Which of these laptops is better for music production?

Page 2 - Seeking answers? Join the Tom's Hardware community: where nearly two million members share solutions and discuss the latest tech.
I will be using the laptop for music production. Is the difference in cpu significant? Or is it better for me to have a dedicated graphics card?

NVIDIA’s MX110 is overal not that good.

It seems like you’ve roughly shown half of the specs of both of the machines, but the specs of the first system seem a bit better (higher gen CPU, faster RAM).

I wouldn’t recommend buying a laptop with deticated graphics when you’re only going to use it for music
 
NVIDIA’s MX110 is overal not that good.

It seems like you’ve roughly shown half of the specs of both of the machines, but the specs of the first system seem a bit better (higher gen CPU, faster RAM).

I wouldn’t recommend buying a laptop with deticated graphics when you’re only going to use it for music
Thank you. Could you please help me with this?
I'm somewhat confused by these results on two different laptops. One has faster base speed and turbo speed. The difference in single thread count seems slim. Yet the overall performance rating is much higher for the other!

https://www.cpubenchmark.net/compare/Intel-i7-1065G7-vs-Intel-i7-10510U/3466vs3549

Here are the two laptops :

https://support.hp.com/th-en/document/c06502657

and

https://support.hp.com/hr-en/document/c06510862
 
Urgent - laptop comparison... Please help!
I need to buy a laptop for music production. Mostly using soft synths and found libraries. Occasionally, I will record ROMpler and digital drum machine.
Projects won't be extreme - 8-25 tracks, maximum.

Here are the specs of the two laptops:

https://support.hp.com/th-en/document/c06502657

https://support.hp.com/hr-en/document/c06510862

---

Which is better? I'm confused.... The computer with 4.9ghz has a lower CPU mark than the 3.9ghz one.
Both laptops have the same number of cores, are i7 10th generation, both HP.

What is the difference, and which is best suited to my needs?

Any help will be much appreciated!
 
Urgent - laptop comparison... Please help!
I need to buy a laptop for music production. Mostly using soft synths and found libraries. Occasionally, I will record ROMpler and digital drum machine.
Projects won't be extreme - 8-25 tracks, maximum.

Here are the specs of the two laptops:

https://support.hp.com/th-en/document/c06502657

https://support.hp.com/hr-en/document/c06510862

---

Which is better? I'm confused.... The computer with 4.9ghz has a lower CPU mark than the 3.9ghz one.
Both laptops have the same number of cores, are i7 10th generation, both HP.

What is the difference, and which is best suited to my needs?

Any help will be much appreciated!
 
the 3.9ghz one gets a faster score, because it is an "apu" (thats what amd calls it)
it has a better gpu, but worse cpu. depending on what you need, one can be better than the other.

rest is mostly the same

but one is a 14 inch model and the other is 15.6 inch.
 
the 3.9ghz one gets a faster score, because it is an "apu" (thats what amd calls it)
it has a better gpu, but worse cpu. depending on what you need, one can be better than the other.

rest is mostly the same

but one is a 14 inch model and the other is 15.6 inch.
Though I like the idea of 15.6 inch, the performance is most important.

I want the laptop for music production.
I don't want it for video editing, gaming, or anything like that.
 
Though I like the idea of 15.6 inch, the performance is most important.

I want the laptop for music production.
I don't want it for video editing, gaming, or anything like that.
well, i dont know much about music production. knowing most people use a macbook for it, i can imagine the performance really doesnt matter.

you will get better battery life from the 14 inch with the U processor (standing for ultra low power. they are still powerful enough though, just sip power.)

as you dont need the better gpu, i would go with that one.
 
well, i dont know much about music production. knowing most people use a macbook for it, i can imagine the performance really doesnt matter.

you will get better battery life from the 14 inch with the U processor (standing for ultra low power. they are still powerful enough though, just sip power.)

as you dont need the better gpu, i would go with that one.
I don't understand. Are the MacBook specs lower than the ones I have posted for these 2 HP's?
 
Urgent - laptop comparison... Please help!
I need to buy a laptop for music production. Mostly using soft synths and found libraries. Occasionally, I will record ROMpler and digital drum machine.
Projects won't be extreme - 8-25 tracks, maximum.

Here are the specs of the two laptops:

https://support.hp.com/th-en/document/c06502657

https://support.hp.com/hr-en/document/c06510862

---

Which is better? I'm confused.... The computer with 4.9ghz has a lower CPU mark than the 3.9ghz one.
Both laptops have the same number of cores, are i7 10th generation, both HP.

What is the difference, and which is best suited to my needs?

Any help will be much appreciated!

I can see why you would be confused - this is due to Intel having dificulties with their 10nm processors.

The first laptop has the "Ice Lake" i7 1065G7 cpu. This is a next gen 10nm based cpu with a brand new cpu core. The reason the passmark is higher is that the new core has much higher ipc (instructions per clock) than the older "Skylake" core design which is what the other laptop is based on using the i7 10510U.

