7 ms·

Is it just me or does it feel like in the past 5-7 years it doesn't really make that much of a difference when new CPUs come out? My laptop is a i7-4800MQ and

Is it just me or does it feel like in the past 5-7 years it doesn't really make that much of a difference when new CPUs come out? My laptop is a i7-4800MQ and it still feels incredibly snappy. Anything I need to do for work I just farm out to AWS. All of my gaming is on Stadia. Personally its just easier for me to use the cloud for all of these things instead of cycling through devices all the time.

gameswithgo 6y ago
Yes, cpu performance no longer increasing by factors of 2 with new generations, so a CPU stays relevant for a lot longer, unless you have compute heavy jobs that can leverage the new core counts. (compilation sometimes fits that description)
- hmottestad 6y ago
  It’s been quite a few years since we had a 2x improvement between generations. I get a feeling it’s probably 5-10 years ago.
  - gameswithgo 6y ago
    yes, that is why the person I replied to can have an old cpu and it is still fine today.
- nicoburns 6y ago
  Anyone multitasking can use the core counts. I feel like 2 -> 4 cores will make a difference for most users. 4 -> 8 for heavy users like developers.
  - gameswithgo 6y ago
    Yes, but 4 cores has been the standard for a long time already. Recently thanks to AMD heavy users often are grabbing 8, 12, 16 or more.
    - nicoburns 6y ago
      Only the very top end of laptop CPUs had 4 cores until recently. Certainly they weren't mainstream 5-7 years ago.
      - findthewords 6y ago
        I have a cheap Thinkpad E-series from 2012 with Intel i7-3612QM 4c/8t CPU. At the time it cost a third less than a Macbook. As far as price was concerned it was mainstream.
    - qayxc 6y ago
      You wish! Intel only very recently (e.g. 3 years ago) brought 4 cores to mainstream in the mobile segment. Low power mobile chips were dual core until Q3 2017 when Kaby Lake refresh was released and brought 4 cores to the i5 and i7 line-up. Even then, entry level and mainstream versions (i3 in particular) remained dual core configs.
- technofiend 6y ago
  I'll be honest - I doubt it qualifies as compute heavy, but I'm definitely fantasizing about getting some of these new CPUs in a firewall appliance. Some NICs offer various offloading options but according to PFSense's website they caution users that support is mixed at best. Then there's VPN acceleration: there are no AES-NI-like CPU instructions to accelerate Wireguard's crypto choices. Not to mention network speeds even at the consumer end are slowly increasing. So having enough beef to push 1 gigabit NICs is good but planning for the future and adding 2.5 gb or higher is better. And finally having enough compute to layer fq_codel or better on top along with some monitoring all adds up. Like a lot of projects the demand will act like a gas and fill whatever volume is given to it. Given more compute I'll find a way to use it. :-)
  - Daho0n 6y ago
    >So having enough beef to push 1 gigabit NICs is good but planning for the future and adding 2.5 gb or higher is better. I'm using I5-2500K's for firewalls. 1 gigabit hardly moves the CPU usage. I have all NIC offload turned off. Btw. I would really consider OPNsense instead if you are building custom firewalls. Pfsense is an atrocious company. Trying to kill off OPNsense by buying domains that tell lies and AFAIK no one outside Netgate can actually build from source. They are not open source even though they claim so. They are also moving to using DRM. https://github.com/rapi3/pfsense-is-closed-source https://github.com/rapi3/pfsense-is-closed-source
    - technofiend 6y ago
      Thanks for the pointer to OPNSense! I've been drag racing various operating systems after my little protectli box proved only capable of pushing 500Mbit/s using PFSense + FreeBSD. Even the usual TCP tuning tricks didn't help. Meanwhile every OS I've tried except OpenBSD proved able to saturate a dedicated one gigabit link in a VM under ESXi. I will definitely try OPNsense next!
dijit 6y ago
It’s not just you. CPUs have stagnated massively. Intel CPUs still give 16 PCI lanes on the consumer chips, despite any modern graphics card using that entirely. (Meaning your nvme drives all compete somewhat). Compared to phones which have real, huge, generational improvements every couple of years which is sometimes jarring. However, this is different. AMDs previous Ryzen laptop line performed incredibly well, both in power consumption (which equates to battery life) and thermal envelope (which, also equates to battery life) while also delivering jaw dropping performance. I am a “devops” and farm out a lot of compute to the cloud, but that comes at a cost (iteration times, price, bandwidth, not all flows can be remote). And gaming does too (stadia has mixed results- though I am a fan). I would posit that your workflow has become remote likely _because_ of this stagnation.
blackhaz 6y ago
