May Need New Laptop

[coxhaus]

Ok I ordered a Dell 7740 laptop with a Intel Core 9th Generation i9-9980HK Processor (8 Core, Up to 5.00Ghz, 16MB Cache, 45W) CPU. It may be a little much for a browsing laptop but it has a AX200 wireless card and it is a 17 inch screen which I will be better able to see with over my old 13 inch. I am running into problems where I can't see things unless it is full screen. It is my old eyes.

Is it worth it to upgrade to 32 gig of RAM or is 16 enough?

My granddaughter will love this when I get tired of it. She is a techie girl.

It comes with Windows 10 PRO. I guess Windows 10 will be licensed for all the cores?

 

[RMerlin]

What do you guys think of the Intel Core 9th Generation i9-9980HK Processor (8 Core, Up to 5.00Ghz, 16MB Cache, 45W)? What is like to have a 45 watt CPU? Does it mean the case is going to be large like old style laptops? Would it be better to buy a 10th generation CPU?

An Intel i9 will certain require additional cooling compared to, say, an i5 solution. So expect the cooler to be larger, heavier, and possibly noisier as well.

I wouldn't invest in a laptop based on an i9 unless I were running some intensive task such as large project compile or 3D work. For an average day-to-day laptop, you are going to be losing in battery life, weight and noise for no good reason.

There is very little difference between Intel's 8th, 9th and 10th gen, so I wouldn't focus too much on this. They're all the same 5 years old rehashed technology with just a few tweaks here and there, and a few security fixes moved from software-solutions to hardware - when that's technically possible.

 

[RMerlin]

Is it worth it to upgrade to 32 gig of RAM or is 16 enough?

You don't need more than 16 GB unless you run multiple VMs or work with very large audio/video/3D projects.

It comes with Windows 10 PRO. I guess Windows 10 will be licensed for all the cores?

Desktop Windows does not licence per core. Even an Home licence can handle a 32-core Threadripper.

 

[coxhaus]

I figured it might be a little much but I have never had a 5 GHz CPU and this one was cheap. I got it for $1410.

I guess the CPU has hyperthreading but I don't think I will need 16 cores. I wonder if I should turn off hyperthreading. It is not a big boost.

I currently have an XPS i7 CPU old laptop 13.

What about using a VM for web browsing? That way if get malware in my VM I just blow it away and start over.

 

[RMerlin]

What about using a VM for web browsing? That way if get malware in my VM I just blow it away and start over.

Sounds overkill, and not really practical. Whenever downloading applications, you will have to move them between the host and the guest. You will also have to do copy/past dances whenever opening a link from within an Email (like an activation link). Having a good disk imaging scheme to protect the host sound better for this particular usage scenario.

 

[System Error Message]

Personally, I'm not a fan of the Surface products. I've had too many customers suffering from early failures of their Surface Pros. Also, Microsoft seems to be using a pretty customize UEFI, which frequently suffers from compatibility issues (even with their own Windows updates), requiring frequent firmware updates to address. Far more frequently than products from Dell/Lenovo/HP/Asus/Acer/etc...

Start by establishing yourself a budget. Then look within that budget for devices that meet you requirements (don't forget to factor in the screen size - a very important element).

Based on your needs, I would look at either an AMD Ryzen 5 4xxx or an Intel i5.

Dell's XPS 13 is a great product line if it matches your needs, however it will require you to have a fairly generous budget to pay for it.

I replaced my own laptop last week, since my 4 years old Thinkpad Yoga 15 started to show stability issues. I ended up picking the just-released Lenovo Ideapad 5 (AMD). So far I absolutely love it - one of the best laptops I have owned so far for my specific needs. It had specs generally seen in products sold for 250-300$ more, such as a generous 512 GB NVME SSD, a six-core CPU that can rival even with Intel's i7 in benchmarks, backlit keyboard, Wifi 6, etc... Its only flaw is that memory is soldered, and limited to what I purchased (8 GB, which will be sufficient for my future needs). Canadian SKUs were limited to just two however, in other countries they have different SKUs that offer more RAM, and even faster versions of the CPU.

Be aware that laptops are like cars: everyone will have their own personal opinion as to which brand is better than others. Personally, I prefer Lenovo, Asus, Dell (NOT their low-end products), HP (only their higher-end products like the ZBook line). Lenovo is at the top of the list for me, especially their Thinkpad product. No other manufacturer that I have seen still offers BIOS updates to a product released 4 years ago. My Thinkpad Yoga 15 received a BIOS update a few months ago fixing the latest wave of Intel CPU security flaws. With any other manufacturer, if your laptop is over 2 years old, you are most likely out of luck.

i used to like lenovo, not anymore.

