Need a new laptop upto about £230 max.

Theres a few around, choice between a Quad core 1.83GHz intel Atom Z3735F or a Dual core 2.58 GHz intel celeron N2840

Will be used mainly for internet and my turbo trainer software (Bkool simulator – 3d graphics style riding + streamed HD video rides). Maybe a tiny bit of video clip editing / burning to dvd.

Is the advantage of 4 cores mainly for running multiple programs? I have no idea of processors just that more cores and higher speed is better, but no idea which of these is better for my needs.

Thanks

Hmm. At first glance I’d go with the celeron on the basis it’ll have 2 faster cores and I’d rarely use anything that would push more than 2 at once.

But … This suggests I might be off on that.

The celeron is higher speed in your example though so I think it’d be very close.

It’d come down to power – if you used battery a lot I’d go Atom.

EDIT: I think the Celeron might be a bit quicker in raw benchmarks, but real world it’s be too close to call, so back to power consumption / battery life.

My current favourite is this http://www.ebuyer.com/698278-lenovo-b50-30-laptop-mca39uk

Cheap and works well. Amazing at the price!

Out of the two you list, the celeron will be more powerful. They’re similar vintage chips but the celeron is designed for higher power consumption, has a similar core design but higher clock speed, faster graphics, and supports up to 8Gb ram rather than 2Gb (though this also depends on the machine it’s in).

Both are low power chips (the celeron’s only 7.5W and it’s the high power one). The rest of the laptop will determine the battery more than the chip.

3d graphics on either might be painful, but I don’t know the software you speak of.

Pink alternative.. (without looking too hard)

Never been a fan of celerons & atoms don’t seem much better.. going simply by Passmark cpu benchmark, this seems the better choice..

EDIT: Yep, as below ebuyer has i3’s for not a lot more and are even better benchmark results… (not personally a fan of i3’s but they’ve got to be better than celeron or atom’s)

if you can go an extra £20 or so you can get a Lenovo i3 based laptops for £250 from Ebuyer which would be a lot better than the Celeron / Atom alternatives.

Doesn’t really matter tbh. You won’t notice the difference in speed. I’d go for the more modern one and/or one with better power consumption. Everything has been plenty fast enough for normal use for several years now.

supports up to 8Gb ram rather than 2Gb

And that’s your answer, right there.

Both CPUs are, sorry, technical term coming up, “a bit crap.” However, a hard 2Gb limit is going to be your undoing if you’re expecting to do anything like video editing on it. The Atom has no real place in a laptop IMHO, it’s a Netbook CPU.

if you can go an extra £20 or so you can get a Lenovo i3 based laptops for £250 from Ebuyer which would be a lot better than the Celeron / Atom alternatives.

Yeah. Do that.

Cougar – both CPUs are Bay Trail microarchitecture, neither are Core, they’re both netbook CPUs.

Ah, fair point, I didn’t look at the individual models. All the more reason to look at an i3 then.

thanks, will look at i3 stuff on ebuyer and probably come back with more questions!