I'm thinking of upgrading my i7-6600U 1st gen X1 Yoga. I'm beginning to feel I need something faster.
- bserge 6y ago
  Try undervolting and increasing the TDP with Throttlestop if you run Windows and your board allows voltage control.
darkwater 6y ago
Good for you if you are OK with not owning anything.
freedomben 6y ago
This is absolutely true in my case as well - on the desktop/laptop. I use Fedora fwiw also so Windows/macOS slowing down over time isn't applicable in my case. That said, it is definitely not true in the case of server hardware. I have a home lab with a few R620s that have 2014 era Xeons in them, and while there are a lot of parallel cores, single core performance is abysmal compared to newer in-class hardware. For CPU-bound single-threaded tasks, I actually spin up a Linode and use that, rather than my on-prem hardware. I would also note, I have only Intel. I'm going to build an AMD rig here within the next few months though because I've had numerous people tell me that it's noticeably better.
dvdkon 6y ago
CPUs have been progressing faster in the last few years, mainly because of AMD's Ryzen line. In laptops, 4 cores are now standard, and if you can gen one of the AMD 4000U CPUs, 8 cores with good single-threaded performance are relatively cheap. Same thing on desktop, you can get 20%+ more performance by upgrading the CPU. Sure, it's not the same as 486 vs Pentium, but the Ivy Bridge-era CPUs that were used for such a long time are now equivalent to low-end CPUs, it's no longer universally better to get an old i7 vs a new i5. That said, if you're happy, there's no reason to upgrade.
- fulafel 6y ago
  Core count > 2 doesn't help general responsiveness much with the current state of software.
  - dvdkon 6y ago
    I definitely disagree. When having a video conferencing app open can use 100% of a single core, 2 cores just isn't enough for anyone even remotely multitasking. Same with a browser running some demanding JS for whatever reason or system updates.
- duffyjp 6y ago
  I'm in the process of returning an i3-9100 based Dell Precision. It's a true 4 core and despite no hyper-threading on the benchmark sites it beats my Haswell Xeon E3 in both multi and single threaded tests. In reality however it's a dog. It gets bogged down for the lightest workloads. It's also using MORE electricity from the wall, as the old PowerEdge T20 system was an ATX12VO design with a Xeon 1275L. I'll extend your comment to say that old i7 is universally better than new i3 (and I should have known better).
  - Synaesthesia 6y ago
    SSD performance is quite important for perceived speed.
neogodless 6y ago
As others pointed out, Zen 2 has upped the game. My Ryzen 7 4800H benchmarks very neatly in line with my Ryzen 7 2700X desktop (which is Zen+ so half a generation older.) Basically I give up very little switching between my desktop and laptop. Up until a few years ago I only ever gamed on my desktop but since I got this laptop (80W GeForce GTX 1660 Ti) 1080p laptop gaming is quite good. Do you do PC gaming on Stadia or is that all Chromecast+TV type gaming? Personally I'm much more of a PC gamer, and while I don't have the experience to have an opinion on Stadia, I'm currently assuming having good hardware locally is the better experience.
- ylere 6y ago
  In the posters case, going from their i7-4800mq to a Ryzen 5800u, would result in roughly +50% single core performance while also doubling the amount of cores, resulting in ~3x the performance at 1/3 of the TDP.
- flatiron 6y ago
  stadia i mainly play with the controller and stream it to either my ipad or my thinkpad. i would love to use the chromecast i have but i don't have much free time where the kids/wife aren't using the tv and even if they weren't it might not be good to have doom eternal playing with my 3 kids toddling around
whatever1 6y ago
Your observation holds in desktop. In laptops, the thermals of the 14nm generation were horrible, essentially you have to deal with a whining fan or cpu throttling, or both. AMD's 4000 series has much improved upon this, and I assume that the latest 10nm Intel will be much better. Performance-wise I agree with you. Minor changes, probably more noticeable changes come from the massive adoption of fast SSDs (1-2GB/s).
- nomel 6y ago
  > Your observation holds in desktop. > Minor changes There have been absolutely massive gains in desktop performance, if you're doing CPU bound tasks locally with work can be split across cores the high number of cores that are now available. The performance for my workloads is about 4x what it was, from 7 years ago, for the same price.
throwawayzRUU6f 6y ago
They've progressed notably in terms of total draw power and therefore battery life. Admittedly, not much of a difference when it comes to the overall system responsiveness in basic user workflows. Quoting from the article: > Ryzen 7 5800U as its most efficient mobile processor to date, citing 21.4 hours battery life on a 53 Wh battery during 1080p video playback with Wi-Fi on, or 17.5 hours in MobileMark 2018’s battery life test
