Buying a new laptop, ssd or not

Gary Norris

Hello

I am buying a new laptop soon and I am wondering about an ssd. I have heard ssd is much faster so would that mean an ssd with 6gb ram is on par with hdd with 8gb.

This one I was looking at has an ssd with 6gb and an i7 dual core.
http://www.saveonlaptops.co.uk/Acer_Aspire_Timeline_Ultra_M5-581TG_1316370.html

This one I was looking at has an hdd with 8gb and an i7 quad core
http://www.saveonlaptops.co.uk/Acer_Aspire_V3-771G_1362373.html

I know they are different sizes with different hd and price but I more asking about its performance.

Or if people could maybe recommend an i7 dual/core 15" laptop would also be useful?

Thank you

mcw92

I have heard ssd is much faster so would that mean an ssd with 6gb ram is on par with hdd with 8gb.

EDIT : Long story short, SSD improves performance. If laptops were the same spec apart from SSD + 6GB ram, or HD + 8GB ram, the SSD model would win 100%.

Ram dosen't judge the speed of the laptop, more the amount of programs you can run at once.
6GB Ram is more than enough unless you intend on doing heavy movie/photo editing at the same time as other applications running.


What would judge the speed would be the Processor and the SSD/HD.
SSD gives a huge performance in Start-Up times, copying files, and accessing folders and such.

The Processor in the HD laptop is far superior than the one in the SSD laptop.(Higher number is better)

HD Laptop Processor
SSD Laptop Processor


The Graphics card in the SSD model is superior than the HD model.(Same again, higher = better, although these wouldn't be high end cards)

HD Laptop GPU
This might handle recent games at a Low level graphics.


SSD Laptop GPU
This might handle recent games at a Medium leve graphics.

The HD model has a much higher screen resolution, but that would be needed due to the bigger screen.

The SSD model is much lighter and has much better battery life, 7-8 hours compared to 2-3 hours.

If you need to travel/carry the laptop, I'd definitely go for the SSD model.

If you dont mind too much about looks, PCSpecialist allow to to customize to your own spec.
You could make a 15" Laptop, Similar Processor to HD Model, 8GB Ram, Slightly better GPU, SSD for 725£ Delivered.

Heres one i made for the 725£ delivered
Or for 646£ delivered, you can remove the Operating System, and buy your own for around 50€ or maybe less(not sure of current deals), they charge 79£ for the OS! :O :

Enigma IV
15.6" Glossy HD LED Backlit Widescreen (1366x768)
Intel® Core™i7 Quad Core Mobile Processor i7-3630QM (2.40GHz) 6MB
8GB SAMSUNG 1333MHz SODIMM DDR3 MEMORY (1 x 8GB)
NVIDIA® GeForce® GT 650M - 2.0GB DDR3 Video RAM - DirectX® 11
120GB KINGSTON V300 SSD, SATA 6 Gb (450MB/R, 450MB/W)
8x SATA DVD±R/RW/Dual Layer (+ 24x CD-RW)
Integrated 3 in 1 Memory Card Reader (SD, MMC, MS)
ENIGMA SERIES GIGABIT LAN & WIRELESS 802.11N + BLUETOOTH 3.0
2 x USB 3.0 PORTS + 2 x USB 2.0 PORTS AS STANDARD
Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium 64 Bit w/SP1
INTEGRATED 1.3 MEGAPIXEL WEBCAM
3 Year Standard Warranty (1 Month Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour)

Overheal

RAM was once the "make my old **** faster" upgrade.

However 4GB of RAM has been the standard spec since Vista, and this hasn't changed much. The entire DDR3 generation has been pretty stale, and RAM has been pretty cheap; most users will never utillize more than 4GB (anytime soon), and those that do are either doing virtualization or a RAM-Disk, which is basically an SSD 2.0

The SSD is now the aftermarket upgrade of choice. Harder to accomplish aftermarket though, because you're going to have to migrate a drive and all this other crap. But either way, the current bottleneck suffered by the average PC is the Hard Disk. An SSD brings the PC up to the responsiveness of a tablet or smartphone, which when coupled with the better performance of most PCs, makes the upgrade a clear winner. Even gaming is perfectly fine on an SSD, I have a dozen major titles on my 256GB SSD and my OS, everything works great.

