Should I sacrifice screen resolution for better CPU and performance?

sfxster · April 19, 2021

Hi all. I'm helping my brother getting a new lapto since I'm the one with the most tech knowledge in my family and given budget limitations I've chosen two options. Both laptops are of the same brand, sell for a similar price and have the same storage (256 GB SSD), RAM (8GB, with an extra stick to make it 12) and screen size. The only difference being screen resolution and CPU.

Option A has a more recent and powerful Ryzen 5 4500U *but* a 1366*768 display. Whereas option B comes with a Ryzen 5 3500U and a 1920*1080 display.

He's currently working at home with a laptop that looks like it's on life support and I've already said to him that, in my opinion, he shouldn't get anything less than a 1080p display, specially in 2021. But that better CPU does confuse me a bit.

aisle9 · April 19, 2021

1366x768 displays are cancer. For one, they're totally unacceptable in 2021. Two, they're all low-quality TN panels with crappy viewing angles and terrible color. IIRC, the 3500U and 4500U use the same Vega 8 graphics. You're not losing much performance at all in terms of GPU performance.

GuiltySpark_ · April 19, 2021

Do not, under any circumstance, buy a laptop with a 1366x768 display. That's absurdly low resolution and borderline unusable.

Quackers101 · April 19, 2021

always the lowest is 1080p for such screens, while ~720p for phone size.

monitors 2K-4K res, higher refreash if you need? integrated graphics might only reach 75-120 range or lower, unless very old title or always lower if more recent titles and settings. Also if waiting for newer CPUs with integrated graphics would be an option? At lower resolution it will be less of notice, compared to much higher resolution, were stuff still has to render and more demanding than such a resolution gap, also you could set the 1080p to 720p (downscaled) while still being good to read on etc. (some might depend on laptop size but most common?)