- fctorial 6y ago
  > with Wi-Fi on Does it matter? Doesn't wifi use specialized hardware?
  - HelloNurse 6y ago
    It's a honest endurance test. Moreover, turning on WiFi implies a little CPU activity (some process is going to keep an eye on it).
  - fomine3 6y ago
    Nowadays Intel integrates some Wi-Fi parts to chipset that called CNVi. So it's better to include for benchmark.
Philip-J-Fry 6y ago
Intel has really been holding a monopoly on CPUs. AMD's YOY performance gains in Zen really are exceptional. Their mobile processors blow intel out of the water. They are more efficient and performant. I still have a 6700k which is plenty fast enough for anything I do. But in reality it's quickly getting outpaced by Zen. The only reason Intel has been getting faster in the past few years is because of Zen and now Intel is shitting the bed. The next few years, especially because of Apple Silicon, are going to be really interesting for desktop processors. I think we're going to see some really crazy innovations.
bserge 6y ago
No, that's literally been the case with Intel processors. Especially mobile ones. There's practically zero difference between Haswell and Whiskey Lake (5 years newer) core performance. Even Ice Lake was a minor improvement. But the power consumption has dropped, heat generation has dropped (a lot of it because they abandoned FIVR), IGP performance has increased and they started supporting DDR4, so overall performance has increased. I personally lament the death of the mobile socket. I hope AMD still has socketed mobile processors, but I doubt it. They're only useful for people who want to upgrade or fix their laptops themselves, people who want to resell their old laptop/parts, and the environment.
blackearl 6y ago
I guess if you're not gaming on hardware. Although Steam just released numbers and their base is bigger than ever, VR went up a lot too. Can't do that without newer CPUs. Also means you're handcuffed to the internet to do anything.
chrismorgan 6y ago
The AMD Ryzen 7 4800H is around 35% faster than the Intel Core i7-4800MQ at single-threaded workloads, up to being about 3× as fast when loading all cores (e.g. compiling code). I gather that the 5800H should be something like 25% faster again (~19% IPC improvement, 5–10% clock speed bump). Compared to the i7-4800MQ, that should be up to about 70% faster single-threaded, and 4× as fast with all cores loaded. That’s H-class APUs, since you were talking about an Intel MQ. The U-class APUs seem to be surprisingly close in performance, mostly only 10–20% slower, with a third of the TDP.
throwawaytolk 6y ago
This is exactly my observation. I ran a 4700mq from when it came out. I waited to a similar processor to come out that was better. took a long while and I upgraded to an 8750h because it had more cores and was being sold in 500-600$ machines. There is now an 8 core chip of the same quality that i the next to most recent intel generation, this will be my next upgrade. My 4700mq machine runs win10 and ubuntu linux just fine. I dont do heavy compute work on it anymore, but I did back when it was current.
jsight 6y ago
I recently had my work laptop refreshed. The most noticable differences are that the new one is thinner, lighter, and has better battery life. Performance is roughly comparable and was excellent with the 3 year old machine as well.
llampx 6y ago
> Is it just me or does it feel like in the past 5-7 years it doesn't really make that much of a difference when new CPUs come out? My laptop is a i7-4800MQ and it still feels incredibly snappy Your CPU is a 4C/8T 47W one. Not bad for being in a laptop. My Thinkpad for example is a 2C/4T 25W one, from the 7xxxU series. Which doesn't feel snappy at all. Your CPU would probably be handily beat by a recent 4-core or 6-core Ryzen, and it would be done so while outputting far less heat and fan noise. From geekbench you CPU has: 780 single-core, 2784 multi-core. For a 25W Ryzen 5 4500U: 1079 single-core, 4260 multi-core.
leetcrew 6y ago
if you don't do anything locally that benefits from significant compute performance then, yeah, it's gonna look like the market is standing still. in reality, even in intel land much progress has been made in single-thread performance and even more for multi-thread. take a look at these benchmarks comparing a 4770k (4C/8T) against a 10700k (8C/16T), both launching at $350: https://www.anandtech.com/bench/product/2659?vs=2664 https://www.anandtech.com/bench/product/2659?vs=2664
kevstev 6y ago
I am still using a SandyBridge core i7 laptop from 2011, and my only real gripe with it is its comically large bezel around the monitor by today's standards. I can't game with it, but general usage and development is not an issue. I knew I was getting a big architectural jump when I bought the Sandybridge, but I wouldn't have believed you if you told me that in ten years I would still be happy with its performance and still using it.

