What power laptop? (non gaming)

kabayiri

Hi all

I want a fairly powerful laptop for running a number of virtual machines - the main use for the machine is to run my testing software.

With this in mind, my priorities seem to be :-
- decent number of cpu cores
- speed
- vt-x support
- decent ram with ability to support more
- graphics ability [low]
- hard disk space [anything above several hundred Gb will be fine]
- video/audio - not crucial but hdmi would be nice
- battery life - not a priority
- screen - 15/16 max is fine
- ability to support Linux -- HIGH; linux will be the primary host

I'm torn between the i5 and i7 processors. Has anyone direct experience of these in a laptop?

An HP pavillion with i7 for £800 seems an obvious choice, but are there better alternatives?

Many Thanks

SplanK

the i7 is a very good processor... esp comparing it to a quad core Core 2 - it just seems to handle a lot of stuff better.... Virtual machines - well I can have bout 4 or 5 running on my machine (12Gb of RAM helps and a couple of hard drives dedicated for VM) with no noticable lag

They (i7) are essentialy a quad core processor out of the box - but they have hyperthreading support (so 8 virtual cores)...

The i5's Arrandale (th4e mobile version) only has 2 cores and slightly less L3 cache with intergrated graphics capability and IIRC no hyperthreading.

The i5 Lynnfield has 4 cores but no hyperthreading..... if it was me... I would aim for the i7

BUT you say you want a laptop - any reason over not building a workstation for this? You will be looking at a fair chunk of money for a system with a good processor, one that supports lots of RAM, multiple hard drives...

I find that running my virtual machines (VMware Workstation) on different hard drives to boost overall performance... so my main OS and data is one one drive, then I have 2x discs - which I split my VM's over to help spread the load as such... trying to run a number of VM's and OS on one disc will result in a huge bottle neck no matter what CPU or RAM you have! Finding a laptop that is able to support multiple hard drives and a lot of RAM might be difficult, and if you do - will be quite expensive.

kabayiri

Thanks for the quick reply

I have a quad core shuttle at home for a test lab too. That's my home workstation. The thinking was that it was small enough to chuck in a bag and take it with me on site. The reality is I rarely do that, and I think a new laptop will just be with me more of the time.

The point about multiple hard drives is a good one though

SplanK

all really depends on how many VM's you want running...

My Core 2 (dual core, no virtualisation support) 4Gb lappy runs 1x VMware OS fine... ok it will not run a 64bit VM OS - but for WinXP or even Server 2008 R2 32bit, it seems fine - a touch laggy - but more than enough for doing the odd thing on... where as my i7 workstation - I can have a full mini domained network running (such as Server 2008 R2 with exchange 2010 and a few workstations...) running no problem.

If you want a lappy that will be able to handle a fair bit - then defo i7 - but ensure it has virtulisation support otherwise running more than one VM and you will start to see lagging issues in both VM and host OS.

I know Dell do an i7 lappy range - not really looking into them that much though.