Need helping buying a laptop

lillielad

Have 3 in mind, the main reason I use it is for college, netflix and to play Football Manager (only game I play on it)

https://www.currys.ie/ieen/computing/laptops/laptops/dell-inspiron-15-5000-15-6-intel-core-i3-laptop-1-tb-hdd-white-10182134-pdt.html

https://www.currys.ie/ieen/computing/laptops/laptops/hp-pavilion-14-ce0504sa-14-intel-core-i3-laptop-128-gb-ssd-silver-10180946-pdt.html

https://www.currys.ie/ieen/computing/laptops/laptops/acer-switch-3-12-2-intel-pentium-2-in-1-128-gb-emmc-black-10180841-pdt.html

TerrorFirmer

The Dell as it has a full HD screen, which makes a big difference. The HP has an SSD which would make it a lot faster to boot/general use, though.

The third one is one to avoid, unless you want that small size/would be OK typing on such a small device.

Squall Leonhart

Also the Acer only has 4GB RAM where the other 2 have 8GB.

G-Man

There all 3 reasonable laptops and they cover a spread... ... they will all do what you said but what did you not say... What college work...is it word and a bit of web or we development or m&s excel.. is it for use everyday in class or occasional report writing

Excel and web development or graphics will benefit from full hd screen 1920x1080... the other things not so much

How do you travel, college to me is packed backpacks, bus and cycling then you want to keep the weight down...as the lighter it is the better chance you will bring it and have it to use......


do you have a good desk at home where you can plug into a decent monitor..again that would tip towards a small light one with less need for full hd.

The more you invest in a laptop that suits how you use it, the more likely you will have it when you need it ..

raglinroad

If you're going to play football manager then none of those will be good.

Consider upping your budget if you can - I know this is a huge jump

https://www.komplett.ie/hp-pavilion-gaming-15-cx0651nd/80051156/product/9474


Unless you're planning on FM Touch.

Of them all - I'd go for the laptop with the 4gb RAM - simply because of the better processor. You can add more RAM at a later date - which you should definitely do.

It wouldn't cost much to update the RAM.

TerrorFirmer

Eh...not sure where you're getting this information from but a) the Acer has the slowest CPU of the three and b) the integrated graphics in the other options are perfectly fine for Football Manager.

Alanstrainor

raglinroad wrote: »

If you're going to play football manager then none of those will be good.

Consider upping your budget if you can - I know this is a huge jump

https://www.komplett.ie/hp-pavilion-gaming-15-cx0651nd/80051156/product/9474


Unless you're planning on FM Touch.

Of them all - I'd go for the laptop with the 4gb RAM - simply because of the better processor. You can add more RAM at a later date - which you should definitely do.

It wouldn't cost much to update the RAM.

The Acer has a Intel N4200 processor, only suitable for very light tasks and doesn't compare to any of the other machines mentioned in this thread. It also does not have user upgradeable RAM so that is a complete non-runner too.

And that gaming machine you linked above is not terribly suitable either, way overkill and likely too heavy for the OP's needs.

Captcha

Get amazing CPU and RAM for Football Manager, you wont regret it.

raglinroad

TerrorFirmer wrote: »

Eh...not sure where you're getting this information from but a) the Acer has the slowest CPU of the three and b) the integrated graphics in the other options are perfectly fine for Football Manager.

Sorry must have had too many tabs open - many thanks for pointing that out - you're dead right - the acer is the worst, my bad, and not a great start on my part, and I rarely make this mistake, I'm absolutely raging at myself.

The other options are poor choices for FM - and I am regular on the FM forums for Football Manager new laptops, under the user name Smurf, and I recommend laptops every day to users within their budget.

It has long been understood on the FM forums that an i3 is just not up to the task for FM - and especially the U range of processors. Albeit, the 8th are better on paper, I haven't met many people running the U processors 8th gen to know how much better they are from the 7th, but by all accounts the 7th gen U processor was terrible for FM.

And I also had a chat with Neil Brock - who - works for SI - who got info from their engineers on what processor is best or better for FM.

They pointed to this list https://www.notebookcheck.net/Mobile-Processors-Benchmark-List.2436.0.html

And as you can see the processor is ranked at 195 - and typically I and others try to recommend processors in the top 100 for FM. But that's not the whole story.


In terms of FM, it's still largely single core in it's operations, and anything in the multi-core processes that happen happen so fast that having more cores barely makes a difference in terms of processing speed.


So I always look at the single core performance of the processor for FM.

Hope that explains things a bit further, sorry I was a bit gung-ho on the starting posts here, I'll try to be more informative from now on.