For me the biggest requirement for a laptop is thunderbolt, because many adapters are made use that so not having it is more of a problem as you dont want to have too many adapters, for which that same adapter can then be used for your phone too.

my gripe with lenovo is usually the bad price per offering and IO, and i have dell and absolutely hate its quality as my alienware board burnt out many times playing games, basically failing to do what it was designed to do. i had a core2 lenovo thinkpad with PCMCIA and expresscard, and ran an esata usb3 PCMCIA combo card and used the expresscard to connect PCIe devices externally, but thunderbolt does the same just in a neater way or not needing to have PCIe and just go straight for the device (or display). plenty of reasons to use thunderbolt such as 10Gb/s NICs, displays routed through your IGP instead of dedicated GPU if battery life matters like when doing a presentation, and much much more.

a lot of lenovo's have poor offerings when in the past their pricing was decent for the options you had, not to mention that you could have a dock with a PCIe slot that you dont get anymore.

So im not a fan of dell quality. The new AMD CPUs are pretty good and a much better buy then intel but more than half the internet still thinks intel is better when clearly in both IPCs and total compute power even price AMD has intel beat, even in power efficiency and process maturity. Not sure if AMD already found a version of their GPU that is as power efficient as intel's IGP though i do know that they are better. From what i've seen of dell, they barely offer AMD as an option, and if they do its not the right CPU either or well priced as they're an intel shill (dinosaurs still hate AMD even if it is better now than intel and didnt have the same vulnerabilities that took away 30% of CPU performance).

Laptops arent like cars. with many cars, even if you take care of them you'll have to replace them in 5 years due to design flaws and not lasting, with some cars taking care of them will run forever. With laptops theres not much to take care off, you either get something that runs for 10 years until it no longer is able to architecturally support current software or you get something new every 2 years. In poorer countries like where i am one can barely even afford an x86 based laptop/desktop or if can would be rocking really really low end hardware.

 

[L&LD]

Why you may not want Thunderbolt on your laptop.

https://www.windowscentral.com/thunderbolt-security-flaw-allows-hackers-access-pcs-just-minutes

 

[MichaelCG]

A i7" i9 based laptop....unless you are a developer or content creator that needs to take their work with them....why?? That will be a huge laptop. Why not invest in a desktop with a big monitor for daily use, and then get a smaller machine to be portable when you need it to be. I am fighting with my wife right now to replace our 15" laptop with a 13.3" and she is fighting back that she wants the larger screen. I showed here the multiple 23" monitors sitting in the closet that will take care of that issue for her.

 

[L&LD]

@MichaelCG, buy her the laptop she wants and then you buy the one you want too.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07CXXDSJX/?tag=snbforums-20

Not a laptop I would normally recommend, but if screen size and relatively lightweight are needed, this could be a possibility.

 

[coxhaus]

A i7" i9 based laptop....unless you are a developer or content creator that needs to take their work with them....why?? That will be a huge laptop. Why not invest in a desktop with a big monitor for daily use, and then get a smaller machine to be portable when you need it to be. I am fighting with my wife right now to replace our 15" laptop with a 13.3" and she is fighting back that she wants the larger screen. I showed here the multiple 23" monitors sitting in the closet that will take care of that issue for her.

I currently have an old Dell 13 inch i7 laptop. In the old days it was the only way to get a light laptop. This is before ultra thin models. I have never owned a 17 inch laptop and I may hate it but who knows. My eyes are not working real well now days and it is kind of hard to see on my 13 inch laptop. I don't use my laptop on battery as it is plugged in most of time by my chair in front of the TV so a bigger laptop will probably not matter and I can see better.

My laptop shipped and I will have it in a couple of days. The first thing I am going to do is up the memory to 32 gig and try running a VM. I want to see if I can run most everything in a VM except Microsoft updates and driver updates for the base system. I know I can run my email in the VM as well as all my browsing. Games seem like the only problem as you don't have real access to hardware under a VM. I hope I can take a snapshot of the VM and just restore the VM should I get spamware or such in my VM. This is the way I did this back in the old days with HyperV. I have never run a VM in workstation software. I guess it is the same as server.
One other thing that I don't know about is wireless in a VM. Does wireless just flow through the virtual switch like Ethernet? I would think layer 1 would not matter but I have never run wireless and VMs.

If I go to 64 gig can I create my paging file on a RAM disk? I would think so. In the old days I could set my paging file to zero as long as I had enough RAM so it never really paged. If you ran out of RAM then the system slowed way down and you would have to go in and kill an application. I am not sure I want to spend that much money for RAM. It is a lot more money to go to 64 gig.

 

[RMerlin]

hope I can take a snapshot of the VM and just restore the VM should I get spamware or such in my VM.

You don't need a VM for that, you can use a disk imaging solution like Acronis True Image, which can allow even a complete disaster recovery. That's how my desktop is configured here, I have daily snapshots (incremental) taken of my desktop and stored on my NAS. A few years ago I used it a few times to recover from a trashed system, the result of a buggy Norton Antivirus update who would randomly corrupt the boot files.

