Electronics

[nmoeller]

I am in need of advice...does anyone have feedback on the two HP laptops that QVC sells...one has the intel core3 processor and the other AMD A12-9700P quad processor.  

I am going to buy the 1 or 2TB with 12gb ram...just wasnt sure about the processors...

Any help would be GREATLY appreciated.

[software]

Depends on what you will use it for.

Intel is generally faster, if you choose i5 or i7

Almost like which is better, Coke or Pepsi.

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@nmoeller wrote:

I am in need of advice...does anyone have feedback on the two HP laptops that QVC sells...one has the intel core3 processor and the other AMD A12-9700P quad processor.  

I am going to buy the 1 or 2TB with 12gb ram...just wasnt sure about the processors...

Any help would be GREATLY appreciated.

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[ChynnaBlue]

@nmoeller,  what do you plan on using the computer to do? That makes a big difference.

Intel has a Core i3, i5, and i7. The Core i3 is the low end of the scale and doesn't have as much processing power as the 5 or 7. It's also been around since 2012. I think all i3s are dual cores, but you can check with the complete number. (It should be an i3 something, not just an i3.)

The A12 line is newer - 2016 - and more comparable with the i5 and i7 chips.

I would go look at reviews for similar HP computers with those chips and see what users and review sites like PC Mag or Laptop Mag have to say about them. 

[Nightowlz]

Here's a comparison of Intel i3 6100U & the  AMD 12-9700. Don't know which i3 you are looking at?  http://www.cpu-world.com/Compare/505/AMD_A12-Series_for_Notebooks_A12-9700P_vs_Intel_Core_i3_Mobile_...

[gardenman]

Unless you do some really high end stuff, most of the time your CPU will just be sitting there twiddling its thumbs waiting for something to do. If you ever install one of the CPU monitoring widgets you'll be surprised at how little your CPU gets used. People get very hung up on which CPU to buy, but pretty much any currently available CPU will handle anything you throw at it. Now if you're looking to do video editing, CAD, or something very processor intensive, then go for the power, but if you're primarily web surfing, using a word processor, and sending emails, then pretty much anything will be fine.

I'm planning an upgrade on my tired old desktop in a month or two and I'm budgeting $80 for the AMD quad core FX 4350. That CPU  has a 4.2 ghz speed and will be way more processor than I'm likely to need. I'll add in a new motherboard, 8 gigs of RAM, a 120 gb SSD for the OS and frequently used programs, and Windows 10 and my total cost will be around $370. I'll be reusing my old case, optical drive, power supply, and hard drives to help contain costs. 

I could go for the new AMD Ryzen, the higher end one sells for $500, but it would be way, way more CPU than I need. I'll only rarely go over 10% usage on the lower end CPU, so why spend more than I need to? I'll gladly pocket the $420 difference in price and be happy.

[Nuttmeg]

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@gardenman wrote:

@gardenman 

I'm planning an upgrade on my tired old desktop in a month or two and I'm budgeting $80 for the AMD quad core FX 4350. That CPU  has a 4.2 ghz speed and will be way more processor than I'm likely to need. I'll add in a new motherboard, 8 gigs of RAM, a 120 gb SSD for the OS and frequently used programs, and Windows 10 and my total cost will be around $370. I'll be reusing my old case, optical drive, power supply, and hard drives to help contain costs. 

You may want to increase the size of your Windows boot drive to 256 GB SSD. I have a 128GB boot drive in a laptop and there is only has  59GB of storage remaining on the drive. This computer has a 1TB storage drive. Window 10 this way is fast.

[Nuttmeg]

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@nmoeller wrote:

I am in need of advice...does anyone have feedback on the two HP laptops that QVC sells...one has the intel core3 processor and the other AMD A12-9700P quad processor.  

I am going to buy the 1 or 2TB with 12gb ram...just wasnt sure about the processors...

Any help would be GREATLY appreciated.

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HP has sales on their site everyday. The HP Envy's can be a good value.

[gardenman]

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@Nuttmeg wrote:

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@gardenman wrote:

@gardenman 

I'm planning an upgrade on my tired old desktop in a month or two and I'm budgeting $80 for the AMD quad core FX 4350. That CPU  has a 4.2 ghz speed and will be way more processor than I'm likely to need. I'll add in a new motherboard, 8 gigs of RAM, a 120 gb SSD for the OS and frequently used programs, and Windows 10 and my total cost will be around $370. I'll be reusing my old case, optical drive, power supply, and hard drives to help contain costs. 

You may want to increase the size of your Windows boot drive to 256 GB SSD. I have a 128GB boot drive in a laptop and there is only has  59GB of storage remaining on the drive. This computer has a 1TB storage drive. Window 10 this way is fast.

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I'll just use the SSD as a boot drive for the OS  and frequently used programs, so I should be okay with the 120, but if the budget allows I may go higher. The 120 gig size SSD's are around $45 these days while the 256 are more like $80.