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HP Recommended

Hey guys, I'm not exactly sure where to post this question so I'm sorry if I picked the wrong board. I am going to be buying a new laptop after finding out that it would be pretty expensive to upgrade my current one as it has a soldered motherboard. I'm willing to pay a pretty penny for a new one, but I want to make sure I'm doing so wisely. I definitely want to stick with an HP laptop, but I was wondering which one to get. I've read that the 6th generation intel i7 core processor isn't that significantly different to the 7th generation, so if I could get a 6th that would decrease how much I'm spending. I've also read up on hard drives versus solid state drives and the efficiency of both, as well as intel's HD Graphics cards versus NVIDIA graphics cards. Essentially what I'm asking is what should I be paying attention to and be willing to spend a little extra for because it will greatly improve the performance of the laptop. I use my laptop for school work but I also like to play Sims on it which has been ridiculously slow and laggy on my current laptop with an i3 processor. Thanks for any information you can give me.

1 ACCEPTED SOLUTION

Accepted Solutions
HP Recommended

I assume you  are still waiting for an answer to your last post. Perhaps I can add to the info already above.


@Lady_Adelaide wrote:

Right, I've actually read those articles before and found them very helpful, but I'm still unsure on what I should pick in a laptop. For example, with the gaming I'll be doing is it better for me to get a 1 TB hard drive, a 256GB SSD, or a hybrid of both.


An SSD will give you much faster performance when booting the OS, starting a program (especially games), rendering video, etc etc. An SSD will give you the most noticeable overall speed difference of any hardware upgrade.

Some laptops have the ability to have both an SSD and HDD. That is the most ideal as you can load the OS and programs on the SSD, then use the HDD for storage. I would look for 250 GB  or larger in an SSD.

 


@Lady_Adelaide wrote:

Which graphics card should I be using, is an Intel HD Graphics 620 going to be significantly different from an NVIDIA GeForce 940MX?


The intergrated graphics built into the CPU will never be as powerful as a separate dedicated graphics card.

Intergrated video works fine for average use like watching a video, browsing the web, basic photoshop work.

The ability to render graphic intense games fast depends which game you play, game settings and on which dedicated card you have.

Its like shopping for a car. Speed/power costs money. The more you spend, the faster the car.

 

An nvidia 740M is not considered a very powerful graphics card.

For high end games, look for the fastest you can afford.

The newer nvidia 1060m with dedicated memory would be a good start if playing stuff like COD or Battlefield. The Sims on the other hand, is not as demanding and you could get away with intel intergrated. The Sims 4 also has a setting for optimizing it for laptop graphics.

 

Intergrated video relies completely on using the computers Ram for memory and is slower. Dedicated video has its own memory built in and does not need system ram unless it runs out.

Mobile NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 (Laptop) NotebookCheck.net

 


@Lady_Adelaide wrote:

 Is a 6th generation i7 core processor significantly slower than a 7th generation i7 core processor?

 

How much system memory should I be looking for?


There will always be a lot of opinions about this type of subject. The biggest difference I've read about it is that the 7th gen will have much better 4k video handling if using the built in graphics of the CPU.  Otherwise, not a big gain in overall performance. But usually the latest PC models have the latest hardware, so no worries either way.

7th gen CPU's will only run Windows 10, no downgrading to Win7.

 

Most gaming laptops are going to come with 8 Gigs of memory minimum. That should handle most anything you do, unless you  are planning to do high end multi-media processing like large photoshop files, video rendering in Premier Pro, etc.   If that's what you do, then more is better.

 

IF you are willing to spend the money on a higher end gaming system, take a look at the HP Omen.

Its configurable so you can upgrade the hardware over the base model at purchase.

 

Just my 2 cents.

Hope that answers your questions.

 

 

 

 

View solution in original post

3 REPLIES 3
HP Recommended

Hi,

 

Please read the following articles first:

 

   http://www.laptopmag.com/t/laptops

   http://www.laptopmag.com/articles/laptop-buying-guide

   http://www.techradar.com/news/mobile-computing/laptops/best-laptops-1304361

 

After that you can see bangs for bugs and make decision.

 

Regards.

BH
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HP Recommended

Right, I've actually read those articles before and found them very helpful, but I'm still unsure on what I should pick in a laptop. For example, with the gaming I'll be doing is it better for me to get a 1 TB hard drive, a 256GB SSD, or a hybrid of both. Which graphics card should I be using, is an Intel HD Graphics 620 going to be significantly different from an NVIDIA GeForce 940MX? Is a 6th generation i7 core processor significantly slower than a 7th generation i7 core processor? How much system memory should I be looking for? I'm willing to spend money on a good laptop that will last me a couple years as long as the money I'm spending gets me the best bang for my buck as much as possible and is what I need for what I'm using the laptop for.

HP Recommended

I assume you  are still waiting for an answer to your last post. Perhaps I can add to the info already above.


@Lady_Adelaide wrote:

Right, I've actually read those articles before and found them very helpful, but I'm still unsure on what I should pick in a laptop. For example, with the gaming I'll be doing is it better for me to get a 1 TB hard drive, a 256GB SSD, or a hybrid of both.


An SSD will give you much faster performance when booting the OS, starting a program (especially games), rendering video, etc etc. An SSD will give you the most noticeable overall speed difference of any hardware upgrade.

Some laptops have the ability to have both an SSD and HDD. That is the most ideal as you can load the OS and programs on the SSD, then use the HDD for storage. I would look for 250 GB  or larger in an SSD.

 


@Lady_Adelaide wrote:

Which graphics card should I be using, is an Intel HD Graphics 620 going to be significantly different from an NVIDIA GeForce 940MX?


The intergrated graphics built into the CPU will never be as powerful as a separate dedicated graphics card.

Intergrated video works fine for average use like watching a video, browsing the web, basic photoshop work.

The ability to render graphic intense games fast depends which game you play, game settings and on which dedicated card you have.

Its like shopping for a car. Speed/power costs money. The more you spend, the faster the car.

 

An nvidia 740M is not considered a very powerful graphics card.

For high end games, look for the fastest you can afford.

The newer nvidia 1060m with dedicated memory would be a good start if playing stuff like COD or Battlefield. The Sims on the other hand, is not as demanding and you could get away with intel intergrated. The Sims 4 also has a setting for optimizing it for laptop graphics.

 

Intergrated video relies completely on using the computers Ram for memory and is slower. Dedicated video has its own memory built in and does not need system ram unless it runs out.

Mobile NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 (Laptop) NotebookCheck.net

 


@Lady_Adelaide wrote:

 Is a 6th generation i7 core processor significantly slower than a 7th generation i7 core processor?

 

How much system memory should I be looking for?


There will always be a lot of opinions about this type of subject. The biggest difference I've read about it is that the 7th gen will have much better 4k video handling if using the built in graphics of the CPU.  Otherwise, not a big gain in overall performance. But usually the latest PC models have the latest hardware, so no worries either way.

7th gen CPU's will only run Windows 10, no downgrading to Win7.

 

Most gaming laptops are going to come with 8 Gigs of memory minimum. That should handle most anything you do, unless you  are planning to do high end multi-media processing like large photoshop files, video rendering in Premier Pro, etc.   If that's what you do, then more is better.

 

IF you are willing to spend the money on a higher end gaming system, take a look at the HP Omen.

Its configurable so you can upgrade the hardware over the base model at purchase.

 

Just my 2 cents.

Hope that answers your questions.

 

 

 

 

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