Recent Windows 10 also added sandboxing features, which I haven't personally looked at yet, but which might also prove useful when running suspicious software.

If I go to 64 gig can I create my paging file on a RAM disk?

Don't. The pagefile is expected to be persistent. It will be used for instance when Windows has to do a core dump following a crash. It might work, but down the road it can also lead to unexpected issues.

 

[coxhaus]

I am using the sandboxing feature to run my anti-virus defender out of on both my laptop and desktop.

I plan only to snapshot my VM when I change something major not every day. I can do this by just copying the VM on the harddrive. I think I plan to add a separate small SSD for the VM.

I always turn core dump off unless I am trying to trouble shoot something which I won't do any more as that sounds like work. I am retired. All the ones I ever solved were driver problems. I am turning that over to the young guns.

 

[tipstir]

OP what's your budget for this new laptop? What AMD has today not bad and Intel as well. 8 GB DDR3 or higher great ditch that HDD for SSD. I am still on my old 2012 Gateway runs like new I invested in SSD for it first clone the old 2.5 HDD to SSD. But decided to blow out that and make it Windows 10 Pro with bitlocker feature somes in handy. Battery 3 cell started to keep it's charge longer. I still use power cord when I have to go on site at some of our DELL and HP contracts clients site. I bring this and my iPad with me along with cooling pad too.. I was thinking about taking out the mini-pci-e 2.4ghz go for dual band still getting 40Hz speed is not where I like it but it works with own hotspot on location I never bother to tap into clients network. I have run apps like SLACK as Lead keep in touch with the rest on the Project. If I had to get a new laptop those thin ones would be more ideal for me. I thought ChromeOS with touch screen or Windows 10 Pro 16GB of DDR4 or higher with SSD or those EV-cards. I really don't store anything on the SSD only the apps and files are off TB on cloud. Everything changed now..

 

[coxhaus]

My budget keeps growing. Here is the memory I am going to order. It seems to be cheaper to order 32 gig sticks so I am going to order 2 for 64 gig. I still have 2 unused memory slots. I don't really want to spend the money to take this laptop up to 128 gig RAM.

I want to buy a separate SSD for my VM. So it can run independent of my base OS. This laptop will hold 4 SSDs but I think 2 drives will be enough. I was thinking 256 or 512 for the VM. I still need to figure out what I need.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07N124XDS/?tag=snbforums-20

 

[coxhaus]

I received my Dell 7740 refurbished laptop with the Intel CPU i9-9980HK. I spent all morning installing Windows 10. My 64 gig memory came from Amazon this afternoon so I spent the afternoon upgrading the RAM. It is a lot faster using 64 gig RAM over 8 gig. I have not done much tuning yet but it is fast. I have not loaded it down so the fans are not loud. The 17 inch screen is very easy to read. The weight is not bothering me.

I am not sure what I am going to do about the SSD. I think I have figured out there are 4 PCI lanes for the drive controller which would give me 4 gigs/second. I think I can achieve that with 1 SSD M.2 NVMe PCIe. So maybe I don't need an extra SSD for each VM. RAID won't help you with this laptop as there is not enough bandwidth for RAID. I can load 6 SSDs if I want. I am now leaning toward 1 SSD for all. Unless someone out there can think of something different.

Tonight I plan to run MemTest86 all night. I also built a USB stick with a bootable UEFI with memtest86 on it to test this 64 gigs of RAM.

 

[MichaelCG]

Holy smokes that thing is a beast! I forgot how much flexibility those big workstation replacement laptops had. I last dealt with them before SSD were a thing. I had one with dual rust drives, DVD, and dual battery. The DVD could be swapped with yet another battery.

You could also use it for self defense and exercise if needed.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[coxhaus]

I am going to do at least 10 laptop push ups per day since I am not getting much exercise staying home now days.

 

[coxhaus]

I have memtest86 running now. Looks like I am getting 20 GB/s on memory, L3 cache 50 GB/s, L2 cache 102 GB/s and L1 cache 233 GB/s. So I think 4GB/s on the controller is a little low. It is the graphics card that gets the highest bandwidth. I don't know if memory is really 40 GB/s or not as it is dual channel.

Testing 64 gig RAM has the fans kicking in. I hope it seats the heat sink for better cooling.

 

[RMerlin]

A high-end PCI-Express 3.0 NVME SSD will give you around 2 GB/s sustained. That's with a Samsung 970 that claims to hit 3 GB/s - I have never seen my own Samsung get anywhere close to that, and many SSDs will hit thermal throttling after a while of sustained transfers (especially in a laptop where cooling is nowhere as good as in a desktop.

 

[coxhaus]

Good to know. I was thinking of using a Samsung plus SSD. Maybe I need to use 2.

Cooling is definitely a problem with laptop now days. The chips are so hot now days a laptop has a hard time dissipating the heat. Desktops are way better with heat.