Alanstrainor wrote: »

The Acer has a Intel N4200 processor, only suitable for very light tasks and doesn't compare to any of the other machines mentioned in this thread. It also does not have user upgradeable RAM so that is a complete non-runner too.

And that gaming machine you linked above is not terribly suitable either, way overkill and likely too heavy for the OP's needs.

You're right there - I opened too many tabs - had the wrong info open... my bad. Thanks for pointing that out - and hopefully the piece above explains a bit more.

Hope that helps.

raglinroad

Sorry forgot to mention - the graphics processor on the i3 is ok for 3d matches, but best on low detail. If you want 3d matches on higher detail with more things, like stadium, outside effects, weather effects, pitch effects and all that jazz, a dedicated card of mid-range or better is required.

TerrorFirmer

The i3 7th gen was terrible for FM? In what sense? Can you elaborate because it doesn't really make much sense.

The Minimum requirements for 2019 FM, let alone the older ones, is still a Pentium 4, light years slower than a 7th gen i3 ULV.

The minimum graphics requires are the ancient GMA4500, which the UHD620 in the 8th gen i3 is also light years faster than. Yes, obviously not going to run everything in 3D with max details at high framerate, but still perfectly adequate for a good experience.

As for your top 100 list....the vast majority of those are high-end desktop CPUs, with some top-end mobile CPU's in the mix. They'd be what you'd recommend for someone looking to play CPU killer titles like Battlefield online, not FM, a game legendary for its hardware friendly nature.

A 12 year old PC could literally run FM 2019 at low settings. A modern laptop will run it just fine.

raglinroad

TerrorFirmer wrote: »

The i3 7th gen was terrible for FM? In what sense? Can you elaborate because it doesn't really make much sense.

The Minimum requirements for 2019 FM, let alone the older ones, is still a Pentium 4, light years slower than a 7th gen i3 ULV.

The minimum graphics requires are the ancient GMA4500, which the UHD620 in the 8th gen i3 is also light years faster than. Yes, obviously not going to run everything in 3D with max details at high framerate, but still perfectly adequate for a good experience.

As for your top 100 list....the vast majority of those are high-end desktop CPUs, with some top-end mobile CPU's in the mix. They'd be what you'd recommend for someone looking to play CPU killer titles like Battlefield online, not FM, a game legendary for its hardware friendly nature.

A 12 year old PC could literally run FM 2019 at low settings. A modern laptop will run it just fine.

Well that's the link the SI engineers recommended, that's what they use. And I trust that.

The i3 and u processors in particular throttle the processor as they are ULV and to stop them overheating, so you don't match maximum frequency, for FM. As it's a proceesor intensive game, the processor is throttled.

Terrible is a strong word and probably the wrong word.

Min requirements for FM also say that it requires 2gb of RAm - but we all know you need about 8gb min these days.

Min graphics are probably for 2d matches - and possibly 3d matches on low detail.


The more leagues and database size you have the slower the game becomes because it requires more processing.

If you have a processor further down the list you're going to want to load less leagues/database size and probably have a short career of about 10 years.


But for a really good FM experience, I wouldn't recommend anything less than i5 hq.

raglinroad

Ahhh - I must have had this tab open and never posted the link

https://www.currys.ie/ieen/computing/laptops/laptops/acer-aspire-6-15-6-intel-core-i5-laptop-1-tb-hdd-black-10180987-pdt.html

This has 4gb RAM - highly recommend upgrading the RAM to 8gb.

For €600 budget probably the best you can get.

You can find compatible upgrades here http://www.crucial.com/usa/en/acer-memory


Anyway - spotted another one for about €500 - and it's refurbished - https://www.laptopsdirect.ie/refurbished-acer-aspire-6-core-i5-8250u-8gb-1tb-15.6-inch-windows-10-laptop-a1-nx.gwsek.001/version.asp

Alanstrainor

I reckon we've scared the OP away...

