Thank you for being a valued part of the CNET community. As of December 1, 2020, the forums are in read-only format. In early 2021, CNET Forums will no longer be available. We are grateful for the participation and advice you have provided to one another over the years.

Thanks,

CNET Support

General discussion

Please help me decide which hardware is better?

Feb 1, 2010 11:08PM PST

Hi all,

I am a newbie here just trying to get some guidance on which one of two dell laptop's would produce the better performance and speed. I am struggling to decide between a studio 15 and studio 17 laptop mainly due to the varying processors on offer. I am told that the new i5 processor available in the studio 15 is very good, but I have spec'd a seemingly better laptop (studio 17) for about

Discussion is locked

- Collapse -
Seems easy.
Feb 1, 2010 11:33PM PST

Since we got HT back in the i5, I would want that.

What's strange is the drop in RPM on the drive. This rarely costs a dollar so you can level the playing field on that.

This leaves the graphics card. But no mention of gaming so no reason to change that.

As to touch screen, that's highly over rated. Long discussions so I won't repeat that.
Bob

- Collapse -
But what about...
Feb 2, 2010 12:54AM PST

Hi Bob,

Thank you for you reply. I do not normally play many games on my laptop, but I do run multiple applications such as photoshop, illustrator etc. all of which slow my current PC down a lot.

Are you saying that you think the Studio 15 option would be a better choice in order to get the i5 processor?

I have done some tweeking and if I don't get the backlit keyboard or upgraded wi-fi card (instead of the normal Dell one) then I could afford the following instead of the studio 15 spec originally posted. Would this be better or would the lesser Memory and Graphics cards outweigh the benefits of the better processor?

PROCESSOR - Intel

- Collapse -
Would this be better or would the lesser Memory and Graphics
Feb 2, 2010 6:25AM PST

"Would this be better or would the lesser Memory and Graphics cards outweigh the benefits of the better processor?"

Photoshop doesn't benefit much from faster GPUs but your new setup would be a Photoshopper's dream machine. And yes, I would not consider a C2D over the i5 today.
Bob