gameswithgo 6y ago

Yes, cpu performance no longer increasing by factors of 2 with new generations, so a CPU stays relevant for a lot longer, unless you have compute heavy jobs that can leverage the new core counts. (compilation sometimes fits that description)

hmottestad 6y ago
It’s been quite a few years since we had a 2x improvement between generations. I get a feeling it’s probably 5-10 years ago.
- gameswithgo 6y ago
  yes, that is why the person I replied to can have an old cpu and it is still fine today.
nicoburns 6y ago
Anyone multitasking can use the core counts. I feel like 2 -> 4 cores will make a difference for most users. 4 -> 8 for heavy users like developers.
- gameswithgo 6y ago
  Yes, but 4 cores has been the standard for a long time already. Recently thanks to AMD heavy users often are grabbing 8, 12, 16 or more.
  - nicoburns 6y ago
    Only the very top end of laptop CPUs had 4 cores until recently. Certainly they weren't mainstream 5-7 years ago.
    - findthewords 6y ago
      I have a cheap Thinkpad E-series from 2012 with Intel i7-3612QM 4c/8t CPU. At the time it cost a third less than a Macbook. As far as price was concerned it was mainstream.
  - qayxc 6y ago
    You wish! Intel only very recently (e.g. 3 years ago) brought 4 cores to mainstream in the mobile segment. Low power mobile chips were dual core until Q3 2017 when Kaby Lake refresh was released and brought 4 cores to the i5 and i7 line-up. Even then, entry level and mainstream versions (i3 in particular) remained dual core configs.
technofiend 6y ago
I'll be honest - I doubt it qualifies as compute heavy, but I'm definitely fantasizing about getting some of these new CPUs in a firewall appliance. Some NICs offer various offloading options but according to PFSense's website they caution users that support is mixed at best. Then there's VPN acceleration: there are no AES-NI-like CPU instructions to accelerate Wireguard's crypto choices. Not to mention network speeds even at the consumer end are slowly increasing. So having enough beef to push 1 gigabit NICs is good but planning for the future and adding 2.5 gb or higher is better. And finally having enough compute to layer fq_codel or better on top along with some monitoring all adds up. Like a lot of projects the demand will act like a gas and fill whatever volume is given to it. Given more compute I'll find a way to use it. :-)
- Daho0n 6y ago
  >So having enough beef to push 1 gigabit NICs is good but planning for the future and adding 2.5 gb or higher is better. I'm using I5-2500K's for firewalls. 1 gigabit hardly moves the CPU usage. I have all NIC offload turned off. Btw. I would really consider OPNsense instead if you are building custom firewalls. Pfsense is an atrocious company. Trying to kill off OPNsense by buying domains that tell lies and AFAIK no one outside Netgate can actually build from source. They are not open source even though they claim so. They are also moving to using DRM. https://github.com/rapi3/pfsense-is-closed-source https://github.com/rapi3/pfsense-is-closed-source
  - technofiend 6y ago
    Thanks for the pointer to OPNSense! I've been drag racing various operating systems after my little protectli box proved only capable of pushing 500Mbit/s using PFSense + FreeBSD. Even the usual TCP tuning tricks didn't help. Meanwhile every OS I've tried except OpenBSD proved able to saturate a dedicated one gigabit link in a VM under ESXi. I will definitely try OPNsense next!

dijit 6y ago

It’s not just you. CPUs have stagnated massively. Intel CPUs still give 16 PCI lanes on the consumer chips, despite any modern graphics card using that entirely. (Meaning your nvme drives all compete somewhat). Compared to phones which have real, huge, generational improvements every couple of years which is sometimes jarring. However, this is different. AMDs previous Ryzen laptop line performed incredibly well, both in power consumption (which equates to battery life) and thermal envelope (which, also equates to battery life) while also delivering jaw dropping performance. I am a “devops” and farm out a lot of compute to the cloud, but that comes at a cost (iteration times, price, bandwidth, not all flows can be remote). And gaming does too (stadia has mixed results- though I am a fan). I would posit that your workflow has become remote likely _because_ of this stagnation.

blackhaz 6y ago

I'm thinking of upgrading my i7-6600U 1st gen X1 Yoga. I'm beginning to feel I need something faster.

