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My sister needs a new laptop for school, preferably a cheap one for under $500. It will mostly be used for things like word processing and browsing the internet but she also wants to at least be able to play Minecraft on it so we were hoping for 6 or 8GB RAM. Any suggestions? My biggest hurdle is not knowing how good of a CPU she would need or if it’s even possible to get a laptop that can run Minecraft well for under $500.

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Are you OK with getting a used laptop? Otherwise try to look for a laptop with a 3500U. Prices are unusual right now so it's hard to make one recommendation.

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6 minutes ago, ShadySocks said:

Are you OK with getting a used laptop? Otherwise try to look for a laptop with a 3500U. Prices are unusual right now so it's hard to make one recommendation.

a 3500u is going to struggle.

if it wasn't for this low res screen I'd go with this https://www.newegg.com/acer-aspire-5-a515-44-r4m5/p/N82E16834316900

let me search a little more, when is the goal to buy it by?

Good luck, Have fun, Build PC, and have a last gen console for use once a year. I should answer most of the time between 9 to 3 PST

NightHawk 3.0: R7 5700x @, B550A vision D, H105, 2x32gb Oloy 3600, Sapphire RX 6700XT  Nitro+, Corsair RM750X, 500 gb 850 evo, 2tb rocket and 5tb Toshiba x300, 2x 6TB WD Black W10 all in a 750D airflow.
GF PC: (nighthawk 2.0): R7 2700x, B450m vision D, 4x8gb Geli 2933, Strix GTX970, CX650M RGB, Obsidian 350D

Skunkworks: R5 3500U, 16gb, 500gb Adata XPG 6000 lite, Vega 8. HP probook G455R G6 Ubuntu 20. LTS

Condor (MC server): 6600K, z170m plus, 16gb corsair vengeance LPX, samsung 750 evo, EVGA BR 450.

Spirt  (NAS) ASUS Z9PR-D12, 2x E5 2620V2, 8x4gb, 24 3tb HDD. F80 800gb cache, trueNAS, 2x12disk raid Z3 stripped

PSU Tier List      Motherboard Tier List     SSD Tier List     How to get PC parts cheap    HP probook 445R G6 review

 

"Stupidity is like trying to find a limit of a constant. You are never truly smart in something, just less stupid."

Camera Gear: X-S10, 16-80 F4, 60D, 24-105 F4, 50mm F1.4, Helios44-m, 2 Cos-11D lavs

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Just now, GDRRiley said:

a 3500u is going to struggle.

if it wasn't for this low res screen I'd go with this https://www.newegg.com/acer-aspire-5-a515-44-r4m5/p/N82E16834316900

let me search a little more, when is the goal to buy it by?

There’s no major rush, her old laptop stopped working so she’s using my mom’s until we can get a new one.

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Just now, Houpinator said:

There’s no major rush, her old laptop stopped working so she’s using my mom’s until we can get a new one.

okay. HP just refreshed their probook 445R line to gen 7 with 4000 processors let me see what configs can be made

Good luck, Have fun, Build PC, and have a last gen console for use once a year. I should answer most of the time between 9 to 3 PST

NightHawk 3.0: R7 5700x @, B550A vision D, H105, 2x32gb Oloy 3600, Sapphire RX 6700XT  Nitro+, Corsair RM750X, 500 gb 850 evo, 2tb rocket and 5tb Toshiba x300, 2x 6TB WD Black W10 all in a 750D airflow.
GF PC: (nighthawk 2.0): R7 2700x, B450m vision D, 4x8gb Geli 2933, Strix GTX970, CX650M RGB, Obsidian 350D

Skunkworks: R5 3500U, 16gb, 500gb Adata XPG 6000 lite, Vega 8. HP probook G455R G6 Ubuntu 20. LTS

Condor (MC server): 6600K, z170m plus, 16gb corsair vengeance LPX, samsung 750 evo, EVGA BR 450.

