jihad into the thread.

What are you looking to compare, and for what reason? Thinking of upgrading?
Click to expand...

overall performance most likely.

Okay I have an 8 year old laptop that runs pretty well running a Core 2 Duo and has an onboard graphics card. The laptop cost alot when new but obviously tech has improved. Now I am not looking for a high end laptop but I am not looking to go backwards either. So when I see a new midrange laptop running a Celeron etc how do I gauge its performance against the laptop I have?
 
ronz91 said:
overall performance most likely.

Okay I have an 8 year old laptop that runs pretty well running a Core 2 Duo and has an onboard graphics card. The laptop cost alot when new but obviously tech has improved. Now I am not looking for a high end laptop but I am not looking to go backwards either. So when I see a new midrange laptop running a Celeron etc how do I gauge its performance against the laptop I have?
Click to expand...

I'm not sure how the new Celerons will do against an old Core2Duo, my suggestion would be to google reviews and guage based on that how they would perform vs your laptop.

Do you specifically need something portable? If it's for gaming you might do better with a desktop.
 
ronz91 said:
overall performance most likely.

Okay I have an 8 year old laptop that runs pretty well running a Core 2 Duo and has an onboard graphics card. The laptop cost alot when new but obviously tech has improved. Now I am not looking for a high end laptop but I am not looking to go backwards either. So when I see a new midrange laptop running a Celeron etc how do I gauge its performance against the laptop I have?
Click to expand...

The Celeron will not be that much different to your current model, although you should expect it to be faster because yeah... 8 years is a long time. The big differences will be in things like battery life, onboard graphics, weight, heat dissipation, noise, and also the build quality of your model will have deteriorated quite significantly by now. What kind of budget are you looking at?
 
.QQ. said:
I'm not sure how the new Celerons will do against an old Core2Duo, my suggestion would be to google reviews and guage based on that how they would perform vs your laptop.

Do you specifically need something portable? If it's for gaming you might do better with a desktop.
Click to expand...

no not for gaming, but yeah wouldn't mind being able to run Fifa or the odd FPS game. Mostly web browsing, videos and MS Office stuff. I do some basic video editing. But yeah how do todays onboard graphics compete against an 8 year old ATI HD3430 card?
 
cerebus said:
The Celeron will not be that much different to your current model, although you should expect it to be faster because yeah... 8 years is a long time. The big differences will be in things like battery life, onboard graphics, weight, heat dissipation, noise, and also the build quality of your model will have deteriorated quite significantly by now. What kind of budget are you looking at?
Click to expand...

My laptop isn't slow though, boots in like 20s or less and is ready to go in like a minute or less. Its only noisy under strain with the fan going nuts. Ofcourse the battery only lasts 5min on a charge but I could source a new battery. Build quality is still fine.

Budget is as low as possible. Friend of mine bought a new i3 laptop for R4k at the start of 2015 but soon after prices shot up to the point where I can barely find an i3 under R5,5k. Bloody Rand
 
You can often find secondhand laptops that are basically new for pretty cheap, that could be an option I guess. My whole PC is secondhand.
 
cerebus said:
You can often find secondhand laptops that are basically new for pretty cheap, that could be an option I guess. My whole PC is secondhand.
Click to expand...

Yeah I'd like to if I could find a trusted reseller. Back to said question, how would I know if said 2nd hand laptop matched mine?
 
This isn't bad

Not sure how good or bad a N3540 quad core Pentium is.


EDIT: Actually, comparing it to a 5th gen i3 its pretty much on par.
 
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ronz91 said:
Yeah I'd like to if I could find a trusted reseller. Back to said question, how would I know if said 2nd hand laptop matched mine?
Click to expand...

As long as it's a minimum of i3, you can safely assume it at least matches your current one. However, if you really need a performance boost, you should probably wait till you can find an i5 or so. It's kind of hard to say.. .this site has benchmarks that you can use:

http://www.notebookcheck.net/Mobile-Processors-Benchmark-List.2436.0.html

But in general those C2Ds are very old by now and anything will be faster.
 
ronz91 said:
Okay I have an 8 year old laptop that runs pretty well running a Core 2 Duo and has an onboard graphics card.[...]
So when I see a new midrange laptop running a Celeron etc how do I gauge its performance against the laptop I have?
Click to expand...
Average Core 2 Duo will be on the pair with the latest Atom quad core CPU, but only if application is using all cores. Single thread application will lag behind by far margin. Of course there are many Core 2 Duo's, ranging from ULV range with three-fold performance increase in the upper mobile range. Current Celeron is probably faster and consume less power than any Core 2 Duo, also new laptops bring USB 3.0 and WiFi-n which is very important. However Celerons do not support virtualisation.
On the other side current cheap laptops only come with Fast Ethernet, while old business range of Core 2 Duo's had Gigabit Ethernet as a standard.

The old dedicated graphics card is not a big asset these days as all new CPU's handle graphics pretty well. Screen resolution (HD for 15") is a big shame in the current range and you might be lucky having 16:10 screen factor which is more suitable for computers.

In summary, don't expect that low-end cheapo laptop will be much faster, but will stay longer on the battery. If your laptop has comfortable 4GB RAM, you won't notice any improvements assuming having fresh OS installation.
ronz91 said:
My laptop isn't slow though, boots in like 20s or less and is ready to go in like a minute or less. Its only noisy under strain with the fan going nuts.
Click to expand...
Fan is easy to replace if noisy. Many times fan is still OK, just the fan and air ducts need cleaning from dust mixed with human sweet.
 
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sajunky said:
Average Core 2 Duo will be on the pair with the latest Atom quad core CPU, but only if application is using all cores. Single thread application will lag behind by far margin. Of course there are many Core 2 Duo's, ranging from ULV range with three-fold performance increase in the upper mobile range. Current Celeron is probably faster and consume less power than any Core 2 Duo, also new laptops bring USB 3.0 and WiFi-n which is very important. However Celerons do not support virtualisation.
On the other side current cheap laptops only come with Fast Ethernet, while old business range of Core 2 Duo's had Gigabit Ethernet as a standard.

The old dedicated graphics card is not a big asset these days as all new CPU's handle graphics pretty well. Screen resolution (HD for 15") is a big shame in the current range and you might be lucky having 16:10 screen factor which is more suitable for computers.

In summary, don't expect that low-end cheapo laptop will be much faster, but will stay longer on the battery. If your laptop has comfortable 4GB RAM, you won't notice any improvements assuming having fresh OS installation.

Fan is easy to replace if noisy. Many times fan is still OK, just the fan and air ducts need cleaning from dust mixed with human sweet.
Click to expand...

Here's approx my specs, one or two minor things might be off:
Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo P7350 - 3M Cache, 2.00 GHz, 1066 MHz FSB
Memorie RAM: 2GB DDR2
HDD: 320 GB SATA-II
Unitate optica DVD+|-RW
Display: 15.6" HD, 1366x768
Video: ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3430 with 256MB Dedicated RAM
Wireless (WIFI LINK A,B,G,N)
10/100/1000 Gigabit Fast Ethernet
Integrated Webcam 1.3Mpx
4-in-1 card reader (MS, MS Pro, MS Duo, SD)
4x USB 2.0 ports
Bluetooth Version 2.0
External DVI Port
1x HDMI Port

 
And OS? Asking because it might be short of RAM, nothing else is substandard.
 
Do you have one memory stick installed or two? If one slot is empty, upgrade will be relatively easy.
 
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