AMD or Intel Laptop

LucianH

I'm looking at a few HP Pavilion laptops (I can get them discounted through work) and, for similar prices, they do both AMD and Intel versions. The laptops are for my two student daughters (one doing Art so often uses Photoshop).

In the upper price band it's either the Intel i5-460M or the AMD Phenom™ II Quad-Core Processor N930 and I'd, like to know which one is a better choice.

Also, in a lower price band, the following AMD processors are available:
- AMD Phenom II Quad-Core P960 processor
- AMD Phenom II Triple-Core Processor N830 processor
- AMD Turion II P540 Dual-Core processor

Would we see much reduced performance with these compared to the ones in the upper price band?

Thanks

UncleZen

Processors, 4 key things, simplistic view:
1) CPU Speed - faster the better.
2) Number of cores - more is better. As the OS can assign different tasks to different cores, thus getting stuff done quicker.
3) Bus speed - faster is better. This is how fast the CPU can interface with the outside world, such as the memory.
4) Cache Size - more is better. This is the amount of buffering between the CPU and the outside world, more cache means peaks in activity are smoothed out.

pogofish

OK, its a while since I had a non-intel machine, so the situation may have changed.

However, when I last had an AMD powered pc, I did find it could be unstable with certain applications and Photoshop was one of them.

RussJK

The Intel one listed has a better passmark score and is a dual-core. Generally dual-cores are better for the average user than a quad core, unless you have a specific program in mind that effectively utilises all the cores.

I have both Intel and AMD laptops, and both were good choices power vs price. Neither have stability issues. The only crash I've had in years was caused by a known bug in Avast.

AMD make some nice 'fusion' chips in the lower priced segment.