Can't decide between these laptops

[WereCat]

OK, so I'm in no rush to buy anything yet, just looking around and waiting till I get 120€-130€ coupons from work to spend on tech. 

 

This is not something I need, just want for convenience. 

 

Main use case will be web browsing, using Reaper DAW, Synthesia with my piano keys and maybe some Blender and Krita on the side with my drawing tablet. 

 

No actual project rendering in Blender will be done with the laptop, if I'll need to render I'll just pop that project on my PC. 

 

Still I'd prefer Ryzen CPU and 32GB DRAM but unfortunately I wasn't able to find any laptop under €1000 that has 32GB DRAM except the first one listed below. 

 

I can do with 16GB but I also intend to keep the laptop for as long as possible and the RAM seems to be soldered in all of these. 

 

I'm willing to spend more if it makes sense but I'm obviously trying to keep it as cheap as possible. 

 

https://www.lenovo-shop.sk/produkty/lenovo-ideapad-5-pro-14aph8-arctic-grey-83am001dck

 

https://www.lenovo-shop.sk/produkty/lenovo-ideapad-5-pro-14aph8-arctic-grey-83am001cck

 

https://www.lenovo-shop.sk/produkty/lenovo-ideapad-slim-5-14abr8-abyss-blue-82xe008gck

 

Why these 3?

All of them are significantly cheaper than anything else with similar specs after checking almost 20 e-shops in my country. 

 

I intend to install Pop_OS! on the device. Anything I should take into consideration? 

[filpo]

10 hours ago, WereCat said:

Main use case will be web browsing, using Reaper DAW, Synthesia with my piano keys and maybe some Blender and Krita on the side with my drawing tablet. 

 

No actual project rendering in Blender will be done with the laptop, if I'll need to render I'll just pop that project on my PC. 

If you need it The first one you linked will be the best then. More ram than the rest and a ryzen 7 too instead of a ryzen 5. But only if you’re willing to pay for it. Unless you NEED the ryzen 7 and 32gb of ram I’d say get the one with the 7640HS. Check if you can upgrade the ram or the storage tho. That could let you get the storage to 1tb and the ram to 32gb if you really need it. But IMO you won’t notice the jump to ryzen 7 7840HS from ryzen 5 7640HS if the things you’re doing aren’t cpu intensive

[WereCat]

1 hour ago, filpo said:

If you need it The first one you linked will be the best then. More ram than the rest and a ryzen 7 too instead of a ryzen 5. But only if you’re willing to pay for it. Unless you NEED the ryzen 7 and 32gb of ram I’d say get the one with the 7640HS. Check if you can upgrade the ram or the storage tho. That could let you get the storage to 1tb and the ram to 32gb if you really need it. But IMO you won’t notice the jump to ryzen 7 7840HS from ryzen 5 7640HS if the things you’re doing aren’t cpu intensive

Honestly I think the performance is more than I will need but unfortunately they sell them as it is and can't configure them differently. I know that Lenovo allows you to configure these models in some countries but not here in Slovakia.

I still have to think it trough. The 1st one is really nice with more storage, better screen, more RAM and better CPU but I'd just like more RAM for 200eur less if it was possible. I'll try to check if they can perhaps ship it from other country in different configuration but I have my doubts.

 

I'm not really a big fan of non-upgradable RAM. I get that soldering it allows for higher speeds... it's just shame there are basically no available options from other brands at these price points.

[WereCat]

@filpo

Do you know any resource where I can check laptop performance/efficiency reviews?

 

I'd like to get a good idea how these compare for example i5 12450h vs Ryzen 5 7530u.

 

I don't tend to trust these "compare" websites much but according to them the i5 is better. I can't find anything about battery life with them thuogh.

[filpo]

On 1/4/2024 at 4:09 PM, WereCat said:

Do you know any resource where I can check laptop performance/efficiency reviews?

I'm so sorry, I got caught up in homework and revising that I forgot about this thread. But you could use NanoReview – tech comparison and ratings but like other comparison websites it doesn't show a lot of real world performance, battery life I couldn't find on it. But I did find one here Intel Core i5-12450H vs AMD Ryzen 5 7530U (notebookcheck.net) where it looked like it was more efficient under a full load and in R15 it seemed to be MUCH more efficient (43% more efficient) getting 32 poinds on the cinebench score per watt while the 12450h had 20.1 points per watt. But these are all synthetic full load benchmarks so won't show a lot of real world performance according to what you're doing

In the end, Notebook check believes that the 12450h is the better cpu tho

On 1/4/2024 at 4:09 PM, WereCat said:

I'd like to get a good idea how these compare for example i5 12450h vs Ryzen 5 7530u.

