Sandy Bridge processor worth it?

[BeerAdvocate]

Im in the market for a new laptop and I am wondering if it is worth the extra money to get one with the new Intel Sandy Bridge processor or save $200 and get almost the same exact laptop but with the "older" regular i5 processor?
It would be use mostly for downloading/streaming movies & music and surfing the web. I dont play a lot of games and its not needed for work.
Im debating between these two:

$899.99
http://www.bestbuy.com/site/Toshiba+-+Satellite+Laptop+/+Intel%26%23174%3B+Core%26%238482%3B+i5+Processor+/+14%22+Display+/+4GB+Memory+-+Champagne+-+E305-S1990X/9999153600050029.p?id=pcmprd153600050029&skuId=9999153600050029&childSku=1853204&count=1

$799.99
http://www.bestbuy.com/site/Toshiba+-+Satellite+Laptop+with+Intel%26%23174%3B+Core%26%2 3153%3B+i5+Processor+-+E205-S1980/9999150900050010.p?id=pcmprd150900050010&skuId=9999150900050010&childSku=1271606&count=1

[MajorCaptSilly]

I've mostly dealt with the i7 in the Sandy Bridge. I have a client that has several first gen i7 machines for CAD. I took him a demo Sandy Bridge i7 when we got one and he immediately bought 4 of them. He told me that large drawings were opening 7-8 seconds faster from first gen to second gen. The HD graphics are improved on all the chips and the board has some major improvements. Intel had an issue with the first run of the Extreme boards but they are all out of the distribution channels now. I suggest spending the money on a 120GB Intel SSD instead of a SATA drive. You won't regret it!

MCS

[Silound]

The short answer is, no you don't need the SB processor. It's nice, but you yourself said you won't be using the laptop for anything that requires the horsepower.

I would recommend steering away from buying laptops from retail chains (desktops are fine). They don't incorporate a warranty into the price (Best Buy actually sells computers basically at cost) so if anything happens, you're SOL. Plus, the store warranty you can buy usually has worse coverage than a manufacturer's warranty, or tries to pull a "complete replacement" scam based on the current value of the laptop (IE nothing).

I don't have a brand bias, but I do like Dell's warranty myself. The few times I've had to utilize it over the years on my personal laptops, it was well worth having. Working in the industry, I've also come to like HP, Asus, and Lenovo service when it comes to warranties.

[BeerAdvocate]

anyone else have an opinion or any experience?

[lbowles2]

Travis,

I would agree with Silound above. For what you are planning on doing with the laptop the 'old' i5 will be just fine. Our machines at my work are running Core 2 procs at best and they are working just fine doing internet and office type work. They seem to handle running some Adobe software just fine too. Considering the Core i5 is newer tech than the Core 2 (which is an excellent proc) you will be just fine.

[larryinlc]

I just upgraded my Sony (Intel Centrino 2 Core 2 Duo T9300 2.5GHz) to an Asus with an i3 2.26GHz processor (already obsolete) Truth be told, I see no difference in performance. I've not seen much difference in some time with upgrades for what I do. I don't do much to tax a pc, but I do use Lightroom 3 and have purposely created a large file to see how it would perform doing heavy editing. No problems at all. I'm cheap. I just can't get myself to buy the latest greatest horsepower when last years tech will do just fine. Why did I upgrade? I wanted a copy of Win 7 Professional 64 bit to replace Vista and a stand alone copy from Microsoft was 300 bucks. Made sense to me to purchase a new computer with it already installed for not much more money.

Larry

[jledou]

Personally I went with the AMD chips to take another $100 or so off in our latest laptop doing exactly what you are doing Travis.
Currently on my 2nd and 3rd AMD processors at home and they run fine for simple stuff and games I do there.

[BeerAdvocate]

I am not too familiar with AMD chips. Whats the difference between the Athlon,Turion, Phenom...
Also what brand (Asus, Toshiba, HP...)is the most reliable?
Thanks for all the advice/recomendations!

[Silound]

AMD makes solid chips...they're just not keeping pace with Intel. If you look at hardware comparisons and bench tests, newer AMD processors often fall behind older Core Quad and Core 2 Extreme processors by Intel. For your applications, AMD would work fine and save you a few dollars. If price is a factor though, you still get slightly better performance out of a slightly lower tier Intel processor that costs the same as the higher tier AMD. Simply said, AMD is not currently competitive enough in the desktop marketplace.


As far as brands go, I believe Lenovo (previously the old IBM ThinkPad) holds the best reliability overall. That being said, almost all major brands are very reliable, and very few lemons make it to the consumers. They all use essentially the same internal parts.

Most people will dislike a brand more out of ignorance to the true problem or simple impatience than because a brand is better or worse.

The biggest offering I can give you is to know what you need exactly, and what you're buying. You really get what you pay for in laptops (cheap is not always good), but there's no reason to pay for more than you need.

Also, remember that in two years you have an expensive typewriter and paperweight :)

[larryinlc]

I've owned just about every major brand made over the past ten years, and they've all been very good. Because they're laptops, I tend to only keep them for two or three years though. It used to be that Sony had the best cosmetic build quality and materials, but I think everyone else had followed suit. Aluminum casing feels good.:) If I had one complaint, it would be all the crapware that Sony installs in their computers. My current Asus has top notch materials. Sony was always noted for their screens, but since I mostly connect to a 23 inch monitor, this isn't that important to me. My Asus too has a very good screen. I'm biased and because of this, I really like Asus. It's very good but I didn't go out and do any comparison shopping. Find a good deal, I guess. Under the hood, they're all pretty much the same.

Any of the current crop of laptops are 1000 times better than they were 10 years ago. I still have an old noisy plasticy ill fitting Dell in the other room to prove this. By todays standards, it was like owning a Model T.

I am not too familiar with AMD chips. Whats the difference between the Athlon,Turion, Phenom...
Also what brand (Asus, Toshiba, HP...)is the most reliable?
Thanks for all the advice/recomendations!

[larryinlc]

To add one more point to the original question. To me, it was more important to have 64 bit system to utilize all the ram and also having a fairly large dedicated video card instead of the latest processor. I may have been wrong about these priorities, but I'm not a huge computer dink, so I probably don't know any better.:confused:

Larry

[jledou]

To add one more point to the original question. To me, it was more important to have 64 bit system to utilize all the ram and also having a fairly large dedicated video card instead of the latest processor. I may have been wrong about these priorities, but I'm not a huge computer dink, so I probably don't know any better.:confused:

Larry

Now days I would agree Larry unless you are seriously running an intensive cpu program which 90%+ of us are not.

[Ratters]

Check out amazon.com. You can find some great deals, way better than best buy, they have good return policies, and if you buy an ASUS like I did, it comes with a two year warranty and a year accidental damage warranty.

Oh, and mine has an i5 processor and it plays games and does everything I ask of it just fine. I was thinking about waiting for the Sandy Bridge, but for me it just wasn't worth it and I'm glad I didn't wait. They reportedly do have some copy protection built into the chip that will make it harder to torrent, if that's your thing. http://news.smh.com.au/breaking-news-technology/new-intel-chip-a-coup-for-hollywood-20110106-19giq.html

[larryinlc]

That's where I got my Asus from too. Via techbargains.com which had a killer deal a couple weeks back

Check out amazon.com. You can find some great deals, way better than best buy, they have good return policies, and if you buy an ASUS like I did, it comes with a two year warranty and a year accidental damage warranty.
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