I'd pick one from this page, ordered by price ascending

all have full hd screens, ssd drives and 8gb ram. the ryzen chip has much better graphics horsepower than intel for the same specs.

https://www.currys.ie/ieen/windows-laptops/laptops/laptops/315_3226_30328_xx_ba00010671-bv00308565-ba00010215-bv00308700%7Cbv00308699-ba00012893-bv00311092-ba00002920-bv00307957/1_20/price-asc/xx_xx_xx_xx_5-7-8-10-11-13-15-16-17-18-19-20-21-22-23-criteria.html

so I'd recommend the rzyen for 650 euro unless you want a smaller screen / more lightweight. altho it isn't excessive at 1.8kg

https://www.currys.ie/ieen/computing/laptops/laptops/lenovo-ideapad-330s-15-6-amd-ryzen-5-laptop-256-gb-ssd-grey-10180850-pdt.html

2nd choice the acer swift 3 -> the first item on the page

Wombatman

HP Laptop i5-7200U with 8GB RAM for less than €500

Use Address Pal or other.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/HP-14-BS030NA-Laptop-14-i5-7200U-8GB-1TB-HDD-BullGuard-Internet-Security-/292755421515?hash=item442995394b

Wombatman

Wombatman wrote: »

HP Laptop i5-7200U with 8GB RAM for less than €500

Use Address Pal or other.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/HP-14-BS030NA-Laptop-14-i5-7200U-8GB-1TB-HDD-BullGuard-Internet-Security-/292755421515?hash=item442995394b

old i5 chip that's less powerful than current i3's
slow hard drive
no full hd screen

no weight quoted (that means it's heavy for sure) but looks like a brick of a machine.

would pass.

Wombatman

Wombatman wrote: »

HP Laptop i5-7200U with 8GB RAM for less than €500

Use Address Pal or other.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/HP-14-BS030NA-Laptop-14-i5-7200U-8GB-1TB-HDD-BullGuard-Internet-Security-/292755421515?hash=item442995394b

another point to note is that I'd never buy from a place when they are not honest enough to give you the full information.

e.g. no screen or weight specs given here - due to the fact that they are downsides.

Alanstrainor

glasso wrote: »

another point to note is that I'd never buy from a place when they are not honest enough to give you the full information.

e.g. no screen or weight specs given here - due to the fact that they are downsides.

The seller is Tesco Outlet. Which I presume is legitimate. It's more likely that the lack of specs isn't anything malicious. They do give the specific model number:

https://support.hp.com/ie-en/document/c05792950

No HD screen, 1366x768 and 2KG in weight. Not a good deal for all the reasons you mentioned before.

Alanstrainor

Alanstrainor wrote: »

The seller is Tesco Outlet. Which I presume is legitimate. It's more likely that the lack of specs isn't anything malicious. They do give the specific model number:

https://support.hp.com/ie-en/document/c05792950

No HD screen, 1366x768 and 2KG in weight. Not a good deal for all the reasons you mentioned before.

fair enough but these details are conspicuous by their absence. I've seen other supposedly reputable websites/sellers do this also. sometimes the brand of the outlet doesn't mean that they don't have dodge 3rd party sellers on there (which is not obvious to you when seeing a brand) who conveniently leave out details that could be perceived as negative or even to completely confuse the situation. to my mind this is basically trying to trick people.

TerrorFirmer

Also returning to the issue of Football Manager, the need for a top-end CPU, and how a €900 laptop should be the minimum....that's akin to someone asking for a laptop to play Battlefield V on, and someone coming along and saying that you really need a €2,000 i7-8700H, 16GB Ram, and GTX1080 Mobile equipped beast.

Yeah, that's obviously optimal, and will give the best experience as the dev's would have intended it (and of course they're going to recommend the highest spec possible, why wouldn't they?), but all games are scalable and that game would run just fine, tailored, on a €700 machine.

You do not need a €800 laptop for Football Manager - one of the most hardware friendly games to ever exist - and to suggest you do is just ridiculous. You'll get by very well on an i3-8130U, though the Ryzen laptop mentioned above is the best of the bunch - better CPU and significantly better integrated GPU.

There are people happily playing FM2018 on €250 laptops and decade old PCs, a modern i3 or Ryzen CPU based laptop will handle it just fine.

raglinroad

TerrorFirmer wrote: »

Also returning to the issue of Football Manager, the need for a top-end CPU, and how a €900 laptop should be the minimum....that's akin to someone asking for a laptop to play Battlefield V on, and someone coming along and saying that you really need a €2,000 i7-8700H, 16GB Ram, and GTX1080 Mobile equipped beast.

Yeah, that's obviously optimal, and will give the best experience as the dev's would have intended it (and of course they're going to recommend the highest spec possible, why wouldn't they?), but all games are scalable and that game would run just fine, tailored, on a €700 machine.

You do not need a €800 laptop for Football Manager - one of the most hardware friendly games to ever exist - and to suggest you do is just ridiculous. You'll get by very well on an i3-8130U, though the Ryzen laptop mentioned above is the best of the bunch - better CPU and significantly better integrated GPU.

There are people happily playing FM2018 on €250 laptops and decade old PCs, a modern i3 or Ryzen CPU based laptop will handle it just fine.

