Laptop advice for Adobe Suite

S

Schlumberger

Well-known member
Wondered if anyone can give me some advice.
I've found 2 laptops (Both Acer Aspire 5) which only differ in processor. There's a £150 difference. I use Adobe Lightroom and Illustrator but not Photoshop.
Specs are:
16 GB Ram, 1TB SSD, Dedicated graphics (Nvidia GeForce RTX 2050 4GB)
The only differences are Intel i5 1235U and Intel i7 1255U
Would the cheaper i5 processor be ok for what I need or do I need to spend the extra 150 for the i7?
Thanks
 
Schlumberger said:
Wondered if anyone can give me some advice.
I've found 2 laptops (Both Acer Aspire 5) which only differ in processor. There's a £150 difference. I use Adobe Lightroom and Illustrator but not Photoshop.
Specs are:
16 GB Ram, 1TB SSD, Dedicated graphics (Nvidia GeForce RTX 2050 4GB)
The only differences are Intel i5 1235U and Intel i7 1255U
Would the cheaper i5 processor be ok for what I need or do I need to spend the extra 150 for the i7?
Thanks
Click to expand...

I'm not a processor nerd like I used to be, but they look similar to me, only about 2% difference in passmark which you won't notice.

For what you're probably spending on the laptop (£600-800?) probably not worth the extra. Save the money on the extra and just upgrade it earlier later down the line. Or spend the extra on more RAM.

If you ever want a processor comparison just search "i5 1235U v i7 1255U" and look at on of the comparison sites, I use CPU benchmark.
 
Schlumberger said:
Cheers - I'm not very technical (which is why I've already bought and returned one that looked like it had a better spec than my current laptop but which was really clunky)
Click to expand...
If you're going to get an Acer one (probably not a bad choice) then maybe look at the acer website as they will have newer/ better processors for probably the same laptop price direct from them. You might be able to find discount codes too. Other companies like curries etc will be shifting stock which might have sat around for a while, but sometimes it does mean you get a fairly good deal (a lot of the time not mind). Things change quick with processors.

My heaviest applications are autocad and things like that which are built on archaiic code, so

If you can find one with what you want, with 32GB RAM, or be upgradable to 32GB then that will probably make more difference than slight processor changes, especially if you're multitasking and have loads of browser windows open for example. RAM is often a good bang for buck, so to speak.

SSD an absolute must as well, but you probably know that.
 
Laptop memory can be soldered these days so if you think you might want to upgrade check that there are available slots and that if necessary you can remove existing RAM.
 
Andy_W said:
If you're going to get an Acer one (probably not a bad choice) then maybe look at the acer website as they will have newer/ better processors for probably the same laptop price direct from them. You might be able to find discount codes too. Other companies like curries etc will be shifting stock which might have sat around for a while, but sometimes it does mean you get a fairly good deal (a lot of the time not mind). Things change quick with processors.

My heaviest applications are autocad and things like that which are built on archaiic code, so

If you can find one with what you want, with 32GB RAM, or be upgradable to 32GB then that will probably make more difference than slight processor changes, especially if you're multitasking and have loads of browser windows open for example. RAM is often a good bang for buck, so to speak.

SSD an absolute must as well, but you probably know that.
Click to expand...
Thanks for your help.
 
Illustrator needs a lot of memory to run. Adobe recommends >8gb, but realistically it needs 16gb at least. Lightroom doesn't need as much, maybe 4gb. If you run both simultaneously, you'll need much more than 16gb RAM. Windows 10 or 11 use up a lot of RAM anyway, so a RAM upgrade is important.

RAM is usually easy to upgrade but you need to check that there are spare slots. If there is no spare slot then you'll be removing the existing (usually) 8gb modules and replacing them with bigger ones (say 16gb), which is wasteful and adds expense.
 
Soutra said:
Illustrator needs a lot of memory to run. Adobe recommends >8gb, but realistically it needs 16gb at least. Lightroom doesn't need as much, maybe 4gb. If you run both simultaneously, you'll need much more than 16gb RAM. Windows 10 or 11 use up a lot of RAM anyway, so a RAM upgrade is important.

