What to prioritise in laptop (not sure if right forum section)

[hakkeyoi]

Hi,

I need to buy a new laptop and I very much want to stick with HP. I narrowed it down to three options and I cannot tell how the differences between them affect performance. I've tried to look online and understand MHz and GHz, comparing i5 and i7 too, but I just cannot figure it out. I know RAM is important but, again, I don't know how important compared to all the other factors and what they all influence. I saw someone mention IPC is important but I have no idea what that is.

What's most important to me is performance. I don't care about weight, whether it can be used as a tablet, size etc. I would like to train to become a software developer and I just want a decent laptop with my smallish budget (under £700) to start off with. Maybe an occasional game but not very often.

All these laptops are quad core, similar battery life, Intel Iris Xe and are all within £50 of each other.

Laptop 1, a HP 14s: 8 GB DDR4-2666 MHz RAM (2 x 4 GB); i7-1165G7 (up to 4.7 GHz), 12 MB cache (comes with Windows 10 but can get a free upgrade)

Laptop 2, a HP 14s: 16 GB DDR4-3200 MHz RAM (2 x 8 GB); i7-1165G7 (up to 4.7 GHz) 12 MB cache (comes with Windows 10 but can get a free upgrade)

Laptop 3, a HP Pavilion 14: 8 GB DDR4-3200 MHz RAM (2 x 4 GB); i5-1155G7 (up to 4.5 GHz) 8 MB cache (comes with Windows 11)

What most confuses me is #2 and #3 are the same price, though #2 has double the ram, a better Intel processor with GHz and better cache. Would one be paying more as it's Pavilion? Initially, I was comparing #1 and #3, which have a difference of £50 with #1 being cheaper, and I didn't know whether to prioritise the 12MB cache and i7 of #1 or the 3200 MHz of #3.

I just don't know what it all actually amounts to and I would really appreciate some help on what affects what in performance.