i5 or i7 for someone who's ADD?

I multi-task an enormous amount. Constantly opening & going from one program to the next, minimizing and starting another, and going back again.

Since I'm very ADD, I will, at any one time have one or two word programs open, an excel doc running, many multiple web browsers open all with open tabs, a photo editor (lightroom), email/chat, and finally music (itunes) or video playing (oh, and bittorent is always running in the background).

So, for me, for my insane work flow...which do you recommend?
Do I need the i7 or is the i5 more than adequate?

 

From the things you listed, the i5 will do the job just fine. Keep in mind that the difference between the lowest i5 in the MBP and the highest i7 is a 15% difference in boosted clock speed (assuming heat limits don't interfere) and 4MB vs 3MB cache, which wouldn't make too much of a difference even if your usage was enough to challenge these processors.

 

Thanks. Currently, my laptop is using:

Intel Core 2 Duo t3700 2.00 GHz
2 GB RAM
32 bit operating system

How much of an improvement would you ballpark the base i5 w/ 8 GB ram to be from what I'm currently using? If you had to quantify it... 50-60% improvement? Less? More?

 

Well, 4GB of RAM instead of 2GB will make a big difference if you multitask heavily. Your usage probably doesn't warrant the 8GB, though. It's hard to give numbers, but it will make switching between windows a lot smoother because the system won't have to swap so much data between the RAM and hard drive.

The difference in CPUs is likely to matter less than the RAM here, but the i5-520M could be as much as 50% faster. However, I'm not sure how much difference that would make to you. In tasks that try to utilize as much CPU power as possible to get things done quicker, like video encoding, you'd see the difference, but for your multitasking you might not.

If you want some indication, you should monitor your CPU and RAM usage figures. That way, you'll know what's letting you down and when.

 

You're not going to see much of an improvement. You should stick to your current machine and upgrade to an SSD with that money. Even with 2GB you'll see the most improvement.

Though you probably don't want to hear that and want to hear us tell you to buy your new toy

 

No, I need someone to be the voice of reason! So....My conscious is having a difficult time allowing myself to upgrade if it's not going to be at least a 90%-100% improvement over what I'm currently using.

If it was a 100% improvement, I could easily justify this decision.

I agree more ram on my current machine would be the best thing I could do for myself. But my current machine is 3 years old & something could fail on it at anytime. The screen is going bad (a frayed wire I can't seem to fix), it turns itself off. And the HDD is old, I'm scared it could go. I don't want to invest money on something that could go kaput on me soon.

 

You're simply not going to see a 100% because quantifying performance for productivity suites and desktop applications is much harder than for a CPU calculation or GPU intensive test. You're going to see a difference, but it's never going to compare to what getting an SSD would get you on your current machine.

The best thing would be an SSD, following that a 2GB ram upgrade would be great, landing you with 4GB.

Don't get it twistest, Thinkpads and Macbooks fail out of factory all the time. In the world of computers, "New" and "Old" are simply excuses to charge you more.
I know people are gonna disagree, but it's true. Hardware circuitry either works or it doesn't. Only mechanical, moving parts wear out, so unless you can't change a fan for yourself, don't let that fool you.

Those would be your biggest issues, but you could get the LCD checked easily. Since I'm recommending a SSD drive along with ram upgrade, the HDD becomes a moot point.


Good luck with your decision and don't believe the hype. The new macbooks are not going to give you an appreciable performance gain over your current setup based on the tasks you've described.

 

The i5 should handle your workflow nearly the same as the i7 (that is, easily), even with the diversity in your open windows.

The i7 will be comparatively faster as tasks you're doing in LightRoom, but unless you're a semipro/pro photog or artist it isn't going to be more than on the order of seconds to a few minutes over the i5 - depending on the filter or task. Overall no more than a 20-30% max bump, if that, as Macworld's most recent MBP i7/i5 benchmark analysis roughly falls in that range.

Beyond that analysis, you will need to decide how much a little bit of time saved is worth in dollars spent .

 

While your work flow might be 'insane', it is not CPU heavy. An i7 over an i5 will garner you no performance increase in every day work. What may help you is an SSD, to improve disk access times. That, and having 4gb of RAM.

