i7 4th Gen vs 7th Gen vs 8th Gen in Laptop

Forums › Laptops and mobile computers › i7 4th Gen vs 7th Gen vs 8th Gen in Laptop

Cuane

24 posts

Geek

#237896 22-Jun-2018 16:54

I'm wanting to replace my Vaio Pro i7 4500U laptop with either a Surface Laptop or a Dell XPS 13

My preference is the Surface because I personally think it looks better but my one hesitation is it's running an old processor. The 8th Gen has been shown to have greater processing power. And since my work requires me to work in large Excel spreadsheets, this is fairly important to me.

So my question - is there much of a difference between the 4th & 7th gen processors. And if the difference is small, is it worth going for the Dell instead to get that processing boost?

The Dell is now more expensive as well since the Surface has been put on sale.

I was originally planning to wait for the surface to update with the 8th gen i7, but my Vaio is showing signs it might stop working shortly...

heavenlywild

5063 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

#2042542 22-Jun-2018 17:18

Definitely go with 8th gen as it is quad core vs dual core.

martyyn

1971 posts

Uber Geek

ID Verified

#2042552 22-Jun-2018 18:08

If you're looking at an XPS you'll get much better value with a latitude. I just picked up an i7 8650u with 16GB and 1TB ssd for $1700 and an i5 83something, 16GB ram and 512GB ssd with touchscreen for $1300. Both from the Dell outlet.

I've an i7 4690 in my desktop and these two aren't far off on the cpu benchmarks.

Batman

Mad Scientist
29768 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

Lifetime subscriber

#2042637 22-Jun-2018 20:13

8th gen all the way.

qwerty123

147 posts

Master Geek

#2042674 22-Jun-2018 22:02

Just jumped from 2nd to 8th gen - a whole lot of difference!

Krishant007

1403 posts

Uber Geek

#2042722 23-Jun-2018 06:22

Go with 8th gen and make sure you have 16gb ram. 8gb might not cut it for large excel files and multi tasking.

EDIT:

Not all upgrades between generations are that big. Usually its in a tick tock fashion, where the ticks are performance enhancements or game changers, and the tocks are just refinements (usually better power usage).

But for the 8th gen, Intel were forced to do one of their biggest performance changes due to AMD pushing out Ryzen. So 8th gen processors are essentially double the cores of 7th gen. You will see a noticeable difference in MOST applications. Some applications are not cut for multi threaded work (many games for example), so you dont see the increase in performance (maybe less than 5%-10%).

Having said that, most productivity apps are enhanced for multi threaded processors - think Adobe Photoshop etc. I think Excel and office applications will show benefits from the quad core i7 processors of the 8th Gen.

For your application, have a look at the task manager and see how much RAM and CPU usage you have. I say you probably do need 16gb because Chrome takes about 3-4GB itself.. So if you go with 8gb, that will be your bottleneck.

Cuane

24 posts

Geek

#2042807 23-Jun-2018 13:15

Thanks for the input everyone, going to go have a look again today to figure it out. Seems like I'll have to learn to live with the XPS after all!

I definitely want something portable, so Latitude and the likes are out of the question.

And yes 16GB is what I'm looking at - shame the Dell with 16GB is a lot more expensive. I think my Vaio is having the biggest issues because it doesn't have 16GB, only 8GB

bunker

35 posts

Geek

#2043312 24-Jun-2018 22:32

I've also been trying to find a portable laptop. I initially looked at the Surface Laptop but ultimately was put off by the alcantara and how easily it stains. Also, I decided that 8th gen is the way to go because it does seem like a major upgrade compared to the incremental improvements of other generations. The only thing putting me off about the XPS 13 is I don't like the look of the carbon fiber and I'm seeing a lot of complaints about quality control issues with the XPS 13 9360 e.g. coil whine. It could just be that the loudest people are the ones with the negative experiences but I've had such bad luck with electronics in the past. The other option I was looking into was an Asus Zenbook 13 UX331-UN but they don't look as good and are apparently less solid than something like the XPS 13 but it has the advantage of a discrete GPU. If you end up getting a Dell XPS could you please let me know how you like it?

Quic Broadband

Move to New Zealand's best fibre broadband service (affiliate link). Free setup code: R587125ERQ6VE. Note that to use Quic Broadband you must be comfortable with configuring your own router.

Batman

Mad Scientist
29768 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

Lifetime subscriber

#2043338 25-Jun-2018 06:30

I had the xps 13. Loved everything about it other than small trackpad and keyboard not springy enough. You can't hear the coil wine unless you put your ear on these things when it's pin drop silence around you.

jnimmo

1097 posts

Uber Geek

#2043399 25-Jun-2018 09:26

8th gen is a big step up

Make sure if getting the XPS 13 see if you can upgrade the wifi card as mine is a 'Killer' one instead of Intel and is rubbish, frequent packet loss