Buying a laptop but am confused about the Processors and RAM...?

Question

I am looking to buy a laptop for college within the next few weeks or so and have began looking at some different choices. With regards to the processor, I am unfamiliar with which ones are better than the others [other than knowing which costs more and assuming it is better due to the added cost].

I wanted to see if someone could explain to me what I need to look for in a good processor that will speed my computer up. Do I need to look for higher GHz and what else? The thing that is confusing me is some processors are more expensive than another yet they have less GHz, so which is better?

Also, should I go ahead and go to 2GB of RAM rather than settling for 1GB if I can afford the cost. I want this laptop to perform quickly and allow me to use it sufficiently throught all of my college years.

One other question... which is more important fr improving the overall speed of the computer the processor or RAM...which do I spend more to improve on first?

Answer 1

Go for a laptop with at least 1Gb. of RAM and with a processor speed of 2+ Ghz. The disc space of at least 80+Gb will more than see your needs but remember if you are using Vista, you may need extra memory. Memory is "SO" important in the new Vista and I cannot express this enough. Hope this answers your question and good luck with your purchase.

Answer 2

Just having a big clock speed (Ghz) is no longer the gauge of processor performance. Manufacturers pretty much reached a heat limit on how fast they could run processors, so now they have to think of new way to make processors perform bettr without increasing clock speed. Just price alone is a fairly good indicator, but Intels can tend to be a bit more expensive than AMD, so you can't always go on price alone. If you get it narrowed down to a handful of processors you are looking at, send me an email and I can tell you which would be best.

As for RAM, go ahead and get the 2GB, especially if you want this to last for several years. As for overall speed, you can't really only do one, both have to be good. You can't have a bad processor and a ton of RAM and expect great performance, and you can't have a super fast processor with little RAM, there needs to be a balance.

Answer 3

Alright, let's see.. if you want a laptop to last you through all your college years, you should get a fast one, 2.5ghz or above, if you can afford the 2gb of ram, do it!! after all, when you add it all together, you're paying less per every bite of ram.
You also need to think about the hard drive.. 120gb or above, so it works smoothly and efficiently.

"which is more important fr improving the overall speed of the computer the processor or RAM...which do I spend more to improve on first?"

Ok, if you have a 2.5ghz processor with 256mb of ram your pc is gonna be ok, but not fast. Or if you get a 1.0ghz processor with 2gb of ram, it's gonna be ok, too.. but not they way you'd want it.. If you get a 2.5ghz processor, with 1gb of ram, it's gonna fly!! you need a fast processor so that it has the speed needed to share the bits of ram so the computer can be fast, without crashing every 5 mins.

PS: I forgot to say Toshiba, and HP are my favorite brands for laptops, but as long as you get the processor, ram, and hard drive you need, any computer is gonna work for you.

Answer 4

When I bought my laptop the first thing I looked for was the RAM because the more RAM you have the more tasks you can use at the same time, and for the processor a duo processor will do well unless that you are going to play a lot of games or use tasks that require great speed.

Answer 5

No straight forward answer right here it relies upon on what you employ them for, for processors customary and elementary use an intel pentium 4 might suffice, even although for consistent multi tasking and making use of extreme overall performance you're searching for around 3.0+ GHz AMD Phenom, I7 980 + overclocking. For RAM is going for the comparable even even though it relies upon at using specific and/or many put in courses and the constructive components in an working equipment extra RAM is important for Win 7 then XP that's not tricky to discern it out why. 512MB RAM elementary use, 8GB RAM diverse OS's, super coming up application (CAD, shape courses etc). i choose for to recommend a processor with 2.0GHz or extra desirable with a minimum of a million - 2GB RAM.

Answer 6

Ok different CPUs and different clock speed are more confusing than ever with the introduction fo core 2 duo etc...
I would go for something like this:
CPU: Intel core 2 Duo T7200 2.0 Mhz
RAM 2 Gigs, but try and get a notebook that has RAM expansion upto 4 Gig
Hard Drive, go for somthing like 200Gigs with a spped of 5400RPM, its better if you can find 2 hard drives 100 Gigs each with a speed of 7200RPM
Video Card, if you intend on using graphics intensive software or for gaming then go for a card like GeForce 7900GS

Hope this helped

Answer 7

ram ram ram

If you have to make choices, choose ram over speed. I would not buy a computer today with less than 2 Gb ram.and maybe 200 Gb hard drive. But processor speed is important also, so ge the best Intel machine you can afford.