Purchased a new laptop - ASUS

J

Junglist0682

Member
Morning,

My wife and I just purchased a new laptop for this upcoming semester. I have never used an Asus product and I am unsure what to think.

Mainly I will be running vmware when needed and it would be used for basic browsing, checking email and anything that my wife may need to use it for. (however, I believe nothing major)

May I get some input from you folks here?

I know my HDD is 5400 (in which I would love to replace with a 7200 down the road and possibly upgrade the RAM as well)

I have yet to remove any programs that come with it.

The machine boots fine, but I know I will be getting rid of McAfee.

Below is the link to the laptop that we purchased. Any replies are appreciated.

Thank you

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/asus-15-6-laptop-intel-core-i5-4gb-memory-500gb-hard-drive-dark-gray-blue-gray/6643023.p?id=1219229364828&skuId=6643023&st=categoryid$pcmcat247400050000&cp=1&lp=5

I'm also a bit skeptical on the CPU granted it is an i5. The ghz is what is really throwing me off.


My desktop is currently an i3 so I would think an i5 would be much better.
 
Well I'll just say that I had VMware on an i5 4200M on my ThinkPad and it did run a bit slowly, so not entirely sure how it will run on an i5 U processor. Really for VMs you want the best CPU you can lay your hands on and a lot of RAM.

The i5 in this laptop goes up to 2.6GHz for most things. You can't really compare a desktop i3 with a mobile i5 though - especially an i5 U like this laptop has. The U series processors are the power-saving ones used in ultrabooks. They save power but also perform slightly worse than the M series processors which are the ones that are a bit more powerful.

You must also remember that all of the desktop i5s since 2011 have been proper quad-cores (but lack HT). All of the mobile i5s are dual-cores with HT, just like your desktop i3. I would probably say that the desktop i3 is a little quicker than the i5 4200U this laptop has.

Upgrading to a 7200 RPM HDD sounds like a good idea. You could even consider an SSD but I guess you need lots of storage for those virtual machines you want to run, so maybe a fast hard drive would be a better option.

But generally ASUS machines are solid. :good:
 
Thanks for the input Spirit. :good:

I guess I just need to toss vmware on this laptop and see how it runs.

Thanks for clearing up the U vs M on the CPU's.

If I believe the laptop is lagging with the vmware I may just return it back since I still am in within the time frame and look for something else.

:good:
 
Junglist0682 said:
Well, it's a good thing you replied Spirit which then lead me to test VMware.

It is a bit choppy on my side.
Click to expand...

Yeah it will be on an i5 U - it's choppy on my i5 M. You want a quad-core i7 such as the 4702MQ and a lot of RAM (16GB or 32GB) for that really.

Don't get an i7 M such as the 4600M because like the i5, it's just a dual-core with HT. The 4702MQ is a proper quad-core.
 
I don't know much about VMware really at all but I can comment on a few things.

I have a similar Asus machine. Same processor but I've got better RAM, GPU, and a bigger hard drive. The exterior I believe is almost the same.

To clarify, the CPU is stated at being 1.6GHz. That's the normal clock speed. When your CPU is under heavy use it will automatically clock up to 2.6GHz if you're using 1 core or 2.3GHz if you're using both cores.

Also as Spirit said it is a dual core with hyper threading so it is a "fake" quad core.

Again, I know nothing about VMWare, but for basic uses like internet, word processing, videos, etc, it'll do great. I love my Asus laptop. Also I'm used to an SSD on my desktop with Windows 7 and this hard drive doesn't seem really any slower for normal use. My laptop boots faster with a 5400RPM drive than my desktop does with an SSD. :P

Also you can't easily compare processors in desktops to laptops. Laptop processors are designed to be incredibly power efficient since they run on battery most of the time. Thus they are also less powerful. An i5 on a laptop is in no way comparable with an i5 on a desktop (assuming you're talking about the same generation of course).
 
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Yeah the i5 4200M in my laptop is a little bit slower than the i3 3220 in my Mum's desktop.

For VMware unfortunately the CPU isn't really strong enough. I think you need a proper quad-core i7 - MQ, HQ or MX series. As far as I'm aware they also all have HT, so they have 8 threads.
 
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