That's your opinion, and I respect that.

I've advised on laptops for over 6 years on the SI forums, and never had anyone come back that it didn't work for them and usually m anage to stay in budget.

I have studied all benchmarking threads - I've discussed it with the makers of Football Manager, and also with the Tech Support on their forums.

I know what it takes to run a decent performance of Football Manager, where that's subjective, I know.


If you want to advise otherwise, then that's fine, I'm not saying you're wrong, but I've done it for a long long time and my advice is different.


I'm not saying you need an €900 computer. But you'd want to be spending more than €500/600 for a good experience.

Usually I get the line, I spent €400 on this laptop and it's a pile of muck can't run anything, but then I bought a Mac Book Pro and it's AMAZING, and of course a MAc Book Pro costs over €2000, of course it's amazing.


For FM, it all comes down to how many leagues you are running, size of database and of course how many career games go into it. The more complex your game, the better hardware you need.


For 6 years everyone on SI forums have said not to use an i3 for FM. And that's over 6 years, never have I heard someone say it would be ok, until now.


An i5 dual core is probably best, a quad core is no harm, but having more cores than that has little effect on FM as it's mainly still a single core processing game.


As said before - concentrate on the single core performance for FM, as long as that can is good, then you'll be fine, i3, i5 or i7.

I wouldn't recommend anything lower than an i5 though.

beauf

raglinroad wrote: »

...For 6 years everyone on SI forums have said not to use an i3 for FM. And that's over 6 years, never have I heard someone say it would be ok, until now...I wouldn't recommend anything lower than an i5 though.

Maybe thats because a lot of people just look at the name and not the actual performance of a CPU. An i3 is not in the same place in the product line as it was 6yrs ago. Some i3 are faster than previous i5 and i7.

https://www.cpubenchmark.net/laptop.html

football manager will run fine on a current i3.

a ryzen 2500u mobile cpu would crush it.

as others have said it's one of the lightest games out there in terms of hardware. a current i3 will run Grand Theft Auto V fine (well optimised game)

here is football manager 2018 running smoothly on a 6 year old core i3 (way back on the current generation)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BHBpiR3qUtE

raglinroad

beauf wrote: »

Maybe thats because a lot of people just look at the name and not the actual performance of a CPU. An i3 is not in the same place in the product line as it was 6yrs ago. Some i3 are faster than previous i5 and i7.

https://www.cpubenchmark.net/laptop.html

I've been saying to look at the performance of the processor in single core already, I said that many times in this thread.

Feel like I'm under attack.

Fact of the matter is an i3 is not as good as an i5 and an i5 is not as good as an i7.

Some i3's are better than an i5 or an i7, some i5's are better than i7's and not all i7s are great for FM.

glasso wrote: »

football manager will run fine on a current i3.

a ryzen 2500u mobile cpu would crush it.

as others have said it's one of the lightest games out there in terms of hardware. a current i3 will run Grand Theft Auto V fine (well optimised game)

here is football manager 2018 running smoothly on a 6 year old core i3 (way back on the current generation)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BHBpiR3qUtE

That's the 3d match, using the onboard graphics.

Day to day runnings and processing would be slow, and the more years into the game you go the slower the day to day processing would be.



I do agree though - i3's have come a long way in 6 years - but none of the i3's mentioned by the OP would offer a good performance for FM - or at least to put it another way, would only allow a small amount of leauges/databases with a career of roughly 5-10 years.

It's impossible to know exactly, but that's a guess, and an educated guess.


Only trying to help lads - don't shoot the messenger!

Mocha Joe

https://www.harveynorman.ie/computing/laptops/acer-aspire-5-15-core-i3-8gb-1tb-black.html

Would this be good?

raglinroad

Mocha Joe wrote: »

https://www.harveynorman.ie/computing/laptops/acer-aspire-5-15-core-i3-8gb-1tb-black.html

Would this be good?

Not really great for fm. Decent enough for browsing and general use.

How it runs football manager is another thing. If you're playing fm touch its fine. Or full fat fm then you would be best to only load a low amount of leagues and a small database. 3d matches on low quality.


This would be better for fm - although 3d matches still be best performance on low quality.


https://www.currys.ie/ieen/computing/laptops/laptops/dell-inspiron-15-5570-15-6-laptop-silver-10169863-pdt.html?awc=5297_1541848273_363b6c6cabfde0e3629592d8c13e5cd1&utm_source=Pricespy+Ltd&utm_medium=Affiliate&utm_campaign=Affiliate

starlit

I think laptops with SSD hard drives be the best buy at the moment. Bigger the ram and hard drive the better but sometimes that's not always the case you want to have a faster speed for laptop to manage it. A laptop that specifically geared for gaming is better. For general college work a basic one be fine if its mostly documents you doing but if you have to do more technical stuff to do maybe a little bit up market. I find the HP laptops quiet good. The Dell and Toshiba ones have let me down in the past.

