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    Kaby Lake ULV mobile CPUs

    Discussion in 'Hardware Components and Aftermarket Upgrades' started by Ramzay, Jul 2, 2017.

  1. Ramzay

    Ramzay Notebook Connoisseur

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    So I'm looking to get a laptop for some light productivity use. Nothing too crazy (no rendering/graphics work/video editing), just email, word processing, some VBA coding in Excel. The typical use scenario is where I'm running several macro-enabled workbooks and have multiple web pages open (some with real-time tickers updating every second) concurrently.

    Would something like an i5-7300U suffice for this, or would I need an HQ CPU? It seems this kind of workload is mostly about having sufficient RAM to handle all the open applications. However, I've never owned/worked with a ULV CPU, so I'm not sure.
     
    Ramzay, Jul 2, 2017
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  2. SkidrowSKT

    SkidrowSKT Notebook Deity

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    The ULV CPU is more than enough for VBA coding. You'll need at least 8 gigs of RAM for a fluent operation when multiple Chrome tabs are open.
    For ULV CPUs, the difference between the i5-7200U and the i7-7500U is minimal, with the latter being slightly faster thabks to the higher clocks. The core i5 is more than sufficient.

    Sent from my SM-N900 using Tapatalk
     
    SkidrowSKT, Jul 2, 2017
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  3. Ramzay

    Ramzay Notebook Connoisseur

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    Those were my thoughts. I'm guessing these days, unless you're into graphics/video editing or coding something really intense, ULV is sufficient.

    And yes I'm going for 16GB of RAM, I have LOTS of browser windows and many workbooks open at the same time.
     
    Ramzay, Jul 2, 2017
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  4. tilleroftheearth

    tilleroftheearth Wisdom listens quietly...

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    Those are both ULV chips...

    If you're keeping the system for ~18 months or less; buy the cheaper option.

    If you plan on keeping it as long as possible? The i7-7500U offers you 'next years' performance today and every day for the life of the system.

    Considering that the i7-7500U can be had with very little to no surcharge over it's i5 kin... ordering a platform today with the lessor processor is not very forward thinking.

    (The O/S, the programs and the workload (Excel, the web and tech around them...) will only get more compute intensive over time, not less).
     
    tilleroftheearth, Jul 3, 2017
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  5. Ramzay

    Ramzay Notebook Connoisseur

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    That's pretty much the lifespan of this machine. Hence why I'm not looking to spend too much on it.
     
    Ramzay, Jul 3, 2017
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  6. tilleroftheearth

    tilleroftheearth Wisdom listens quietly...

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    Even so, it doesn't hurt to call up the vendor you'll be buying from (i.e. 'Lenovo', for example) and see if they would upgrade it for (effectively) free.

    All you'll lose is a few minutes and you may gain a better platform, overall, for very little to no additional cost.

     
    tilleroftheearth, Jul 3, 2017
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