Laptop CPU's dilemma

[clammier]

Hello everyone.

I've spent several days looking into various cheaper laptops (under $500) and I'm torn apart between a good couple of them. Basically, what I'm curious about is their CPU.

I need a laptop for daily use (internet, Office, watching movies, C# & Python programming for example) and I'm not sure which processor should I go with. I'm under impression that Intel i3 would suit my needs perfectly, but that's also because I'm not very familiar with other Intel CPU's in notebooks, such as Celeron or Pentium. Also, I saw a laptop with AMD A8-7100 CPU and I'm not sure if that's up to par with i3, for example, 4030U.

What I'm concerned most about are those Intel i3 processors of 4th generation which have lower GHz (e.g 1.7GHz - 1.9GHz). I'm aware they use less power, but I'm not sure whether I should go with something such as Intel Pentium Quad Core N3530 (2.16GHz).

All these laptops have similar other specs, such as 4GB RAM, 500GB-1TB HDD 5400RPM and integrated graphics and if I understood correctly, AMD's iGPU is better than Intels, but I'm still unsure whether I should go with AMD and if Celeron and particularly Pentium CPU can compete with Intel i3 40XX.

I would very much appreciate if someone could shed some light on my dilemma and whether CPU's with low clock speed such as cheaper, 4th generation i3 would be good enough for me, especially if I planned to throw in SSD a couple months from now.

And one more thing, what about i3 3217U which has 1.8GHz or i3 3110M with 2.4GHz? How do these two CPU's compare with the ones I named above? By now, I guess you can understand what my problem is - I have no idea where those CPU's stand at and how they compare with each other. I've spent a lot of time going through various benchmarks and couple of reviews, but I'm not closer to deciding whether I'd go with Intel i3 3rd/4th gen, Celeron, Pentium or AMD A6/A8.

Thank you.

 

[Fox_]

I would go with 4th gen i3 for sure, lowest power consumption, best integrated graphics, and best performance.

 

[rmark45matsu]

After a bit of research your going to want to pick up the a8 7100 laptop, for the reasons of better performance, stronger graphics, and then lower power and heat so you have a cooler laptop and a longer battery life (Assuming the batteries are the same size). APU's which is what the a8 7100 is, will benefit from faster ram. If you can find a laptop with higher frequency ram (1,333 or 1,600 is STANDARD, you will want 1866 or as high as you can find). In additional you won't have have the problem that gpu's typically have, which can be lack of vram; Apu's use your normal ram as their own vram which is why you need faster ram. But, that also means if your playing a game and have things in the background your ram may max out. The benefits of it far out way the drawbacks.

If you want to have an Intel laptop, the only cpu that there is to consider is the i3 3110M, it is the best intel one you've listed.

 

[clammier]

Thanks! I think I'll go with AMD A8-7100 then, figured even if it's a bit slower than i3 40XX, it should be good enough for what I need it.

If anyone else has something to add, I'd appreciate it too

Basically, I've always been under impression that Intel i3 is more powerful than anything else below that, so if I was wrong, I'd like to be corrected while it's not too late. On a more serious note, i3 350M 2.27GHz worked perfectly fine in my HP G72 for 3 whole years and considering it was my first non-AMD processor, I have to say I didn't regret purchasing it for a bit more cash than I would pay for laptop with AMD CPU.