Acer is good too but then again its just a brand its the specs that are more important. Avoid AMD processors I have found them very slow go with intel for a processor they are more reliable. I'm basing on my own experience. Budget wise you be looking at €500-700 range for a decent laptop.

I've mine 5 years and hasn't let me down just noticed the hard drive slowing down despite its 1 tb of hard drive. Haven't much on it and store all my stuff on memory cards. I blame the windows 10 updates. Having trouble with them no end hopefully you won't have that trouble with a new laptop! Best of luck with your choice!

TerrorFirmer

Putting aside the fact that Football Manager appears to have, under the radar, become this generations 'Crysis', a Ryzen equipped laptop is way better at the price point for games than any of the Intel CPU's.

Ryzen 2500U is on-par with the i5-8250U and the integrated GPU is significantly better.

This one for example is the same price and has an SSD as well.

With regards AMD processors being inferior to Intel, that's only true if comparing the low-end offerings like the AMD A6/A8/etc, the Ryzen CPU's are just as good as Intel and the integrated graphics are vastly superior. You can even play stuff like GTA V at settings identical to the Xbox One/PS4.

raglinroad

starlit wrote: »

I think laptops with SSD hard drives be the best buy at the moment. Bigger the ram and hard drive the better but sometimes that's not always the case you want to have a faster speed for laptop to manage it. A laptop that specifically geared for gaming is better. For general college work a basic one be fine if its mostly documents you doing but if you have to do more technical stuff to do maybe a little bit up market. I find the HP laptops quiet good. The Dell and Toshiba ones have let me down in the past.

Acer is good too but then again its just a brand its the specs that are more important. Avoid AMD processors I have found them very slow go with intel for a processor they are more reliable. I'm basing on my own experience. Budget wise you be looking at €500-700 range for a decent laptop.

I've mine 5 years and hasn't let me down just noticed the hard drive slowing down despite its 1 tb of hard drive. Haven't much on it and store all my stuff on memory cards. I blame the windows 10 updates. Having trouble with them no end hopefully you won't have that trouble with a new laptop! Best of luck with your choice!

Just to note for football manager an ssd drive has little impact.

But generally are brilliant for fast boot up and general overall computer speed.

Amd processors were typically bad. But the ryzen threadripper is amazing. Some amd processors are bad same with intel.

Tarring everything with same brush isnt a fair way to analyse whats good and bad.

Personally i have always had dell laptops and i always buy decent specs and never had an issue.

Buy cheap buy twice.

The best value is the Ryzen 2500u Lenovo 330s for 650 in Currys / pc world

raglinroad

Black friday is coming up - might pick up something in the sales.

Doctor Jimbob

Doctor Jimbob wrote: »

I've been doing some research on that laptop as I was thinking about getting it, but a few places online say the performance is limited compared to other laptops with the same processor. Anyone have any insight on this?

yes there seems to be some serious throttling on the gpu side. this is on the lenovo 330 so I assume that the 330s is the same story.

as a result not getting the benefit of the gpu that much.

unless fixed by bios updates then wouldn't offer any/much graphics advantage over intel.

source from reddit with links to reliable sites like notebookcheck.net

https://www.reddit.com/r/Amd/comments/9f75xq/lenovo_ideapad_330_with_ryzen_5_2500u/

someone said there that downloading lenovo power mgt drivers that this might fix/improve things

beauf

That's disappointing about Lenovo for all their issues they seemed to be decent machines.

TerrorFirmer

Well, that's horrible, why even bother producing Ryzen machines if you're going to cripple them like that....

TerrorFirmer

TerrorFirmer wrote: »

The i3 7th gen was terrible for FM? In what sense? Can you elaborate because it doesn't really make much sense.

The Minimum requirements for 2019 FM, let alone the older ones, is still a Pentium 4, light years slower than a 7th gen i3 ULV.

The minimum graphics requires are the ancient GMA4500, which the UHD620 in the 8th gen i3 is also light years faster than. Yes, obviously not going to run everything in 3D with max details at high framerate, but still perfectly adequate for a good experience.

