Notebook CPU and GPU for work

[dre92]

I need a new notebook for work. I develop websites, and I will be using the notebook mainly for coding and some light photoshop. I have been doing a little research for couple days and I am still not sure which one I should get. I was looking at notebooks in $500-$600 price range, and most of them have 3rd gen i3 or i5 in them. I looked at Intel's Ark and for some reason I don't see any huge difference between those two type of CPU. Both have 2 cores with hyperthreading which makes them have 4 threads, so I am still confused about why Intel separate them into i3 and i5, what am I missing here? Should I really get the i5 over i3, or is the i3 enough for those tasks that I want to do?

 

The other thing about the CPU that I also want to know is about the ones that have very low TDP (it's like 17w or something) vs the regular ones which have like 35w. I realize that the lower the TDP, the more the battery lasts, but does it also mean that the CPU has lower TDP because it is clocked lower which makes it perform slower than the regular one? If so, how slow is it gonna be? Is it gonna perform half the performance of the regular one because the TDP is also like half the regular one?

 

Last thing I want to ask is about the GPU. I believe Photoshop CS6 (and also the new Photoshop CC) are using OpenCL, and AMD cards can really help for that. But the thing is, I am not using Photoshop that heavily (I mean I just use it mostly for editing website backgrounds and icons), so do I need a notebook with dedicated GPU in it, or will the CPU work just fine? I don't know whether the HD4000 is gonna help me in Photoshop or not, so please feel free to give an explanation or put a link or something if you don't mind.

 

I apologize if I ask too much, but I am trying to gather all the information I can get so I can put my money in the right pot. Feel free to leave comments and suggestions. I will appreciate every little bit of help.

[Emperor_Piehead]

The i5 will have higher clock speeds than the i3. The ones with lower tdp are ultabook cpu's and will say be 1.7ghz and turbo to 2.8ghz while 35w tdp ones will say be 2.7ghz and turbo to 3.5ghz. the ultrabook will last longer, but if you can get a haswell laptop the battery savings are huge. If you need a dedicated gpu look towards Nvidia since amd's mobile drivers need to improve a lot still by what reviewers say. I would try to look for a i5 haswell, a NVidia gt 730 or 740, try to get one with a hybrid drive, or ssd caching, or an ssd.

[WoodenMarker]

You probably don't need a dedicated gpu for that.