I checked the laptops again and none of them had the 12450h. is that just another cpu in the same laptop that you're looking at? If so, do you have a link to the model? Or do you just want a comparison between the two chips in a best case scenario?

 

On 1/4/2024 at 4:09 PM, WereCat said:

 

I don't tend to trust these "compare" websites much but according to them the i5 is better. I can't find anything about battery life with them thuogh.

if we do use nanoreview (put in perspective that it's not perfect but I found literally nothing comparing the two on youtube) then we get this (these chips aren't tied down to any limiting factor tho so it's a comparison of just how the cpus themselves perform regardless of the models used)

Intel Core i5 12450H vs AMD Ryzen 5 7530U: performance comparison (nanoreview.net)

The 7530U is better in terms of power efficiency and iGPU but the 12450h is better in terms of multicore and singlecore performance (all according to nanoreview)

But the 7530U has more cache, newer and a 7nm processing node instead of a 10nm one, but no pcie 4.0 (if that matters)

In benchmarks such as cinebench the 12450h wins and it's more of the same in passmark and geekbench V6

the 7530U does have more P cores tho, but that doesn't help in the synthetic benchmarks cuz the 12450h also has 4 efficiency cores on top of it's 4 p cores

On 1/4/2024 at 3:17 PM, WereCat said:

I'm not really a big fan of non-upgradable RAM. I get that soldering it allows for higher speeds... it's just shame there are basically no available options from other brands at these price points.

was the ram soldered on the first one? If so then that and the price make it a dealbreaker for me at least

 

On 1/4/2024 at 3:17 PM, WereCat said:

I'll try to check if they can perhaps ship it from other country in different configuration but I have my doubts.

might be costly depending on who is willing to ship it, but I don't know much about shipping outside of the UK and US

 

On 1/4/2024 at 3:17 PM, WereCat said:

'm not really a big fan of non-upgradable RAM. I get that soldering it allows for higher speeds... it's just shame there are basically no available options from other brands at these price points.

could you find anything about the 7640HS having soldered RAM? Because, unlike the 7530U, it seems to have MUCH better iGPU performance and better multicore performance than even the 12450h 

It's power draw is quite a bit higher tho 

It wasn't even listed in the power efficiency test for notebookcheck.net. Though I bet you it was worse, albeit not by too much

[WereCat]

28 minutes ago, filpo said:

I'm so sorry, I got caught up in homework and revising that I forgot about this thread. But you could use NanoReview – tech comparison and ratings but like other comparison websites it doesn't show a lot of real world performance, battery life I couldn't find on it. But I did find one here Intel Core i5-12450H vs AMD Ryzen 5 7530U (notebookcheck.net) where it looked like it was more efficient under a full load and in R15 it seemed to be MUCH more efficient (43% more efficient) getting 32 poinds on the cinebench score per watt while the 12450h had 20.1 points per watt. But these are all synthetic full load benchmarks so won't show a lot of real world performance according to what you're doing

In the end, Notebook check believes that the 12450h is the better cpu tho

I checked the laptops again and none of them had the 12450h. is that just another cpu in the same laptop that you're looking at? If so, do you have a link to the model? Or do you just want a comparison between the two chips in a best case scenario?

 

if we do use nanoreview (put in perspective that it's not perfect but I found literally nothing comparing the two on youtube) then we get this (these chips aren't tied down to any limiting factor tho so it's a comparison of just how the cpus themselves perform regardless of the models used)

Intel Core i5 12450H vs AMD Ryzen 5 7530U: performance comparison (nanoreview.net)

The 7530U is better in terms of power efficiency and iGPU but the 12450h is better in terms of multicore and singlecore performance (all according to nanoreview)

But the 7530U has more cache, newer and a 7nm processing node instead of a 10nm one, but no pcie 4.0 (if that matters)

In benchmarks such as cinebench the 12450h wins and it's more of the same in passmark and geekbench V6

the 7530U does have more P cores tho, but that doesn't help in the synthetic benchmarks cuz the 12450h also has 4 efficiency cores on top of it's 4 p cores

was the ram soldered on the first one? If so then that and the price make it a dealbreaker for me at least

 

might be costly depending on who is willing to ship it, but I don't know much about shipping outside of the UK and US

 

could you find anything about the 7640HS having soldered RAM? Because, unlike the 7530U, it seems to have MUCH better iGPU performance and better multicore performance than even the 12450h 

It's power draw is quite a bit higher tho 

It wasn't even listed in the power efficiency test for notebookcheck.net. Though I bet you it was worse, albeit not by too much

All the ones I've listed have soldered RAM with no slot for upgrade unfortunately. 