bserge 6y ago
Try undervolting and increasing the TDP with Throttlestop if you run Windows and your board allows voltage control.

darkwater 6y ago

Good for you if you are OK with not owning anything.

freedomben 6y ago

This is absolutely true in my case as well - on the desktop/laptop. I use Fedora fwiw also so Windows/macOS slowing down over time isn't applicable in my case. That said, it is definitely not true in the case of server hardware. I have a home lab with a few R620s that have 2014 era Xeons in them, and while there are a lot of parallel cores, single core performance is abysmal compared to newer in-class hardware. For CPU-bound single-threaded tasks, I actually spin up a Linode and use that, rather than my on-prem hardware. I would also note, I have only Intel. I'm going to build an AMD rig here within the next few months though because I've had numerous people tell me that it's noticeably better.

dvdkon 6y ago

CPUs have been progressing faster in the last few years, mainly because of AMD's Ryzen line. In laptops, 4 cores are now standard, and if you can gen one of the AMD 4000U CPUs, 8 cores with good single-threaded performance are relatively cheap. Same thing on desktop, you can get 20%+ more performance by upgrading the CPU. Sure, it's not the same as 486 vs Pentium, but the Ivy Bridge-era CPUs that were used for such a long time are now equivalent to low-end CPUs, it's no longer universally better to get an old i7 vs a new i5. That said, if you're happy, there's no reason to upgrade.

fulafel 6y ago
Core count > 2 doesn't help general responsiveness much with the current state of software.
- dvdkon 6y ago
  I definitely disagree. When having a video conferencing app open can use 100% of a single core, 2 cores just isn't enough for anyone even remotely multitasking. Same with a browser running some demanding JS for whatever reason or system updates.
duffyjp 6y ago
I'm in the process of returning an i3-9100 based Dell Precision. It's a true 4 core and despite no hyper-threading on the benchmark sites it beats my Haswell Xeon E3 in both multi and single threaded tests. In reality however it's a dog. It gets bogged down for the lightest workloads. It's also using MORE electricity from the wall, as the old PowerEdge T20 system was an ATX12VO design with a Xeon 1275L. I'll extend your comment to say that old i7 is universally better than new i3 (and I should have known better).
- Synaesthesia 6y ago
  SSD performance is quite important for perceived speed.

neogodless 6y ago

As others pointed out, Zen 2 has upped the game. My Ryzen 7 4800H benchmarks very neatly in line with my Ryzen 7 2700X desktop (which is Zen+ so half a generation older.) Basically I give up very little switching between my desktop and laptop. Up until a few years ago I only ever gamed on my desktop but since I got this laptop (80W GeForce GTX 1660 Ti) 1080p laptop gaming is quite good. Do you do PC gaming on Stadia or is that all Chromecast+TV type gaming? Personally I'm much more of a PC gamer, and while I don't have the experience to have an opinion on Stadia, I'm currently assuming having good hardware locally is the better experience.

ylere 6y ago
In the posters case, going from their i7-4800mq to a Ryzen 5800u, would result in roughly +50% single core performance while also doubling the amount of cores, resulting in ~3x the performance at 1/3 of the TDP.
flatiron 6y ago
stadia i mainly play with the controller and stream it to either my ipad or my thinkpad. i would love to use the chromecast i have but i don't have much free time where the kids/wife aren't using the tv and even if they weren't it might not be good to have doom eternal playing with my 3 kids toddling around

whatever1 6y ago

Your observation holds in desktop. In laptops, the thermals of the 14nm generation were horrible, essentially you have to deal with a whining fan or cpu throttling, or both. AMD's 4000 series has much improved upon this, and I assume that the latest 10nm Intel will be much better. Performance-wise I agree with you. Minor changes, probably more noticeable changes come from the massive adoption of fast SSDs (1-2GB/s).

nomel 6y ago
> Your observation holds in desktop. > Minor changes There have been absolutely massive gains in desktop performance, if you're doing CPU bound tasks locally with work can be split across cores the high number of cores that are now available. The performance for my workloads is about 4x what it was, from 7 years ago, for the same price.

throwawayzRUU6f 6y ago

They've progressed notably in terms of total draw power and therefore battery life. Admittedly, not much of a difference when it comes to the overall system responsiveness in basic user workflows. Quoting from the article: > Ryzen 7 5800U as its most efficient mobile processor to date, citing 21.4 hours battery life on a 53 Wh battery during 1080p video playback with Wi-Fi on, or 17.5 hours in MobileMark 2018’s battery life test

fctorial 6y ago
> with Wi-Fi on Does it matter? Doesn't wifi use specialized hardware?
- HelloNurse 6y ago
  It's a honest endurance test. Moreover, turning on WiFi implies a little CPU activity (some process is going to keep an eye on it).
- fomine3 6y ago
  Nowadays Intel integrates some Wi-Fi parts to chipset that called CNVi. So it's better to include for benchmark.

