So I ordered a new laptop, it’s a Dell Inspiron 15R Core i5-460M 2.53GHz with 6GB DDR3, and I was wondering if it would be better than a HP AMD Phenom II Triple-Core Processor with 6GB DDR3.
The AMD one is cheaper, so if that turned out to be better I could cancel the order so please help!
Also if you could breakdown what it means, like 2.53GHz and 460M, that would be awesome!
The 460M is just the processor model number where ‘M’ probably stands for Mobile.
You can always swap the RAM (6Gb DDR3), though 6Gb should be fine for most work.
2.53GHz is the processor speed, which is not bad, but not crazy either. It’d be worth finding out what the speed is of the AMD chip to compare.
All in all, IMO, although the AMD chip offers 3 cores, the i5 is capable of Hyperthreading which effectively gives you 2 extra virtual cores (4 threads in total), which is very useful for rendering. I’d say stick with the Intel chip. I did AMD for a while, but haven’t found anything from AMD to compare with the Intel i7 line, especially the Extreme models.
The Virtual cores will only give a small boost as they have to borrow free cycles from the real cores. When rendering the cores are often pushed to their limits, not leave much for the virtual cores to work with. That being said the Intel chips are significantly faster then AMDs, meaning an Intel dual core will probably out perform an AMD triple core.
Intel i5 if you want performance. AMD if you want to save a few bucks.
I was very interested in AMD only to find out they are cheap chips with cheap designs.
The whole price for a bug for the same performance comparison is not valid today anymore.
Intel chips are more optimized and as stated already a 4 core can out perform the 6 core AMD
at the same price range.
The i5 has a lower Ghz then the AMD which can be bad for single thread tasks.
But most of blenders tasks today are multi threaded.
After all the hype I read about AMD I found they are not really what you are after if performance is
what you are interested in.
I’m not really familiar with the i5 chips, but if the i7s are anything to go on, then get the i5.
Intel is the leader for a good reason, AMD have been cheaper the entire way, but Intel…are put simply better.
So get the i5, some of my friends have (top end) i5s in their DESKTOPS so they are definately powerful. (also, i heard something about graphics processing built in at one point, not sure but i think thats all in there…)
Wow, thanks for the fast and in-depth responses! I’ll stick with i5!
Glad i could help!