Microsoft huge sale but which pc is it?

[Peregrine]

A 6th Gen i5 is still very capable. I would not buy anything earlier then that.
Of course there is something coming up. There is ALWAYS something better coming up. LOL
Intel's competition (AMD) is about to announce a new chip which sounds impressive. Intel's 8th gen is probably slated for 2018 according to early rumors.

An i7 might be needed for someone who does AutoCAD or 3D modeling. Or just someone who wants the absolute latest and greatest, frankly. I am not trying to talk anyone OUT of an i7. I just don't want anyone to be afriad of the i5.

As for a 4K screen, that has everything to do with the video card you need, and not the processor.

[Skunk Workz]

Originally Posted by vanguardisle

Thanks for your information. What is your opinion on the difference between 6th generation i5 vs 7th generation i5? Is there anything even better coming up soon?Also are there any instances where an i7 is needed over an i5? What about for a 4k screen?

It looks like the 7th Generation chips have a much improved graphics processing power, including substantially better 4K support (only matters if you don't have a separate graphics card). Everything else is incrementally better (10-12% improvement if everything else is identical).

IMO, there's a huge gotcha with the 7th Generation CPUs though: Intel changed the naming on them and it's now confusing.

The prior generations had i3, i5, and i7 "full power" CPUs (for desktops and laptops), and m3, m5, and m7 CPUs for the mobile / tablet market. The "m" variants are much lower power, and don't have the horsepower that the "i" variants do (but can be used without a fan, and consume much less power).

For the 7th generation they scrapped the "m" label, and just labeled everything as an "i".

So you have to look at the CPU part numbers to know what you are getting. The i5-7200U is the "real" i5, while the i5-7Y54 is the old "m" series (basically a U in the name = Destop / Laptop, a Y in the name = Mobile / Low Power).


As far as anything better coming soon .... Intel is expected to announce additional variants of the 7th gen chips in January, including those with better video options, and then The 8th Generation chips will probably get announced sometime next year. But it takes months for them to go from announcement to being included in a new computer, so I wouldn't wait for anything.

i5 vs i7 .... if you have programs that can take advantage of HyperThreading then it's probably worth getting an i7 (or if you always have 20 programs running at once!). This will be things like 3d rendering, graphics processing, etc. I run VMWare sessions all day for work, so I like being able to dedicate cores to each virtual machine.

4K ... this will only matter if you are using the graphics processor on the chip (without an external GPU). If you are though, it appears that the 7th Gen is much better at handling it (but still not nearly as good as a dedicated GPU).