4 year old desktop vs. new laptop

[Pib]

Yea, the Samsung 840 EVO is one of the best selling SSDs on the market right now due to its price and outstanding speed. Be sure to check for the constantly changing prices/promotions on websites like TigerDirect and NewEgg. I got my inbound 840 EVO 500GB SSD (inbound with a friend coming over in around a week) from TigerDirect for $245 total (no tax and free shipping to my friends house...he has already received it). Got my Seagate 600 Series 480GB SSD for $220 total from TigerDirect....also brought over by a friend passing through Bangkok.

At $245/approx Bt7,850 that is about half the going price in Thailand where the Samsung 840 EVO goes for around Bt15,000. SSDs in Thailand are significantly more expensive than in the U.S. and SSDs over 250GB in Thailand are just down right expensive!!!...like around double the cost of what you would pay in the U.S.

Edit: Yeap, be sure to check the ever changing deals on sites like NewEgg and TigerDirect. I just looked on NewEgg regarding a Samsung 840 EVO 250GB and with the 10% off Promotion Code that expires today/11 May, the total cost (no tax and free shipping) is $139.49.

Edited May 11, 2014 by Pib

[Pib]

Below is an example of the boot-up time (54 seconds) using a SSD in an old-ass (8 years old) laptop, specifically a 2006 Toshiba laptop running a 1.6GHz old-generation Celeron Intel CPU, Win 7, 2GB RAM, 533MB/sec RAM speed compared to today computers' 1600MB/sec RAM speed, and only a SATA 1 (150MB/sec) drive controller chip. Heck, the Seagate 480GB SSD in the laptop is capable of over 500MB/sec speeds and is basically waiting on my laptop motherboard drive controller...my SATA 1 controller is now a choke-point for the SSD where it was not a choke-point for a spinning platter HDD. If my laptop had a SATA 3 controller chip (600MB/sec) which has been around for around 5 years now in computers I expect the boot-up time shown below would be even faster.

When I still had XP and a spinning platter 500GB hard disk drive on the laptop, I pretty much would turn it on and come back 5 minutes later before I could really use it since it was still reading/writing/doing the boot-up along with the background stuff.

Please note where it shows Desktop Ready, that is the point where the Desktop has already been fully displayed for X-seconds and finished loading all the background stuff....it's very responsive to staring up programs, browsing, emailing, etc., at thatReady point. Yeap, this SSD has basically turned my old & slow computer into an old & fairly fast computer....just an amazing difference. Your results may (will) vary.

[chubby]

think i'm going to need dual use enclosure, as if i understand this right , i will put the SSD in the enclosure 1st, then clone the existing HD to the SSD, then put the SSD in the laptop, and use whatever standard the existing HD is and put that in the enclosure ?

Edited May 11, 2014 by chubby

[chubby]

well, how do you determine what are the "choke points" in a system RAM vs CPU vs HD ?

cause I'm tempted to buy an old toughbook with Intel Core 2 Duo Processor @ 1.80 GHz

if the CPU may be a significant choke point, then I won't bother with the idea of putting a SSD in it , etc

maybe just forego toughbook for traveling in general

 

CPUs have advanced quite a bit in the last 4 years, however, a big increase in "benchmark" results does not necessary mean a big increase in "real world" speed like in how fast certain software operates. Just because you increase the horsepower of your CPU by 10 fold does not mean you computer with be 10 times faster...you probably be lucky to get a real world two fold increase when clearing away the benchmark hype.

Between the two CPUs you listed the Intel CPU is significantly better...and being a 4th generation, quad core chip, with integrated GPU4600 is very good. A 4th generations chip will run a lot cooler. Back in Dec I bought a new laptop and got it with the i7-4702MQ Intel CPU...also a quad core, 4th generation chip, with integrated GPU4600....been very happy with it. I bought the laptop at BananaIT in Bangkok. I would recommend you get a 4th generation, Quad Core Intel i7 CPU.

Although my new laptop came with a standard 1TB hard disk drive (spinning platter type) I have a Samsung 840 EVO 500GB SSD inbound as we speak....a friend passing through will deliver it in about two weeks ($245/approx Bt7850 from TigerDirect in the U.S....here in Thailand the drive costs around $465/Bt15,000...larger SSDs in Thailand are VERY pricey)...I'm looking forward to getting it. I know it will make some very noticeable speed improvement is some computer/software operations, especially anything that requires a lot of disk activity.. And just last week I installed a Seagate 600 Series 480GB SSD ($220/Bt7050) from TigerDirect in an 8-year old Toshiba laptop (my backup computer) using a early generation Celeron CPU, 2GB of memory, and running Win 7....I kid you not, it was like I replaced a 4 cylinder car engine with an 8 cylinder engine...just an amazing improvement in computer operations....just amazing. Anything that required a lot of hard disk activity has just been supercharged.