Philip-J-Fry 6y ago

Intel has really been holding a monopoly on CPUs. AMD's YOY performance gains in Zen really are exceptional. Their mobile processors blow intel out of the water. They are more efficient and performant. I still have a 6700k which is plenty fast enough for anything I do. But in reality it's quickly getting outpaced by Zen. The only reason Intel has been getting faster in the past few years is because of Zen and now Intel is shitting the bed. The next few years, especially because of Apple Silicon, are going to be really interesting for desktop processors. I think we're going to see some really crazy innovations.

bserge 6y ago

No, that's literally been the case with Intel processors. Especially mobile ones. There's practically zero difference between Haswell and Whiskey Lake (5 years newer) core performance. Even Ice Lake was a minor improvement. But the power consumption has dropped, heat generation has dropped (a lot of it because they abandoned FIVR), IGP performance has increased and they started supporting DDR4, so overall performance has increased. I personally lament the death of the mobile socket. I hope AMD still has socketed mobile processors, but I doubt it. They're only useful for people who want to upgrade or fix their laptops themselves, people who want to resell their old laptop/parts, and the environment.

blackearl 6y ago

I guess if you're not gaming on hardware. Although Steam just released numbers and their base is bigger than ever, VR went up a lot too. Can't do that without newer CPUs. Also means you're handcuffed to the internet to do anything.

chrismorgan 6y ago

The AMD Ryzen 7 4800H is around 35% faster than the Intel Core i7-4800MQ at single-threaded workloads, up to being about 3× as fast when loading all cores (e.g. compiling code). I gather that the 5800H should be something like 25% faster again (~19% IPC improvement, 5–10% clock speed bump). Compared to the i7-4800MQ, that should be up to about 70% faster single-threaded, and 4× as fast with all cores loaded. That’s H-class APUs, since you were talking about an Intel MQ. The U-class APUs seem to be surprisingly close in performance, mostly only 10–20% slower, with a third of the TDP.

throwawaytolk 6y ago

This is exactly my observation. I ran a 4700mq from when it came out. I waited to a similar processor to come out that was better. took a long while and I upgraded to an 8750h because it had more cores and was being sold in 500-600$ machines. There is now an 8 core chip of the same quality that i the next to most recent intel generation, this will be my next upgrade. My 4700mq machine runs win10 and ubuntu linux just fine. I dont do heavy compute work on it anymore, but I did back when it was current.

jsight 6y ago

I recently had my work laptop refreshed. The most noticable differences are that the new one is thinner, lighter, and has better battery life. Performance is roughly comparable and was excellent with the 3 year old machine as well.

llampx 6y ago

> Is it just me or does it feel like in the past 5-7 years it doesn't really make that much of a difference when new CPUs come out? My laptop is a i7-4800MQ and it still feels incredibly snappy Your CPU is a 4C/8T 47W one. Not bad for being in a laptop. My Thinkpad for example is a 2C/4T 25W one, from the 7xxxU series. Which doesn't feel snappy at all. Your CPU would probably be handily beat by a recent 4-core or 6-core Ryzen, and it would be done so while outputting far less heat and fan noise. From geekbench you CPU has: 780 single-core, 2784 multi-core. For a 25W Ryzen 5 4500U: 1079 single-core, 4260 multi-core.

leetcrew 6y ago

if you don't do anything locally that benefits from significant compute performance then, yeah, it's gonna look like the market is standing still. in reality, even in intel land much progress has been made in single-thread performance and even more for multi-thread. take a look at these benchmarks comparing a 4770k (4C/8T) against a 10700k (8C/16T), both launching at $350: https://www.anandtech.com/bench/product/2659?vs=2664 https://www.anandtech.com/bench/product/2659?vs=2664

kevstev 6y ago

I am still using a SandyBridge core i7 laptop from 2011, and my only real gripe with it is its comically large bezel around the monitor by today's standards. I can't game with it, but general usage and development is not an issue. I knew I was getting a big architectural jump when I bought the Sandybridge, but I wouldn't have believed you if you told me that in ten years I would still be happy with its performance and still using it.