When it comes to how fast and reliable a desktop or laptop actually is depends on the same three things it always has. The basics are the same, Processor,Ram and hard drive. Most computers have a speed bottleneck somewhere in the system. These days it is rare for modern processors to be the problem for the average user. Most processors today can handle the job for most users. Ram and ram speed today can easily be increased to meet the needs of most users. For years hard drives have been the same, 5400 or 7200 RPM. The hard drives that spin at the faster 7200 RPM are obviously faster, but not that much. The advancement of solid state hard drives have turned the computer business upside down. Never before has any one thing been able to increase the speed of a computer. The average SSD is three to 10 times as fast as the mechanical hard drive. The SSD has no moving parts and it stores information on a way that also increases the speed. If I were to recommend one thing to speed up any computer it would be the addition of a solid state hard drive.
The processor market really changed when Intel designed and marketed the i core series processors. They introduced the i3 the i5 and the i7 processor. These processors were fast but not much faster than some AMD and older Intel processors. Over time the Intel processors were improved and this is where Intel marketing really hit a home run. Intel started to call the newer processors the second generation, third generation and so on up to now where we have the 10th generation. Most people believe that the newer the generation the better the processor. This logic actually is valid up to a point, with the second and third generation i series processors there is more speed (measured in gigahertz) as well as better graphics. Most stock desktops and laptops run the graphics off of the processor chip.
Now here is where the Intel marketing starts happening. For the average user the difference between a 3rd generation Intel i core and a 5th generation is not really going to make any noticeable difference. If you do an online search asking Intel i5 third generation and 5th generation you will see results like 2% better here and 5% better there and so on. In real life you are not going to notice these small increases. Money wise a 5th generation processor is about twice the price of a 3rd generation. So Intel is not being untruthful, but a little misleading. As far as processor speed goes if I were to have a computer with a 7th generation processor and a mechanical hard drive and a 3rd generation computer with a solid state hard drive the computer with the solid state hard drive would be much faster than the computer with the newer processor.
When you really dive into processors there is much more information than I am providing here. This is why I say “average user” this does mean someone who just surfs the internet. Several types of people are not average users, gaming users, auto cad users and advanced photo editing users. These users usually need as much ram, hyper threading processors and the fastest solid state hard drives. Some people would not see themselves as average users. Who wants to be average when our world screams for us to be super users? The fact is if you have a computer with a third generation processor, 8 Gigabytes of ram and a solid state hard drive, there is vert little that you cannot do with this setup. If you are the type of user who likes to keep thirty tabs open and be running two intensive programs at the same time you might want to add another 8 gigabytes of ram.
So at the end of the day is an 8th generation processor better or faster than a third generation processor, it probably is, but is it worth paying three times as much? Probably not! There is nothing wrong with wanting the biggest, fastest and most powerful thing out there. Regardless of where you look marketing is alive and well.
They use terms like good, better and best. In the Olympics it’s bronze, silver and gold. Michael Phelps won the gold medal in the butterfly buy 1/100th of a second, he won gold but second place was too close to call without instant replay. With some computer stats it’s too close to call! Please look for my next post on desktop processors versus mobile processors.