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

Question

What to use for media PC Laptop -i7-6500u or i7-4700HQ?

Aug 6, 2017 6:07PM PDT

It is a nice problem to have when you want to decide what i7 computer to use for media playback, mainly streamed or downloaded videos.

I work on computers so get busted ones left behind from time to time. They are usually junk from Wal-Mart but sometimes they are i5's and i7's. I am not an AMD and only seem to come across the really low end stuff powered by them.

The current laptop I am using for a media PC is a Core i7-4700HQ with a screen about to fall off the unit and 8GB RAM. This has the Intel HD 4600 graphics and nothing else.

The new leave behind is a Core i7-6500u with a busted screen. I had to remove this completely so it would even post to an external monitor. It is two generations newer but only a dual core. I know this CPU is a lot less power hungry as well. It also comes with an NVIDIA 940M 2GB graphics chipset which is a bonus.

So, I am currently using a 1080P TV for playback on the older gen i7 with the Intel HD 4600 with no issues. This computer is currently in service so leaving it and making no changes is one plus for keeping it in this role. On the other hand, the other system may be more tuned to what I am using it for all while using less power over the long run. This is usually just left on in the background so that power might add up over time.

Any opinions?

Discussion is locked

- Collapse -
Answer
Should be great. Example.
Aug 6, 2017 6:10PM PDT
- Collapse -
I know.
Aug 6, 2017 6:30PM PDT

That is a much older unit and it handles it just fine. The Current i7 I am using handles it just fine. I know there are improvements with the more modern i7 even if the overall processing power isn't quite as much. The power use may be less and the onboard and dedicated NVIDIA graphics chipsets are both likely better in all ways. If I go to 4K, both should handle that as well or maybe someone will leave behind an i7-7700HQ or whatever when they smash the screen.

I have SSDs as well that I would just move over.

I know either system will do what I want right now. I figure the lower power consumption of the more modern unit might be in my best interest. Again, the current 4 core i7 works just fine as well so maybe I should leave it as is. Both are messed up. The current one has a busted frame so the screen is ready to fall off the unit. The new leave behind was dropped so came in with a smashed screen and trashed HDD. I did get it to load an OS and work fine once I removed the screen entirely. It would turn on and then right back off with that smashed screen connected so something had to have been really damaged.

- Collapse -
I am also just curious
Aug 6, 2017 6:35PM PDT

I like to play around and think the new unit could be put to use and see how it does.

- Collapse -
4K or more precisely UHD playback is a challenge.
Aug 6, 2017 6:40PM PDT
- Collapse -
I went and looked at this.
Aug 7, 2017 8:06PM PDT

I am guessing a lot of this is not related to the hardware but to the internet speed. Remember that 4K is 4x the amount of data when compared to 1080P.

Anyway, I couldn't resist so swapped the drives last night and it worked great at first. All the new updates and drivers installed and it worked fine. Then I shut it down for a bit today and when I fired it back up there was an unrecoverable BSOD. I am not sure what happened but think one of the old drivers had caused a conflict. So I reloaded the OS and all is well for now. If the BSOD comes back I will scrap this one for good.

- Collapse -
For me, not a problem.
Aug 8, 2017 5:02AM PDT

I have the Amazon 4K Fire TV player and on some 20 megabit connection and all good but a PC struggles to do 4K. I have not invested in the usual Nvidia 1080 TI video card so I can't tell you if that is it but all indications is for 4K play it's quite a lot more than what the i7 onboard graphics can deliver.

- Collapse -
So far, no more BSODs
Aug 8, 2017 8:01AM PDT

It has been working well with multiple reboots after a fresh install of Windows 10 so I think the BSOD problem is handled. You always risk trouble when just moving hard drives between systems without reloading. I gambled and lost on this one.

As for playback, I have 10MBPS internet here and am lucky to have that. I live in a rural area where many people are lucky to have .5MBPS and similar pitiful speeds.

I don't have a 4K TV yet but would assume that the NVIDIA 940M would make a big difference in video decoding. I was using some Wal-Mart type laptops a while back and they fell on their face the first time I tried decoding x.265 video. I think that most new 4K stuff is x.265 to save space so that and the extra data probably overload all but the best GPUs. I will eventually test this and let everyone know.

- Collapse -
Just to note.
Aug 8, 2017 8:34AM PDT

Playing a 4K (UHD to be precise) can tax both CPU and GPU. The reason why is pretty simple. 1080p is so many pixels and UHD is 4 times that. When I look at the Intel graphics in my example 2009 Sony and a modern i5/i7 then compare graphics benchmarks I don't see 4 times the power.

- Collapse -
I see.
Aug 8, 2017 8:45AM PDT

Remember that the newest i7 that I am using may only be a dual core but comes with the NVIDIA 940M graphics chipset and has 2GB dedicated RAM. I am going to see what happens with that one of these days.

I have already discovered that a higher end Core 2 Duo has more than enough power to run 1080P video in x.265 so would assume this unit would do just the same.

Also, the older i7 is about double the benchmark of the newer one in raw processing power but has only the onboard Intel HD 4600 graphics. I wonder how that one would do.

- Collapse -
That's why I noted the web.
Aug 8, 2017 8:56AM PDT

Folk are trying 4K (UHD) playback and finding it iffy unless the hardware is fairly advanced. The 940M looks to be less than the 860M in the video at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BWAY253PB58&feature=youtu.be and I can't imagine anyone wanting to watch a video on that.

For now I'm leaving 4K to 4K players (Fire 4K, etc.)

- Collapse -
There is only one way to find out....
Aug 8, 2017 11:33AM PDT

and that is to TRY IT! I will let everyone know whenever I get the appropriate combination of hardware on hand.

"On paper" these things support 4K but is that just 4K display or actually playing a video in decent quality? There is only one way to tell.

- Collapse -
I think you're getting it.
Aug 9, 2017 7:58AM PDT

I was not happy with early UHD laptops to the point I won't order one on spec alone. The displays are good looking for sure but the graphics horsepower wasn't there. To work around this you would play at 1080p and let the display upscale.

It's sort of silly to have UHD on a laptop anyway. Why?

The usual Visual Acuity distance of a 1920x1080 (1080p) laptop screen is about 2.0 feet so it doesn't make sense to go UHD. But that doesn't explain everything and you see Apple sold millions on Retina displays across many models.