RAM is usually easy to upgrade but you need to check that there are spare slots. If there is no spare slot then you'll be removing the existing (usually) 8gb modules and replacing them with bigger ones (say 16gb), which is wasteful and adds expense.
Click to expand...
Thanks. So do you think the model with the i5 intel will be fine for lightroom, with say Spotify and Chrome open? I don't tend to have loads of tabs open.
 
Schlumberger said:
Thanks. So do you think the model with the i5 intel will be fine for lightroom, with say Spotify and Chrome open? I don't tend to have loads of tabs open.
Click to expand...
Yes, but it depends on how many Chrome tabs you have open. Also it depends on what Windows version you have, how it is configured, and what other stuff you have running - eg an antivirus program. I don't use Spotify, don't know how much RAM it will use.

My 16gb laptop was running more and more slowly, so I had to unload some programs before I loaded others. In the end i gave up and bought a new one with 40gb in July. It runs really fast, but I noticed this evening that I have 47 Chrome tabs open, Word, Excel, Access, Powerpoint, Maps, Earth, an HP print app, several other specialist apps, anti virus, Now tv, Media player, a picture viewer, Quora, Youtube and a DOS window. And the RAM was pretty much full.

So in a sort of Parkinsons law for laptops, the more RAM you have, the more apps you'll have open and - as you get lazy, the more RAM you need.
 
Soutra said:
Yes, but it depends on how many Chrome tabs you have open. Also it depends on what Windows version you have, how it is configured, and what other stuff you have running - eg an antivirus program. I don't use Spotify, don't know how much RAM it will use.

My 16gb laptop was running more and more slowly, so I had to unload some programs before I loaded others. In the end i gave up and bought a new one with 40gb in July. It runs really fast, but I noticed this evening that I have 47 Chrome tabs open, Word, Excel, Access, Powerpoint, Maps, Earth, an HP print app, several other specialist apps, anti virus, Now tv, Media player, a picture viewer, Quora, Youtube and a DOS window. And the RAM was pretty much full.

So in a sort of Parkinsons law for laptops, the more RAM you have, the more apps you'll have open and - as you get lazy, the more RAM you need.
Click to expand...
Don't think I'll have that much open! I should be fine I think. Cheers.
 
Schlumberger said:
Wondered if anyone can give me some advice.
I've found 2 laptops (Both Acer Aspire 5) which only differ in processor. There's a £150 difference. I use Adobe Lightroom and Illustrator but not Photoshop.
Specs are:
16 GB Ram, 1TB SSD, Dedicated graphics (Nvidia GeForce RTX 2050 4GB)
The only differences are Intel i5 1235U and Intel i7 1255U
Would the cheaper i5 processor be ok for what I need or do I need to spend the extra 150 for the i7?
Thanks
Click to expand...
The i5 is fine.

If you are looking for a good deal take a look on the HotUKDeals website, there's loads of laptop deals on there.
 
Replace Adobe with Affinity and Davinci Resolve and you'll be able to afford twice the laptop.

Adobe had my eyes out when I shelled out about 700 euros for CS2. A couple of weeks later they bought out CS3 (iI think) unanounced.
 
Cogeur_le_Conq said:
Replace Adobe with Affinity and Davinci Resolve and you'll be able to afford twice the laptop.

Adobe had my eyes out when I shelled out about 700 euros for CS2. A couple of weeks later they bought out CS3 (iI think) unanounced.
Click to expand...
Creative Suite 3? That was about 2007! There would have been an upgrade price.
 
Muttley said:
Laptop memory can be soldered these days so if you think you might want to upgrade check that there are available slots and that if necessary you can remove existing RAM.
Click to expand...
The crucial website is useful for this as you can enter the model number and it will tell you what upgrade options are available and usually how many slots are available and the maximum RAM the machine supports.

uk.crucial.com

DRAM, Solid State Drive (SSD) & Memory Upgrades

Find compatible DRAM memory and SSD upgrades for your PC or Laptop with our Crucial Advisor tool or Crucial System Scanner, with FREE US delivery!
uk.crucial.com uk.crucial.com
 
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