As for your top 100 list....the vast majority of those are high-end desktop CPUs, with some top-end mobile CPU's in the mix. They'd be what you'd recommend for someone looking to play CPU killer titles like Battlefield online, not FM, a game legendary for its hardware friendly nature.

A 12 year old PC could literally run FM 2019 at low settings. A modern laptop will run it just fine.

To be fair I’ve seen minimum recommendations being silly low and the recommendation being far higher.

beauf

raglinroad wrote: »

I've been saying to look at the performance of the processor in single core already, I said that many times in this thread.

Feel like I'm under attack.

Fact of the matter is an i3 is not as good as an i5 and an i5 is not as good as an i7.

Some i3's are better than an i5 or an i7, some i5's are better than i7's and not all i7s are great for FM.





...
Only trying to help lads - don't shoot the messenger!

For some reason you give correct advice then contradict it with some generic generalisation.

FM is obviously poorly optimised in that its CPU intensive but it's mainly single threaded.

Probably does well on heavily over clocked systems.

raglinroad

beauf wrote: »

For some reason you give correct advice then contradict it with some generic generalisation.

FM is obviously poorly optimised in that its CPU intensive but it's mainly single threaded.

Probably does well on heavily over clocked systems.

Sorry if I wasn't clear. Was posting hastly.

I only meant that some high-end i3's are better than low-end i5's and some high end i5's are better than low end i7's.

It's not to say that some i3's that are high end are suitable for FM. Or that it's ok to get a high end i3 over a low end i5 for FM. They'd equally wouldn't be a good fit for FM.


Yes, FM is poorly optimised, and having a mid-high end processor is actually required if you want to load a lot of leagues with mid-high amount of players into the database.

Yes, if you're playing only 5 leagues and a small database, then a basic low-end PC is fine.

This I have been very clearly stating all along, and yet people still argue against it. Yet, I've recommeneded laptops for years, and talked to the makers of the game to get a better understanding of what to look for in a laptop, and yet, it's still being argued here that I'm wrong.

I don't get that.

TerrorFirmer

It's because you're essentially projecting your own thoughts on the optimal baseline Football Manager experience. It was clear from the OP that he's on a budget of about €500.

No-one is saying you're wrong in stating that FM likes IPC and can, taken to the higher-end or extreme, make use of a high-end system. But you are simply wrong in implying that you need an €850 laptop to enjoy the game.

Football Manager is not an intensive game, in that it'll run on very low-end hardware, so yes it will run fine on a €500 i3-equipped machine. That you can't run huge tables/leagues or big player databases is irrelevant.

If someone came onto this forum looking for a machine for playing the new Battlefield V on, and their budget was €700, I'd point them to an i5 with a GTX1050. I wouldn't link to an i7-8700, GTX1080 machine for €1,500 and tell them all €700 laptops are no good or immediately point out "but you won't be able to play at ultra settings with AA therefore it won't be a great experience". They already know that, it's a redundant point.

They just want to know - can I play with what I can afford or have in mind? And the answer is yes. Sure, your Battlefield experience won't be optimal or all that the game can be, but you can still play and enjoy it on that budget.

Football Manager is no different to any other game in that regard, so I've no idea why you seem to think it is.

Also, you are giving completely conflicting recommendations to boot.

For 6 years everyone on SI forums have said not to use an i3 for FM. And that's over 6 years, never have I heard someone say it would be ok, until now.


An i5 dual core is probably best, a quad core is no harm, but having more cores than that has little effect on FM as it's mainly still a single core processing game.

A dual core i5 is probably best? (which means an older ULV i5)....yet the i3-8130U, you said on the first page, is no good? Despite being as fast as an i5 ULV....

In an ideal world I'm sure all FM2018 players would have an i9-9900K with 32GB ram and an RTX2080Ti for the optimum experience. But the truth is, it's one of the most hardware friendly games to ever exist. Sure, you won't be able to do everything, but that's true of any game, not magically exclusive to FM2018....and FM2018 scales better than 90% of other games, in that it'll run on a €200 laptop even, in a tailored experience.

So in closing, yes, a €500 i3-8130U laptop is perfectly fine for Football Manager, and claiming a €850 laptop is a sort of baseline is wrong in my opinion, because it's not remotely objective, it's 100% subjective based on how you want to play FM.

raglinroad

Do you know how the OP wants to play FM? All you have said is also true for yourself. It would depend on the spec of the €200 laptop - that's not fair to say a €200 laptop would run it fine.

I looked on the currys site, and the only thing that came back at the lowest price that it is recommened for FM is what I posted (actually ditched Currys and went to Komplett but I can look now).

In saying that - I probably went in too high with a suggestion - and that was detrimental in to how people have perceived my posts.

