New laptop purchase

[cybercore]

Hello guys,
I need some advise regarding buying a new laptop. My budget is 500$ . I would like to start learning web design and I need to upgrade my old machine.
I have a good impression by Dell and I'm checking their website at the moment.
Can you give me more information about the differences between AMD and Intel processors?
Also can you recommend me some video cards (brand)?
I'm open minded for every advise and suggestion. All help will be much appreciated!
Thanks guys!

 

[Eximo]

Are you looking at used systems? Not likely to find a video card in $500 laptops.

If you are looking a few years back the difference between Intel and AMD tends to be battery life. Intel had the more efficient chips until very recently. Not that Intel is bad, the processors are still fast and it really comes down to the core count and frequency.

GPU brand, not really relevant unless you are getting into CUDA programming (nvidia). Or need to make use of Nvidia's hardware tensor or ray tracing cores.

You can learn web design on extremely inexpensive hardware.

I'll shop around and see what is worth getting at the moment.

 

[Eximo]

All new, all 'integrated' graphics. Intel's latest Xe graphics and AMDs much older, but still better, Vega graphics.

i5-1135G7, 16GB of ram, 512GB SSD, $500

https://www.walmart.com/ip/Gateway-...id=&affiliates_ad_id=1167790&campaign_id=9383

i5-1155G7, 8GB of ram, 512GB SSD, $500

https://www.newegg.com/carbon-gray-msi-modern-15-a11mu-654-mainstream/p/N82E16834156044

Ryzen R5-5500U, 8GB of ram, 256GB SSD, $450 (best spend another $50 on another 8GB of memory)

https://www.walmart.com/ip/Lenovo-I...id=&affiliates_ad_id=1167790&campaign_id=9383


Nothing used is really jumping out at me. You have to go back to like 4th and 5th gen Intel to start seeing discrete GPUs. Everything with a GPU in it was basically gobbled up over the last two years with the GPU shortages and increased prices, going to be a while before we start seeing any RTX and RX class graphics making it to the used market. You can try Ebay and the like if you are feeling lucky.

 

[cybercore]

Are you looking at used systems? Not likely to find a video card in $500 laptops.

If you are looking a few years back the difference between Intel and AMD tends to be battery life. Intel had the more efficient chips until very recently. Not that Intel is bad, the processors are still fast and it really comes down to the core count and frequency.

GPU brand, not really relevant unless you are getting into CUDA programming (nvidia). Or need to make use of Nvidia's hardware tensor or ray tracing cores.

You can learn web design on extremely inexpensive hardware.

I'll shop around and see what is worth getting at the moment.

Thank you for your response. So you are recommending AMD, is that correct ? Do so say that for the price AMD will be the best choice ?

 

[Eximo]

Not saying that at all. Very recent AMD processors are quite good, especially the big ones, but those are out of your price range.

Intel has very competitive 11th and 12th gen processors. If you go back to say the Intel 10th through 7th gen or so, then AMD doesn't really have anything worth getting in terms of performance. They have somewhat okay budget options, but nothing I would call superior.

AMD does tend to have more powerful integrated graphics (they bought ATI, the competitor to Nvidia, some time ago) Intel uses their own display technology, or you can get AMD or Nvidia discrete graphics. Though starting with 11th gen we are looking at their latest graphical architecture (which was designed by a former AMD employee) and will be present in Intel's upcoming desktop graphics cards.

Picking a laptop is more than just looking at the hardware specs. Really you need to look at battery size/life, keyboard layout, touchpad size and quality, screen quality, cooling etc. However, when looking at budget laptops, basically you are after the best specs for the money. They don't tend to last as long as high end hardware, both in terms of relevance, and build quality, so in the 5 or so years they are likely to be kept, best to get the most out of it.

 

[velo3100]

I would look at the screen, keyboard and trackpad as you will be using it a lot. I would also look at build quality. As for CPU and GPU, make sure it reasonabley up to date as you are just learning to web design.

Make sure though it had at 16 gigs of ram, an SSD of sort for fast boot ups, integrated GPUs unless you are using 3d models or something that can take advantage of them.

Also think about the battery life you need, lower end components will use less power and heat which will produce less heat.