I've skewed those websites too for comparison but I don't know how accurate they are. 

 

I've ended up checking some deeper comparisons on Jarod Tech on YT though they usually were not done with the same laptops I'm looking at so results may vary a lot from OEM to OEM depending on TDP configs. 

 

13th gen Intel seems like a solid upgrade from Zen3 for single core but efficiency is about the same or little worse for Intel. 

Zen4 seems like a winner.

 

I've also found Lenovo Yoga 7 with 1200p OLED, 16GB RAM, 512GB SSD, Ryzen 5 7535U, 71Wh battery. 

New is 850€ but the store sells one used discounted to 500€ with 1y warranty so I would be able to grab it for €370 with the coupon. 

Seems like a solid choice... I'm just waiting for the damn coupon. 

[filpo]

1 minute ago, WereCat said:

Zen4 seems like a winner.

yup

 

2 minutes ago, WereCat said:

I've also found Lenovo Yoga 7 with 1200p OLED, 16GB RAM, 512GB SSD, Ryzen 5 7535U, 71Wh battery. 

New is 850€ but the store sells one used discounted to 500€ with 1y warranty so I would be able to grab it for €370 with the coupon. 

Seems like a solid choice... I'm just waiting for the damn coupo

be careful tho, this isn't actually a zen 4 cpu, due to amd's weird naming scheme for laptops it's a Zen 3/zen 3+ cpu from 2023 as the upper model within that segment, but it's not actually zen 4

3 minutes ago, WereCat said:

New is 850€ but the store sells one used discounted to 500€ with 1y warranty so I would be able to grab it for €370 with the coupon. 

Seems like a solid choice... I'm just waiting for the damn coupon. 

But for 370 euros that sounds like a great deal if you can get it for that low

 

3 minutes ago, WereCat said:

1200p OLED

have you checked battery life on that sicne OLED's have never had a great shout in battery

but I found a comparison of that model with another lenovo model with the 7530U Lenovo Yoga 7 Gen 8 (14″ AMD) vs Yoga 6 (13”, Gen 8): which is better? | NR (nanoreview.net) (couldn't find your specific one for some reason) and the one you were looking at is a bit heavier but the cpu is better and somehow more efficient in the yoga 7 gen 8 even with an OLED instead of an IPS

7 minutes ago, WereCat said:

All the ones I've listed have soldered RAM with no slot for upgrade unfortunately. 

I've skewed those websites too for comparison but I don't know how accurate they are. 

 

I've ended up checking some deeper comparisons on Jarod Tech on YT though they usually were not done with the same laptops I'm looking at so results may vary a lot from OEM to OEM depending on TDP configs. 

 

13th gen Intel seems like a solid upgrade from Zen3 for single core but efficiency is about the same or little worse for Intel. 

Zen4 seems like a winner.

 

I've also found Lenovo Yoga 7 with 1200p OLED, 16GB RAM, 512GB SSD, Ryzen 5 7535U, 71Wh battery. 

New is 850€ but the store sells one used discounted to 500€ with 1y warranty so I would be able to grab it for €370 with the coupon. 

Seems like a solid choice... I'm just waiting for the damn coupon. 

According to trusty notebookcheck.net it says that the 7535U is actually more efficient than the 7530U and it's actually more performant in cpu related tasks 

this is probably due to higher clocks 

[WereCat]

@filpo

Yes I'm aware of that AMD stupid naming scheme that's not even consistent... 

Like Ryzen 3 Pro 5475U must be Zen7 right? 

 

Lol

 

I'll take OLED even at a slight cost of battery life for that price. I use dark themes everywhere so it shouldn't be that bad. 

[filpo]

On 1/8/2024 at 4:18 PM, WereCat said:

I'll take OLED even at a slight cost of battery life for that price. I use dark themes everywhere so it shouldn't be that bad. 

alright sure, even though in the battery tests it should be offset by the more efficient CPU 

 

On 1/8/2024 at 4:18 PM, WereCat said:

Like Ryzen 3 Pro 5475U must be Zen7 right? 

and 7800X3D is Zen 0. Makes perfect sense