I was looking around for laptops one day on BJs, and found one I really liked – the HP Envy 17-j020us. However the processor was a 4th Generation Intel Core i7-4700MQ Processor with Intel Turbo Boost 2.0 at 2.4 GHz. Another laptop – Toshiba Satellite S55-A5275 Laptop – had a 4th Generation Intel Core i7-4700MQ Processor with Intel Turbo Boost 2.0 at up to 3.4 GHz. It's also cheaper, but has less features.
Could somebody help describe what a GHz is?
and…
Does a 2.4 GHz processor and 3.4 GHz processor have a big speed difference?
edit
SO, the processors are the same but they both range from 2.4 to 3.4 ghz depending on usage, and I'll choose the HP envy.
Best Answer
Yes,
2.4GHz
vs3.4GHz
is a big difference.However you're comparing the same processor, and they're both capable of achieving
3.4GHz
. For the i7-4700MQ,2.4Ghz
is the base speed and3.4Ghz
is the turbo speed.If the processors had otherwise different clock speeds (and all the other features were mostly the same), there would be a pretty big difference in their capability.
Note that there's other features of a processor that can out weigh small differences (ie
0.1 - 0.2Ghz
) in clock speed. Features like:will also affect the comparison between two processors.
Whether or not you would notice these differences also depends on what you're using the computer for. If you aren't using your computer for gaming, video/music rendering, or some other computationally-intensive task, the difference will mean very little to you.
Apart from the answer:
If you want a computer that performs well for general tasks (ie internet browsing, document editing, etc), get a computer with an SSD. Especially when you're buying a laptop, SSDs will increase battery like and drastically increase boot-time (and other drive-intensive operations). When it comes to general-purpose computing, SSDs make more of a difference than faster RAM and CPUs.
Not to judge your purchase, but both computers come with
1TB 5400RPM
drives - that is slow. Unless you actually need all that space, you will enjoy the capabilities of an SSD more.And if you are looking to buy an HP laptop, do some research to make sure that none of the ports or internal parts are proprietary - HP is notorious for this.