I could have recommended this:
https://www.currys.ie/ieen/computing/laptops/laptops/hp-14-intel-core-i5-laptop-128-gb-ssd-silver-10180959-pdt.html
But the hard drive is quite small - not good really and would require replacing with larger drive/or external storage

I would also say this is a good bet
https://www.currys.ie/ieen/computing/laptops/laptops/dell-inspiron-15-5570-15-6-laptop-silver-10169863-pdt.html
But it's a mechanical drive and could be heavier and noisier - but still better than the i3.

Next stop on the list would be this one:
https://www.currys.ie/ieen/computing/laptops/laptops/dell-inspiron-15-5570-15-6-laptop-white-10169757-pdt.html
And it's a bigger hard drive - but still relatively small but better than the other 128gb drive.

Price has shot up but it's much better.

Then the next logical computer on the list is this
This is what I would recommend https://www.currys.ie/ieen/computing/laptops/laptops/acer-nitro-5-15-6-intel-core-i5-gtx-1050-gaming-laptop-1-tb-hdd-10181374-pdt.html - and that's the cheapest of what I think would be acceptable.

Which is expensive - I know ... but still much better for FM experience.


I don't think an i3 is good enough for FM - regardless of the games min specs and many people outside of this forum agree - but I would modify this statement to say it's ok if you're playing a few leagues with a small database then it's fine.


My goal really is to get people to at least a decent i5 in the around the same price point. If I can't then the advice is not to waste €500 and save up a bit more and get something better, as this adds to longevity for future itterations of FM.

raglinroad

In a bid to be flexible and save myself on this thread

I did come across this
https://www.currys.ie/ieen/computing/laptops/laptops/dell-inspiron-15-5000-15-6-intel-core-i3-laptop-1-tb-hdd-white-10182134-pdt.html

It has better single core handling than the predecssors and better multithread handling.

Any laptop under €500 on Currys has 4gb ram which just isn't enough, imo.

All being that's the cheapest I'd recommend.

I'm trying to find someone who can benchmark it for FM and when I do I'll post the results here.

Thanks
raglinroad

raglinroad

raglinroad wrote: »

In a bid to be flexible and save myself on this thread

I did come across this
https://www.currys.ie/ieen/computing/laptops/laptops/dell-inspiron-15-5000-15-6-intel-core-i3-laptop-1-tb-hdd-white-10182134-pdt.html

It has better single core handling than the predecssors and better multithread handling.

Any laptop under €500 on Currys has 4gb ram which just isn't enough, imo.

All being that's the cheapest I'd recommend.

I'm trying to find someone who can benchmark it for FM and when I do I'll post the results here.

Thanks
raglinroad

wouldn't get it unless there is a spare m.2 slot for putting in an ssd stick.
old spinning hard drives just don't cut it,
think that it does have one so you could add one for cheap (25 to 45 euro depending on size of 120gb to 240gb)

the same laptop is cheaper at 469 euro on dell.ie

raglinroad

glasso wrote: »

wouldn't get it unless there is a spare m.2 slot for putting in an ssd stick.
old spinning hard drives just don't cut it,
think that it does have one so you could add one for cheap (25 to 45 euro depending on size of 120gb to 240gb)

the same laptop is cheaper at 469 euro on dell.ie

SSD makes little difference for Football Manager, it provides a faster bootup and overall better general computer performance.

Nothing wrong with mechanical drives, however, SSDs are very popular these days and the day of the mechanical drives will be gone soon, I'd imagine.

You can replace the mechanical drive in most cases with an SSD, but you'd need to check that out before purchasing.

Thanks for the heads up on the Dell site
https://www.dell.com/en-ie/shop/laptops/inspiron-15-5000/spd/inspiron-15-5570-laptop/cn57049

It's been marked down from €529 - so yes a good deal.

raglinroad

raglinroad wrote: »

SSD makes little difference for Football Manager, it provides a faster bootup and overall better general computer performance.

Nothing wrong with mechanical drives, however, SSDs are very popular these days and the day of the mechanical drives will be gone soon, I'd imagine.

You can replace the mechanical drive in most cases with an SSD, but you'd need to check that out before purchasing.

Thanks for the heads up on the Dell site
https://www.dell.com/en-ie/shop/laptops/inspiron-15-5000/spd/inspiron-15-5570-laptop/cn57049

It's been marked down from €529 - so yes a good deal.

as I said you add an ssd stick as it has a free m.2 slot. so keep the slow 1tb drive for storage but run windows off the m.2 ssd.
ssd for running windows and most used programs makes a huge difference in general speed and boot-up times.