Here is an article reviewing the 1065G7:
https://www.techspot.com/review/1944-intel-core-i7-1065g7/

Apparently the new core design offers 18% more ipc - so at the same clock speed the new core would be 18% faster. The issue Intel has been having is they cannot hit anywhere near the clock speeds on 10nm that they can on their older 14nm designs - so a lot of that ipc boost gets lost due to lower clocks. That said, in a power constrained situation like a laptop, the clocks aren't typically that high (whilst the other cpu has a boost of 'up to 4.9ghz' the reality is that is only a short term boost speed for one core). The i7 10510U will probably run around the 4ghz mark when using lots of threads, according to the article the 1065g7 should sustain 3.5ghz, so about 15% lower clocks but with 18% better per clock performance it ends up being slightly faster.

It should also be a bit more power efficient being on 10nm.

Personally, I think I'd get the first laptop as quad core vs quad core, ice lake is better. The biggest problem for ice lake is it maxes out at 4 cores, whereas you can get 6 cores in the form of the i7 10710U on the older 14nm design (and that would be faster than a quad core ice lake). I guess this is why Intel are offering both options at the moment, until they can get 10nm sorted out they cannot outright beat the 14nm parts with it.
 
Thank you so much for your reply!

Seeing as I need it for music production, which is better?
Will mixing and recording audio use multiple threads? Will i benefit from the "up to 4.9ghz" boost?

I'm willing to pay for the 4.9 ghz if it will benefit me, but if it won't, I'd rather pay slightly less for the 3.9 GHz (which also comes with a larger monitor)

Thank you
 
Thank you so much for your reply!

Seeing as I need it for music production, which is better?
Will mixing and recording audio use multiple threads? Will i benefit from the "up to 4.9ghz" boost?

I'm willing to pay for the 4.9 ghz if it will benefit me, but if it won't, I'd rather pay slightly less for the 3.9 GHz (which also comes with a larger monitor)

Thank you

It's difficult to know for sure which will actually be faster in your application - I wouldn't pay too much attention to the speed, that 4.9ghz will only be hit in very specific circumstances (usually when the laptop is cold and only for a short time). Work for any length of time and the clock speed will drop quite a lot.

With regard to core / thread usage in music production - I've dabbled a bit with this and typically the software can use 1 thread per track or per VST instrument. Many of the sound filters can also use threads so it typically does use multi core / thread cpu's quite well. It does somewhat depend on what bit of software you are using though as some are better at this than others (personally I've used FL studio and that is quite well threaded, what software are you using)? It's quite possible that the Ice lake based laptop could actually be the faster of the two machines, although you would need to look for benchmarks done with the software you are using to know for sure. I think the reality is both laptops would handle music editing pretty well - if you wanted more performance I would suggest looking at a laptop with more cores.

Out of curiosity does it have to be only these two laptops? If not I think it's worth looking if there are any laptops with a 'H' series processor rather than a 'U' series - the H versions have a much higher power envelope to work with so are typically quite a bit faster, there are plenty of laptops with the i7 9750H for example which has 6 cores / 12 threads that would be significantly faster than either of these options and probably wouldn't cost much more. The only negative to going with a 'H' series laptop is they tend to be a bit thicker / heavier as they are aimed as production laptops whereas the U series parts are for extra thin / light laptops for more portability.
 
I will be using FL Studio, possibly Reaper, too.

I cannot afford to spend anymore, I've already exceeded my budget 😊

I'm not great with computer technology. From what I understand, for my needs, the number of cores and threads is more important than total boost capability (3.9 or 4.9 ghz in this case).

From what I see, the 2 laptops have the same number of cores and threads, and so there would be no difference in performance, other than when the laptop is cold., I.e. When it first switched on.
Have I understood correctly?
 
I will be using FL Studio, possibly Reaper, too.

I cannot afford to spend anymore, I've already exceeded my budget 😊

I'm not great with computer technology. From what I understand, for my needs, the number of cores and threads is more important than total boost capability (3.9 or 4.9 ghz in this case).

From what I see, the 2 laptops have the same number of cores and threads, and so there would be no difference in performance, other than when the laptop is cold., I.e. When it first switched on.
Have I understood correctly?

Kind of - the high turbo on the second laptop won't really help you as FL Studio uses lots of cores / threads (and that 4.9ghz speed only works for tasks which only use 1 core at a time).

The first laptop actually features a newer, more powerful cpu core design than the second (despite both being '10th gen' as Intel is selling two different cpu designs in the same range at the moment). That means that whilst the first laptop runs at a slower speed, the better core can do more at a given speed than the older design used in the second laptop. I think in reality the real world performance of the two laptops is going to be roughly the same (so if the first one is cheaper and with a bigger screen I would get that).
 
Since CPU turbospeeds aren’t important for you due to you only using it for music production, i’d go with the cheapest of the two, since they’re kinda roughly similar to be honest
 
Thanks for your responses.

I see that the laptop with 3.9ghz turbo boost has 1.3 ghz. The benchmark score was good, but 1.3 ghz sounds very low? Significantly loser than my old I3 laptop.

Will this be too slow for music production?