Spirt  (NAS) ASUS Z9PR-D12, 2x E5 2620V2, 8x4gb, 24 3tb HDD. F80 800gb cache, trueNAS, 2x12disk raid Z3 stripped

PSU Tier List      Motherboard Tier List     SSD Tier List     How to get PC parts cheap    HP probook 445R G6 review

 

"Stupidity is like trying to find a limit of a constant. You are never truly smart in something, just less stupid."

Camera Gear: X-S10, 16-80 F4, 60D, 24-105 F4, 50mm F1.4, Helios44-m, 2 Cos-11D lavs

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8 minutes ago, GDRRiley said:

a 3500u is going to struggle.

if it wasn't for this low res screen I'd go with this https://www.newegg.com/acer-aspire-5-a515-44-r4m5/p/N82E16834316900

let me search a little more, when is the goal to buy it by?

Unless ~100FPS at Ultra (300+ FPS on low) is struggling, 3500U is good? https://www.gpucheck.com/game-laptop/minecraft/lenovo-ideapad-s340-15/

word processing and browsing the internet should be covered with 8gb ram + 4 core 8 threads

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2 minutes ago, ShadySocks said:

Unless ~100FPS at Ultra is struggling, 3500U is good? https://www.gpucheck.com/game-laptop/minecraft/lenovo-ideapad-s340-15/

word processing and browsing the internet should be covered with 8gb ram

Renoir is worlds better. We're talking upwards of 40% faster. The 3500U is hard to justify.

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4 minutes ago, GDRRiley said:

okay. HP just refreshed their probook 445R line to gen 7 with 4000 processors let me see what configs can be made

You said a 3500u would struggle, how bad is “struggling”? She doesn’t really care about great performance as long as it’s playable with 30-60 fps.

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3 minutes ago, 5x5 said:

Renoir is worlds better. We're talking upwards of 40% faster. The 3500U is hard to justify.

I don't think you can beat it at $450 (especially now), and 40% improvement won't mean much for minecraft/web browsing/word processing...

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1 minute ago, ShadySocks said:

Unless 100FPS+ at Ultra is struggling, 3500U is good? https://www.gpucheck.com/game-laptop/minecraft/lenovo-ideapad-s340-15/

word processing and browsing the internet should be covered with 8gb ram

I've got a 3500U based laptop with 16gb of ram I know how it runs.

 

you could get a 445 g7 (14)or a 455 g7 (15) for 650 with a 4500U and a 1080p screen 4gb of ram and a 128gb SSD. Then for an extra 35$ after and 3 screws removed go up to 12. a 4300U drops it to 600$

 

2 minutes ago, Houpinator said:

You said a 3500u would struggle, how bad is “struggling”? She doesn’t really care about great performance as long as it’s playable with 30-60 fps.

I've got one and they just aren't amzing chip for games

Good luck, Have fun, Build PC, and have a last gen console for use once a year. I should answer most of the time between 9 to 3 PST

NightHawk 3.0: R7 5700x @, B550A vision D, H105, 2x32gb Oloy 3600, Sapphire RX 6700XT  Nitro+, Corsair RM750X, 500 gb 850 evo, 2tb rocket and 5tb Toshiba x300, 2x 6TB WD Black W10 all in a 750D airflow.
GF PC: (nighthawk 2.0): R7 2700x, B450m vision D, 4x8gb Geli 2933, Strix GTX970, CX650M RGB, Obsidian 350D

Skunkworks: R5 3500U, 16gb, 500gb Adata XPG 6000 lite, Vega 8. HP probook G455R G6 Ubuntu 20. LTS

Condor (MC server): 6600K, z170m plus, 16gb corsair vengeance LPX, samsung 750 evo, EVGA BR 450.

Spirt  (NAS) ASUS Z9PR-D12, 2x E5 2620V2, 8x4gb, 24 3tb HDD. F80 800gb cache, trueNAS, 2x12disk raid Z3 stripped

PSU Tier List      Motherboard Tier List     SSD Tier List     How to get PC parts cheap    HP probook 445R G6 review

 

"Stupidity is like trying to find a limit of a constant. You are never truly smart in something, just less stupid."

Camera Gear: X-S10, 16-80 F4, 60D, 24-105 F4, 50mm F1.4, Helios44-m, 2 Cos-11D lavs

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