AMD e450 or Intel i3 370M

adocholiday

Hi all,

Looking at purchasing a laptop for net browsing, office applications, managing music etc. nothing too intensive. Save on laptops have two Toshiba laptops (Satellite Pro 660) which are pretty much identical except for the processors which are the AMD e450 and the intel 370m. The intel is £50 more expensive.

Is it worth upgrading to the intel or would the AMD be enough?

Fluffy88

I wouldn't get either of them if I was you.
I would go for a second gen Intel Core i3 model, anything 2xxxM, like this Asus,
http://www.saveonlaptops.co.uk/ASUS_K53E-SX069V_1066412.html
or this lenovo
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Lenovo-B570-15-6-inch-Notebook/dp/B005SNNE4I/ref=sr_1_4?s=computers&ie=UTF8&qid=1323722220&sr=1-4

AMD don't really compare to either first or second gen Intel Core i CPU's so I would definitely get an Intel Core i and preferably a second gen. Even for the jobs you described I would still recommend the Intel CPU's as they aren't much more expensive, they will do the job a lot better and they will last a lot longer.

What's your budget?
Links to the two laptops?

adocholiday

Thanks Fluffy,

The laptop isn't for me I have a second gen i3 myself and it's great. The one I am enquiring about is a gift and the budget is a maximum of €350. The one you recommended there would be great but it's almost €100 over the budget when you factor in delivery and credit card charges.

AMD laptop

On second look the i3 Toshiba is actually a good bit over budget too so that's nipped that in the bud! Any other recommendations in that price range? I know I can't expect much for €350!

Hal Emmerich

Raise your budget.

What size screen?

Fuji anyway.

adocholiday

That Fuji looks quite good. How does the P6200 compare with the other processors?

Hal I can't raise the budget. That's me maxed out unfortunately

Hal Emmerich

adocholiday wrote: »

That Fuji looks quite good. How does the P6200 compare with the other processors?

Hal I can't raise the budget. That's me maxed out unfortunately

It's getting a bit dated at this stage. It's not all that worse than an i3 330 I suppose, it's missing some of the advanced features like Hyperthreading.

Edit: Here's a good comparison site.
i3 330
P6200

Overheal

Fluffy88 wrote: »

AMD don't really compare to either first or second gen Intel Core i CPU's

Bullsh*t. Entirely depends on the models. An AMD A8 laptop can match an i5 laptop most days of the week. Bit more to go off of than "Intel > AMD"; it's oversimplifying the marketplace.

Fluffy88

Overheal wrote: »

Bullsh*t. Entirely depends on the models. An AMD A8 laptop can match an i5 laptop most days of the week. Bit more to go off of than "Intel > AMD"; it's oversimplifying the marketplace.

It's oversimplifying but that's what most people want to get when asking for help here. Just a simple way for them to make a better decision.

And really it's not untrue. At any price point above €400 Intel has a chip that is better than AMD's counterpart for that price range.
Apparently the best performing AMD mobile CPU is equivalent to a 2.9GHz Core 2 Duo
I don't take benchmarks like this too seriously but how much would it cost to get buy a laptop with one of these?

I'm in no way an Intel fanboy, I will always go with the company that is offering me the best value for money and atm that's Intel.

Overheal

I havent seen a Phenom in a laptop in months. Perhaps you should take a look at the APUs instead.

http://www.notebookcheck.net/AMD-A-Series-A8-3530MX-Notebook-Processor.55760.0.html

Fluffy88

I'm finding it hard to find a laptop with a A8-3530MX in it. Would you have a link to one?

All I can find is the A8-3500M which comes in at around €700.
I could get a Dell XPS 17 L702x, i7-2670QM, GT 550M for €750 and if you dropped that to a 15" i5-2410 I'm sure you would get it a nice bit cheaper than the AMD. And according to notebookcheck the i5 beats the A8-3500M.
Which kinda ties in to the point I was trying to make, Intel processors are better value atm.
I'm not trying to say Intel CPU's are better than AMD, I'm sure there is loads of AMD CPU's around that beat most of Intel's offerings.

Jaafa

Fluffy88 wrote: »

I'm finding it hard to find a laptop with a A8-3530MX in it. Would you have a link to one?

All I can find is the A8-3500M which comes in at around €700.
I could get a Dell XPS 17 L702x, i7-2670QM, GT 550M for €750 and if you dropped that to a 15" i5-2410 I'm sure you would get it a nice bit cheaper than the AMD. And according to notebookcheck the i5 beats the A8-3500M.
Which kinda ties in to the point I was trying to make, Intel processors are better value atm.
I'm not trying to say Intel CPU's are better than AMD, I'm sure there is loads of AMD CPU's around that beat most of Intel's offerings.

No not really, Intel at the moment have AMD beat on price and performance. There's very few situation where you could recommend an AMD CPU/APU over an Intel one right now. A shame really, really hope AMD pull it together.

Hal Emmerich

Overheal wrote: »

Bullsh*t.

Jaafa wrote: »

really hope AMD pull it together.

+1

Is the pretty crap Bulldozer range not going to cripple them though?

Fluffy88

Didn't AMD make a statement saying that they are not competing with Intel in the processor market anymore.
It really is a pity they aren't more competitive coz if they were prices would be lower

They might decide to pull their thumbs out now since Intel is really killing them and bring out something good in a year or two.
At least their GPU's are class.

Jaafa

Hal Emmerich wrote: »

+1

Is the pretty crap Bulldozer range not going to cripple them though?

Hard to say really. If as fluffy has mentioned they stop trying to compete with Intel's top end range, and refocus on the lower end proccesors + strong GPU's they can get back at intel.

For example I saw recently a Laptop with an A6 processor and mid range GPU from AMD for 550 euro. That thing will game and do it quite well for the price. The next comparable intel based laptop was 70 euro more expensive. (i5+ GT540m). Sure the CPU is much stronger but these day's games rely on the GPU far more than the CPU. So for an extra 70 euro the intel based laptop will only get you maybe 5 FPS extra in most games. (there are some exception)

What AMD need to do is widen the price gap between them and intel in areas such as these, to make the advantages that the intel laptop has not worth the extra cost.

marco_polo

Hal Emmerich wrote: »

+1

Is the pretty crap Bulldozer range not going to cripple them though?

Fortunately for all of us (yah competition) the high end desktop segment is not a critical part of their business, so they are not really in all that bad a shape in the short/medium term anyway as their APUs are selling extremely well (both in the laptop and mainstream desktop versions), that gives them some time to refine Bulldozer (alot).

While the reception for Bulldozer Opterons was somewhat mixed (as opposed to for the Desktop version) it remains much more well suited to that sort of usage sort and as a result Bullldozer is much more competitive with Server Intel offerings for the most part, so they are not expected to lose market share there.

They are probably right to be refocusing to some degree as the fact that Windows 8 will be compatible with ARM processors opens up a whole new level of competition on the mobile/tablet platforms that had better be prepared for.