The #1 greatest impact on computer performance TODAY is the hard disk. It is a physical component with moving parts that has reached the end of it's innovation. Replacing it with an SSD will skyrocket your file access times above any other component in the system.
The #2 bottleneck is the GPU (graphics processing unit). You should never be using the Intel HD Graphics for any video playback. This "GPU" is actually built onto the i3/i5/i7 processor and is a very bare-bones sort of graphics solution. It is fine for office work, but dumps out whenever you try to render graphics intensive applications.
The #3 bottleneck is people who insist on gaming on laptops. Before everyone rages at me, hear me out first:
Don't get me wrong, laptops CAN play games. But you cannot defeat the laws of physics. The more intense your application, the more power it consumes. The more power something consumes, the more heat it generates. Thus its size must increase so it doesn't burn out like a light bulb. Laptops and tablets cannot compensate for this power consumption.
Little do you know, but as you play your games on a laptop, the processor, RAM, and GPU speeds are all being throttled back consistently to try and limit their power usage so the thing doesn't explode in a fireball on your lap. Yes, they will play games, but you will never be doing it at maximum efficiency.
As for advice:
The i3/i5/i7 processor family is one large marketing ploy by Intel to generate sales. All three processors use the exact same die. The difference is that Intel intentionally damages their own product to fit specific price points. The i3 has areas of the chip that are intentionally burned out so they do not work. The i5 is fully capable of hyper-threading, if Intel hadn't burned out the connecting channels. Etc, etc, etc. The best processor you can buy is the i5 series UNLESS you are doing intense graphics editing (Photoshop, etc). There are no other applications out there that make use of the hyper-threading of the i7, and video games are mostly 32-bit which means they only run on one core to begin with.
I would not go below 8 GB of RAM. The reason being mulit-tasking. Sure your game may only use 3-4 GB, but all your web browsers, video, and music in the background are using that other 4 GB.
I haven't had experience with AMD as far as graphics, but on the nVidia side I can say anything over a 580 series is not usually needed. Video Game graphics have long stopped being innovative since the shift away from the PC market to consoles. GPU makers no longer need to compete so strongly since you can't just up and replace a GPU in a console every 6 months.
I hope this may give you a little more insight into any future purchases.
The #2 bottleneck is the GPU (graphics processing unit). You should never be using the Intel HD Graphics for any video playback. This "GPU" is actually built onto the i3/i5/i7 processor and is a very bare-bones sort of graphics solution. It is fine for office work, but dumps out whenever you try to render graphics intensive applications.
The #3 bottleneck is people who insist on gaming on laptops. Before everyone rages at me, hear me out first:
Don't get me wrong, laptops CAN play games. But you cannot defeat the laws of physics. The more intense your application, the more power it consumes. The more power something consumes, the more heat it generates. Thus its size must increase so it doesn't burn out like a light bulb. Laptops and tablets cannot compensate for this power consumption.
Little do you know, but as you play your games on a laptop, the processor, RAM, and GPU speeds are all being throttled back consistently to try and limit their power usage so the thing doesn't explode in a fireball on your lap. Yes, they will play games, but you will never be doing it at maximum efficiency.
As for advice:
The i3/i5/i7 processor family is one large marketing ploy by Intel to generate sales. All three processors use the exact same die. The difference is that Intel intentionally damages their own product to fit specific price points. The i3 has areas of the chip that are intentionally burned out so they do not work. The i5 is fully capable of hyper-threading, if Intel hadn't burned out the connecting channels. Etc, etc, etc. The best processor you can buy is the i5 series UNLESS you are doing intense graphics editing (Photoshop, etc). There are no other applications out there that make use of the hyper-threading of the i7, and video games are mostly 32-bit which means they only run on one core to begin with.
I would not go below 8 GB of RAM. The reason being mulit-tasking. Sure your game may only use 3-4 GB, but all your web browsers, video, and music in the background are using that other 4 GB.
I haven't had experience with AMD as far as graphics, but on the nVidia side I can say anything over a 580 series is not usually needed. Video Game graphics have long stopped being innovative since the shift away from the PC market to consoles. GPU makers no longer need to compete so strongly since you can't just up and replace a GPU in a console every 6 months.
I hope this may give you a little more insight into any future purchases.