Gary Norris

HI

I will keep that laptop in mind the getting no operating system is interesting. I may have a windows 7 cd at home. With no OS it also brings the price to the same as the acer laptop with the ssd.

Thanks

mcw92

Gary Norris wrote: »

HI

I will keep that laptop in mind the getting no operating system is interesting. I may have a windows 7 cd at home. With no OS it also brings the price to the same as the acer laptop with the ssd.

Thanks

You need to add on delivery to the Saveonlaptops price too.
£ 9.95 for delivery to Ireland.

Monotype

I'd get 256GB if you can for an SSD with a laptop. 128GB is not a whole lot of space when you've got no other hard drives.
You can always buy a laptop with a HDD and upgrade it yourself with a 256GB HDD for around €160. Then get an enclosure for your old hard drive. You'd want a Windows reinstall though.


... and yes, SSDs are great!

mcw92

Monotype wrote: »

I'd get 256GB if you can for an SSD with a laptop. 128GB is not a whole lot of space when you've got no other hard drives.
You can always buy a laptop with a HDD and upgrade it yourself with a 256GB HDD for around €160. Then get an enclosure for your old hard drive. You'd want a Windows reinstall though.


... and yes, SSDs are great!

Ya I didn't think of mentioning buying the SSD yourself separately.
Can sometimes be much better value if you find a good deal.

You could then buy something like this, eBay HD Caddy USB 3.0, to fit the old HD that came with the laptop.

Gary Norris

I have 2 1TB hard drives one full, one only 25% full so the 120gb ssd isnt really an issue for me

Gary Norris

Would any1 know how to get windows 8 cheap I guess for around 50/60 euro. I have seen an upgrade version but I'll need to put an os on that the new laptop first

migel_prado

Gary Norris wrote: »

Hello

I am buying a new laptop soon and I am wondering about an ssd. I have heard ssd is much faster so would that mean an ssd with 6gb ram is on par with hdd with 8gb.

This one I was looking at has an ssd with 6gb and an i7 dual core.
http://www.saveonlaptops.co.uk/Acer_Aspire_Timeline_Ultra_M5-581TG_1316370.html

This one I was looking at has an hdd with 8gb and an i7 quad core
http://www.saveonlaptops.co.uk/Acer_Aspire_V3-771G_1362373.html

I know they are different sizes with different hd and price but I more asking about its performance.

Or if people could maybe recommend an i7 dual/core 15" laptop would also be useful?

Thank you

I would suggest you get a laptop of your choice with the default HDD and then replace with a SSD. Though you feel the HDD can go waste, no it wldnt as you can get a case for this & convert this to a external backup drive. simplistically, the advantage of doing this would be to get a good pricing on a HDD based laptop & option to choose the best SSD. Smarty right Moreover, the link of the acer SSD laptop you have shared is just 128GB & the brand is not known. If this sounds good to you then one final suggestion would be to choose a sandforce driven SSD as they are known for their reliability & speeds. You have several options tried &
proven brands like Kingston Hyperx 3K,OWC electra 6G, corsair force 3 GS 240GB. good luck bro!

U_Fig

What I did bought a laptop with HDD then bought an SSD and bought a caddy that changes the CD drive to a 2nd HDD bay and use the SSD for boot and the HDD for storage.. I then bought an external Cd drive enclosure and put the cd drive I took from my laptop into it and use It externally on the rare occasion i need to.

Overheal

Monotype wrote: »

I'd get 256GB if you can for an SSD with a laptop. 128GB is not a whole lot of space when you've got no other hard drives.

Agreed. I actually have a 64GB Tablet, 128GB Ultrabook and 256GB Desktop. I have to manage space on the tablet, the laptop I wouldnt be comfortable installing much more stuff on (40GB available after browsers addons and my college software), the desktop has plenty of room to SSD-run my programs and games

mcw92

Gary Norris wrote: »

Would any1 know how to get windows 8 cheap I guess for around 50/60 euro. I have seen an upgrade version but I'll need to put an os on that the new laptop first

There are ways to install the upgrade version 'clean', if you do a quick google.