Summary: get your new computer with a SSD if possible. Or, just put a SSD in your 4 year laptop.

 

[WonnabeBiker]

I'm seconding those who say get a SSD and keep your old notebook. Resale value? Forget it!

My wife bought a new DELL @ 30,000 B and I prefer my old Thinkpad T-61 and X61 models, TBH. With SSDs, they get the job done.

Save the money and buy when the laptopt breaks...

[Pib]

well, how do you determine what are the "choke points" in a system RAM vs CPU vs HD ?

cause I'm tempted to buy an old toughbook with Intel Core 2 Duo Processor @ 1.80 GHz

if the CPU may be a significant choke point, then I won't bother with the idea of putting a SSD in it , etc

maybe just forego toughbook for traveling in general

When buying a new computer you really don't have any chokepoints...you just have components which can operate at a certain speed/have X-amount of horsepower. Some will be faster than others...faster to make a difference in the real world? Well, it depends on how you use your computer, what software you use, etc. And of course what you "want" which may be more than you "need." It's kinda like buying a new vehicle...what size engine do want...a 4 cyl, 6 cyl, 8 cyl, diesel, gasoline, etc....they will all exceed the speed limit, but some have more horsepower/torque/top end speed than others...it's whatever you desire or need.

Generally, an i3 CPU have more horsepower than a Pentium 2 Duo, an i5 CPU has more horsepower than an i3, an i7 have more horsepower than an i5. And "within" each i3, i5, i7 family there are a bunch of different variations to complicate the issue more...like there are dozens of different variations of the i3 CPU, dozen of different i5's....dozens of different i7's....same goes for AMD CPU.

And then we have GPUs, integrated and separate, with different horsepower ratings....similar to the CPU paragraph above.

For the SATA interface for the harddrvie all new computers sold for last few years come with the SATA 3 interface which is a little faster than SSDs...and a ton faster than a spinning platter HDD.

Most laptops today come with 1600MHz RAM....4GB worth of RAM is enough for most people...8GB may make you feel better...but it won't make your computer run any faster unless you are using some specialize video editing software and editing/converting with big video/picture files, maybe playing some graphics intensive game, etc.

But I would have to say the biggest anchor/dragging brake now days when considering the modern CPU, GPU, RAM, motherboard, etc., is the spinning platter HDD....all your other components have to wait on a HDD as it reads/writes data from/to its spinning platters...but with a SSD it can keep up with your other components since it reading/writing to NAND-based flash memory.

It all what you desire or want....sooooooo many choices when buying a computer.

[chubby]

got the SSD installed, and doubled the ram to 4gb, really is something, only thing now is, i don't want to use disks anymore, and my desktop is my main computer for now thx

[Pib]

Glad you got the SSD installed.

You may remember in some of my above posts that I had another SSD inbound, a Samsung 840EVO 500GB SSD, for my Lenovo i7 CPU based laptop. I got it delivered a few days ago by a friend passing through Bangkok and cloned/installed it this morning. Cost: $245/Bt7,850 from TigerDirect in the U.S....around half the going Bt15,000 price in Thailand. In case anyone wants to compare their SSD or spinning platter Hard Disk Drive (HDD) against the benchmarks I got, below are some benchmarks results using CrystalDiskMark, AS-SSD, and BootRacer.

Crystal Disk Mark Results

AS SSD Results

BootRacer used to measure boot times (I'm now seeing my Win 8.1 Start screen in around 5-8 seconds compared to the 16-21 seconds with the previous Seagate 1TB HDD that came with the laptop).

Summary: sequential read speed now well over 500MB/s compared to around 150MB/s for a good 7200RPM spinning platter HDD, small file read/write (4K) speed around 40-50 times faster than a HDD, files access time down around 0.05ms compared to around 12ms for a HDD (240 times faster). Now does all this benchmark showing a SSD is "much, much" faster than a HDD, make my computer "much, much" faster--No...because my i7 CPU based laptop is already pretty durn faster, but from playing with the computer for an hour or so, it's definitely got a big horsepower boost with the SSD, don't turn your head too long during bootup or you'll miss the whole bootup sequence, and a lot of programs definitely open significantly faster...say a program that took 5 seconds to open is now opening in 2 seconds (or faster). Yeap, definitely a very, very noticeable speed improvement.

[chubby]

http://www.economist.com/news/science-and-technology/21652051-even-after-moores-law-ends-chip-costs-could-still-halve-every-few-years-beyond?fsrc=scn/tw/te/bl/ed/beyondmooreslaw