Maximum needed ram and cpu cores for non gaming mobiles? My desktop for non gaming has been chosen: 16GB ram, SSD, i5 4460 (go

oliver555

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Aug 11, 2013
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As in the question, I've established the max performance point worth paying for (that I'd notice) in a non gaming desktop (and the brands of all the parts are good quality, PSU also taken care of). I'm now wondering what would be the max point in cores and ram for a mobile phone (for my usage and that I'd actually notice)? Cameras I'm assuming are fine above 7MP, and I need to be able to change batteries and increase storage. I want fast standard operations as with a desktop like scans, boot up, browsing speed, minimised lags, etc. Like my desktop, I plan on keeping the mobile for a while and don't see me getting a new one unless I have to. Apologies if parts or all of this are off base, this is my first time shopping for a smartphone. Realistically, it will be android because I don't think the iPhone is worth the premium for my needs. I have gravitated towards Samsung (although I've never actually purchased one yet) but I'm open to others for performance and price. I'm sure there are brands with similar or better specs/prices that I've never heard of. For example, I had never heard of Xiaomi till a few weeks ago.
 
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At this point there is no "you need X RAM and X CPU cores" for basic usage Though any newish phone will be just fine for basic use. Phones are a fair bit different at this point.

For example Apple has chosen to go with a strong GPU and (for most) a dual core design that has very high single threaded performance.

Qualcomm makes 2-4 core CPU's that have fairly good singlethreaded performance and GPU that has its relative power paired by CPU. Most of those are however of BIG.little type were half the cores are high performance and half are low power. Samsung does the same thing on their octocores CPU's 4 big core 4 little cores.

All this is even before you get to the differences between custom vs stock ARM cores.

Some vendors also...

oliver555

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It does? Doesn't it depend on the needs of the user? Surely basic users are not going to notice a significant difference in performance upto a certain point or, the cost isn't going to be worth the difference. You don't think basic users have reached that limitation yet?
 

oliver555

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Aug 11, 2013
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I'm a basic user on my PC too and it's essentially future proof for a long time. It's a quad with HD4600 and has plenty ram. It's going to be a while before everyday programs for basic users (office,web browsing,downloading) take advantage of multiple threads.

I'm not sure I can compare PCs to mobiles, so I'm wondering if a basic mobile phone user has reached performance saturation yet. 4GB is small for a "future proof" PC, but it's the maximum on the latest mobile. The latest android also has 8 cores which would be severe overkill for a basic PC user. 16GB ram and a recent generation quad is enough for a basic PC user, I'm just not sure what a basic mobile user should go for. I'm not gaming but I want it to be quick with a few everyday non intensive apps running simultaneously. Ideally it would also have a good sized aerial for signal, but that's unlikely these days.
 
At this point there is no "you need X RAM and X CPU cores" for basic usage Though any newish phone will be just fine for basic use. Phones are a fair bit different at this point.

For example Apple has chosen to go with a strong GPU and (for most) a dual core design that has very high single threaded performance.

Qualcomm makes 2-4 core CPU's that have fairly good singlethreaded performance and GPU that has its relative power paired by CPU. Most of those are however of BIG.little type were half the cores are high performance and half are low power. Samsung does the same thing on their octocores CPU's 4 big core 4 little cores.

All this is even before you get to the differences between custom vs stock ARM cores.

Some vendors also make phones with Intel's Atom processors (rare though) which have different performance characteristics as well.
 
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