 

I agree with .nox.

for what you're doing (opening browsers and office apps), the speed increase in going from C2D to i5/i7 will be negligible. a difference measured in split seconds.

Far better for you is an investment into an SSD drive. that will change your computing experience drastically.

8GB of RAM is just uncalled for with your computer usage. and i5/i7 will be the same for you and neither a big jump from C2D. As was said, unless you spend a lot of time encoding/transcoding video files, a good SSD is all you need (and 4GB of RAM).

 

Pushing other hardware issues aside for the moment....

It seems the consensus here is the switch from Core 2 Duo to the new i5 architecture isn't a big leap forward after all?

P.S. my machine is a Sony VIAO FZ190 (32bit VISTA)

 

it depends what your using it for...

if your doing very intensive CPU utilization, its a huge leap... most people who do the "normal" desktop stuff will never push that processor very hard...

 

Read the OP.

 

thanks.. I did... but its very vague, and I doubt listing every single thing ever done on the machine.

 

I doubt he forgot mentionning running space shuttle simulations between all his Excel and Word madness

 

LOL. pretty much.

 

@OP

thats a fairly normal workload.

best thing you can do is get 4GB and then an SSD. CPU power nowadays is used mostly for intensive applications, not to manage multiple small ones.

 

well.. even "running excel" is vague... you can do things in excel that will run great on an Atom, and other things that would die on one... thats all I mean by being vague.

 

Vista, eh?

You'll love Windows 7 and/or OS X then.

 

These guys are right. Unless you know someone who's willing to fix your display for cheap, my suggestion is google computer repair services in your area and get a price quote on how much they'll charge to fix your screen. What I personally would do is google "computer repair xxxxx" with xxxxx being your zip code. It'll show up a bunch of places in your area that do repairs. Some might no longer be in business, so be prepared to dial more than one number to get in contact with someone.

You will have to describe your problem over the phone in detail, identify your laptop brand/make/series # if it has one, and request a rough price estimate (sounds like we're getting a dying headlight replaced now!). I personally wish I'd done that with my last laptop since back then when I didn't realize there are tons of repair centers within a 15 mile radius of my zip code. You'll probably wind up paying roughly $50-100 give or take a few bucks for the part replacement and hour(s) spent fixing the screen. I personally don't recommend Geek Squad. Avoid them if you can and consider looking at yelp.com for rated repair centers. For Yelp.com, just enter your zip, and put "notebook" as your search entry.


These guys are right. For your tasks, you really don't need to buy new unless you're a profligately materialistic guy like me who needs his shiny shinies!

But seriously, a SSD and 4 gigs of RAM will do a world of wonders. I'm personally looking into a 80gb SSD as my last laptop accessory/upgrade purchase.

 

An upgrade from VISTA to OSX is a factor here in my decision, for sure. This in itself would be a massive improvement.

So...if I go the upgrade route of 4GM ram and a new SSD hard drive, roughly, what am I looking at spending? And keep in mind my current hard drive is ~200GB and is maxed out full....so if I do any upgrading, it must be to a larger capacity drive (SSD's are quite expensive so I may have to go to a normal drive).

I assume the ram upgrade is simple enough to do, just unplug old and plug in new (and fool with the BIOS settings?).
But...how much of a headache is upgrading the HD? I don't have the VISTA install disk...so I can't reinstall windows...and I want to keep all my old data. How does it work? Is the process simple enough? Thanks guys....

 

are you sure it "must be larger capacity"? 200GB maxed out doesn't mean you need a 200GB HDD. It could mean that you need a cheap and portable external backup drive (~$70). I used to packrat on my main HDD, then I took inventory and realized the big stuff taking up all the space is rarely used and can be kept somewhere else.

as for SSD, the 160GB Intel SSD's are the best money can buy as far as I know (but I haven't kept up over the last few months). ~$320. 256GB SSDs are in the $500-$700 range. I'm going 160GB...and I have about 8TB of data. Just won't keep it on my laptop.

 

Yes, I keep a throughly clean "house" and have truly outgrown the piddly 200GB drive. Having said that....an SSD at $700 and beyond is quite absurd at the moment....i'd rather put that kind of money towards a new notebook rather than putting a Ferrari engine in a 1996 Buick. Knowwhatimean?