I7 7700HQ vs 8550u for music production with Ableton Live

[Cloverblack]

Hi! I'm buying a new laptop for music production with Live, and i can't really make up my mind on the CPU... the choice is between i7 7700HQ and the new gen i7 8550u. I'm struggling trying to figure out which one would give me most headroom when using heavy guys like serum and massive. As for what i found on the net, the 8550u seems to be a little more performing on single cores usage... so i guess it would be a little better for music production, since in this field single core speed matters more than multicore speed? Does this make any sense? Any personal experiences with the 855o7u+Ableton?

[Princess Luna]

Truth be told these processors are on pair with each other you'll hardly feel a difference between them so I'd go with the cheapest.

[AlTech]

49 minutes ago, Princess Cadence said:

Truth be told these processors are on pair with each other you'll hardly feel a difference between them so I'd go with the cheapest.

Actually, I'd be inclined to lean towards the 7700HQ.

 

Somebody I talk to on Discord said that 8550U enabled laptops tend to overheat and aren't able to sustain great clockspeeds for long.

 

7700HQ laptops on the other hand should easily handle it (45w vs 15w).

[Princess Luna]

Just now, AluminiumTech said:

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The 7700HQ is likely to be the cheaper alternative due to its age, so the idea was still somewhat aligned ^^

 

I do agree with it all.

[AlTech]

58 minutes ago, Cloverblack said:

Hi! I'm buying a new laptop for music production with Live, and i can't really make up my mind on the CPU... the choice is between i7 7700HQ and the new gen i7 8550u. I'm struggling trying to figure out which one would give me most headroom when using heavy guys like serum and massive. As for what i found on the net, the 8550u seems to be a little more performing on single cores usage... so i guess it would be a little better for music production, since in this field single core speed matters more than multicore speed? Does this make any sense? Any personal experiences with the 855o7u+Ableton?

What do you need exactly? Both should have similar Single Threaded performance (with a slide edge to the 7700HQ due to higher clocks) and both should have similar multi-threaded performance if you're doing a short task.

 

If you're doing a long and sustained workload then the 7700HQ should fair a lot better due to it's higher 45w TDP because at the end of the day both have 4 cores and 8 threads.

 

With the 7700HQ, the CPU will never be starved of power no matter how hard or how long you're pushing it.

 

If you use an 8550U then it'll perform optimally for a short burst of say for example 15 minutes and then it'll throttle itself to a certain extent in order to stay within it's power budget.

 

There is a HUGE caveat here. IF the 8550U is configured by an OEM to use Configurable TDP cTDP UP in 25 watt mode instead of 15 watt mode THEN I'd say go for whatever's cheaper. IF AND ONLY IF the 8550U has 25 watts to deal with then sure go for the 8550U. Otherwise 7700HQ.