I'm not sure how much you know about things really and seem more focused to make it seem that you're right.

raglinroad

raglinroad wrote: »

SSD makes little difference for Football Manager, it provides a faster bootup and overall better general computer performance.

Nothing wrong with mechanical drives, however, SSDs are very popular these days and the day of the mechanical drives will be gone soon, I'd imagine.

You can replace the mechanical drive in most cases with an SSD, but you'd need to check that out before purchasing.

Thanks for the heads up on the Dell site
https://www.dell.com/en-ie/shop/laptops/inspiron-15-5000/spd/inspiron-15-5570-laptop/cn57049

It's been marked down from €529 - so yes a good deal.

Little difference for football manager maybe but if this is for college work running Windows and regularly used programs off an SSD is a god send. Mechanical drives are prone to failure while SSDs are not. The last thing OP wants is his HDD to die with assignments saved on it.

raglinroad

Deleted User wrote: »

Little difference for football manager maybe but if this is for college work running Windows and regularly used programs off an SSD is a god send. Mechanical drives are prone to failure while SSDs are not. The last thing OP wants is his HDD to die with assignments saved on it.

In all my years and all the computers and all the times I've ever used a PC or Mac since 1992 I have never had a hard drive die or fail.

Never.

And highly recommend cloud storgage via dropbox, google drive, or other.


SSDs are prone to failure like anything else, and generally have a lifespan for them, last time I checked it was 5-7 years but technology is always improving.


But I don't really know what else to say about your claims on mechanical drives, I've gone through about 9 or 10 different computers since 1992, and the only hard drive to ever fail on me was in a Mac (contrary to my earlier claim, now that I think of it).


Every part of a computer is prone to failure. Mechanical Hard drives are prone to failure too - just because I never had any. But that's why backup drives and cloud storgage is out there, as it's highly recommened to always have a back up of all your work.

Standard practice is 3 backups of all your work.

speed is the main issue here, the advantage of having speed.

but spinning hdds do have an annualised failure rate of 4 to 6%

ssd's about 0.1%

a sample of one (you) counts for nothing

beauf

Do you need FM to run those benchmarks or are they stand alone.

raglinroad

glasso wrote: »

speed is the main issue here, the advantage of having speed.

but spinning hdds do have an annualised failure rate of 4 to 6%

ssd's about 0.1%

a sample of one (you) counts for nothing

Maybe so - but still very low. And it's not fair to mislead people that their hard drive is going to fail so avoid the mechanical hard drive - especially when they are trying to save money.

The HDD is cheaper than the SSD - and keeps the cost down. Chances of failure are miniscule.

beauf

Your advice is bizarre.

Nothing wrong with a hard drive if you need lots of space as cheap as possible. But a SSD is lighter, uses less battery, faster, more reliable as it has no moving parts.

Considering its in a laptop which will be carried, thrown in a bag, used on battery and used for other things beside FM. FM might have only marginal gains, but everything else from the OS to browsing the web will take advantage of the SSD. Regardless of how much ram is in it.

I've seen lots of hard drive failures over the years. Its even happened to a couple of my own drives. Have lots of backups is good advice. Then drives are a non issue.

starlit

raglinroad wrote: »

In all my years and all the computers and all the times I've ever used a PC or Mac since 1992 I have never had a hard drive die or fail.

Never.

And highly recommend cloud storgage via dropbox, google drive, or other.


SSDs are prone to failure like anything else, and generally have a lifespan for them, last time I checked it was 5-7 years but technology is always improving.


But I don't really know what else to say about your claims on mechanical drives, I've gone through about 9 or 10 different computers since 1992, and the only hard drive to ever fail on me was in a Mac (contrary to my earlier claim, now that I think of it).


Every part of a computer is prone to failure. Mechanical Hard drives are prone to failure too - just because I never had any. But that's why backup drives and cloud storgage is out there, as it's highly recommened to always have a back up of all your work.

Standard practice is 3 backups of all your work.

I definitely agree with backing up everything. There are external hard drives that do just that if you don't want to back up on a load of memory cards/sticks/CD's and on a cloud drive online for general home use.

Unfortunately I had a mechanical hard drive fail after four years of general home use had to replace it with an ssd for a PC that was the same age. I've a laptop the same age and the mechanical hard drive is slow despite its size and has outlived the PC's original hard drive. I had a mechanical hard drive before in another PC and lasted well over 6-8 years and is still working so you can never tell how one is going to stay efficient and had run that hard drive into the ground and still worked till end of use.