Question New CPU advice

gordonfreemanjr

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Aug 24, 2019
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So, I want to buy myself a new laptop, however I haven't been paying any attention to the market and I'm basically green about what's out there.

At the moment I have a work laptop with following specs:

Lenovo ThinkPad
Memory: 3,5 GiB
Processor: Intel® Core™ i5-4210M CPU @ 2.60GHz × 4
Graphics: GeForce GT 730M/PCIe/SSE2
OS: 64-bit
Disk: 264,5 GB

I have Win7 and Ubuntu 18.04 on dual boot. It's couple years old. I use Ubuntu for work and Windows for gaming. I mostly play retro, however to my surprise fairly new games, such as The Witcher 3, run fairly well - on the lowest settings, naturally.

I have no idea whether the current machine is relatively good, but my aim is to get myself a new one with at least the same specs. I'm going for a similar setup: Ubuntu for work, Windows 10 for gaming. I'd also love to be able to run Cyberpunk 2077, but would also like to avoid a gaming laptop, as I don't do so much gaming after all, and if I do, it's older stuff anyway.

Can someone please guide me through my buying options? I intend to make use of Black Friday, so :)

Thanks!

PS: I recently found out that there's such thing as digital license for Win10, but it works just for a single machine, which I'm fine with. Is it possible to install it on a blank (as in: non OS) CPU?
 
Hm... an odd one to tackle especially for Black Friday unless we know what will be on sale in advance.

The one thing I would say is not to worry about the digital licence for Windows 10. With a new laptop you'd get a new copy of Windows 10 anyway, so you don't have to use your old one (which is technically linked to the old motherboard).
 
no idea on the laptop, but concerning your last question;

Your win key attaches itself to the mobo of your pc/laptop, if you have the code, you can use it to perform a fresh install of win 10 on another machine ONCE

This also works with win 7 keys (if you install from scratch)
 
Your use of CPU is a little wrong in this context, CPU is the processor, so your i5-4210m is your current CPU.

Anywho, I would currently recommend laptops with the newest Ryzen 5 3500 based CPU's in them. Since you won't be gaming as much it's only logical to get them for their work-based performance.

https://www.amazon.com/ASUS-VivoBoo...ure_eleven_browse-bin:13580795011&s=pc&sr=1-4

Here's an option with pretty much the same specs as your current. Though gaming cyberpunk may be asking a bit too much from laptops like these. I'd also recommend getting one with a bigger ssd. Games these days, and most likely CP, will require 50 - 100+ GB of free space available.
 

gordonfreemanjr

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Aug 24, 2019
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Hm... an odd one to tackle especially for Black Friday unless we know what will be on sale in advance.

The one thing I would say is not to worry about the digital licence for Windows 10. With a new laptop you'd get a new copy of Windows 10 anyway, so you don't have to use your old one (which is technically linked to the old motherboard).

Sure, it’s just laptops with an OS attached are significantly more expensive - at least down here.

no idea on the laptop, but concerning your last question;

Your win key attaches itself to the mobo of your pc/laptop, if you have the code, you can use it to perform a fresh install of win 10 on another machine ONCE

This also works with win 7 keys (if you install from scratch)

Yup. I was thinking more in technical terms. So I get a code and a blank laptop. How do I get an OS there?

Your use of CPU is a little wrong in this context, CPU is the processor, so your i5-4210m is your current CPU.

Anywho, I would currently recommend laptops with the newest Ryzen 5 3500 based CPU's in them. Since you won't be gaming as much it's only logical to get them for their work-based performance.

https://www.amazon.com/ASUS-VivoBoo...ure_eleven_browse-bin:13580795011&s=pc&sr=1-4

Here's an option with pretty much the same specs as your current. Though gaming cyberpunk may be asking a bit too much from laptops like these. I'd also recommend getting one with a bigger ssd. Games these days, and most likely CP, will require 50 - 100+ GB of free space available.

You’re right. Crossed my mind. Sorry for that.

I’m aware that the Cyberpunk thing might be asking a bit much. Let’s rephrase: what are the lowest specs I should be after to pull it off?
 

gordonfreemanjr

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Aug 24, 2019
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Hm... so where you are, you can get laptops which don't have an OS installed? Intriguing.

Still only rumours about Cyberpunk 2077 specs. Not even GOG has any official spec, though seeing assumptions of an i7 as the minimum.

Actually we can - in Poland. A laptop with Win10 preinstalled comes with around +10% over a blank one. Or you can say that a blank one comes with -10%, doesn’t really matter.
 
You’re right. Crossed my mind. Sorry for that.

I’m aware that the Cyberpunk thing might be asking a bit much. Let’s rephrase: what are the lowest specs I should be after to pull it off?

https://store.hp.com/us/en/pdp/omen...e2e85SHBXKfMX16lPuxoCly4QAvD_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds

Here's another option then, it has a streamline GTX GPU, but not a fairly strong one, possibly the minimum you'll need with an i5 9th gen and the same amount of storage via SSD.

Though if you could upgrade the storage yourself, that would be ideal. Just make sure to keep an eye out for min specs required for CP 2077 if you want to make sure that thing can handle it. Do keep in mind I've kept the budget under 800$, in case you were looking for under 1000$ laptops