Please recommend 3rd gen core i7 laptop for Chess.

[Kemuri]

Hello all, I've been asked to recommend a laptop for someone - pref similar in concept to the macbook air (portable, powerful) with latest Ci7 processor. Budget is £1000-£1500 and we need to pick one up within a week if possible.
I was looking at the Dell Inspiron 14z, but does anyone have any better suggestions?
Cheers,

[Kemuri]

This looks awesome value - what do people think?
http://www.officenerd.co.uk/info/Comput ... ops/819178

[gleperlier]

This looks awesome value - what do people think?
http://www.officenerd.co.uk/info/Comput ... ops/819178

If you are really looking at a computer for chess and within your range of price I would recommand to look at the 4 processors bellow :

1) Intel Core i7-3615QM
2) Intel Core i7-3610QM
3) Intel Core i7-2675QM
4) Intel Core i7-2670QM

Cheers,

Gab

[Kemuri]

Many thanks. Is there a particular reason that you recommend those?

[gleperlier]

Many thanks. Is there a particular reason that you recommend those?

Hello,

Yes, it's the fastest CPU in use on the laptops for sale. 4 cores and 8 threads.

I have a "Intel Core i7-2670QM" and it's rock stable. The 3 others are even more powerful.

Cheers,

Gab

[kaissa]

This looks awesome value - what do people think?
http://www.officenerd.co.uk/info/Comput ... ops/819178

That one has U3517 i7 processor, ultra low power with 2 cores. A machine with i7 3612qe will have 4 cores but require 35W instead of 17W so I do not think that it will show up in a case as slim as MacBook Air. You have to either choose form and buy the above one or power and get a machine with one of the processors that Gabriel LEPERLIER recommended.

Regards,

[Eelco de Groot]

I know nothing about laptops for chess but if the idea is to do a lot of chess analysis then a laptop and especially the low power using laptops don't seem such a good choice, unless there is no real hurry to get results. But running a latop on batteries for instance is not really ideal for chess, so why then a laptop, unless if you are really tight on space? You could hook up to a desktop at home with it or to machines you rent in the cloud, that is perfectly possible with such a machine. But I assume the original poster is aware of this, as he has been posting about bigger computers, water cooling and stuff.

Here is a bit cheaper, price in Euros Asus laptop with one of the processors Gabriel recommended, it has no SSD or Windows Pro but for the rest I think it is equipped well enough, 4 cores 2670QM i7 with 6Mb L3 cache, and with 8 GB system memory. LED backlight screen, WiFi but no Bluetooth, 750 GB harddisk, 64 bits Windows Home Premium etc.


The photo is from another site, hopefully this one fits on the page

It is no extremely sleek Macbook but hey, look at the price difference with the Mac!

Regards, Eelco

[melajara]

This looks awesome value - what do people think?
http://www.officenerd.co.uk/info/Comput ... ops/819178

Unfortunately, there is no free lunch.
Acer is delivering consumer products. That's ok but a lame configuration for Chess enthusiasts.

I propose you something entirely different.

For years now, I'm sticking with Lenovo Thinkpad (former IBM laptop division) portable workstations.

I have now 7 of them and all working for a small office.
Soon enough I will get the next one

I'm getting excellent prices over eBay (with 3 years international warranty and top notch IBM servicing but I needed that only once).

See for example the following config, it's at the high end of your budget but it's almost the very best one could get nowadays in laptop computing for whatever the money.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Lenovo-ThinkPad ... 564b0f1073

You get 32Gb RAM!, 1 128Gb SSD (for OS and programs) and 1 Tb HD for Data. The Core i7 3820QM is from the latest crop of Intel processor (Ivy Bridge, 22nm) just behind the outrageously expensive 3920QM and the best for the money IMHO.

You can settle for a more mundane but already very potent configuration for about £1000 with a 3720QM and 16Gb RAM.
Just search for Lenovo w530 over eBay (or w520 for even better deals on the previous Intel generation).


Oh and I forgot to mention that they have the best screens (beside Apple Retina display) and keyboards (no competitor in this area) and rock solid packaging

[M ANSARI]

If you really want chess crunching power, then it is probably best to buy a cheap but very low wattage laptop with extremely long battery life, and another desktop ... and then use software to use the hardware on your desktop to run the chess crunching via the internet ... actually you can even use a smartphone nowadays! This way you have full hardware power and long battery life on your laptop. Laptops are really not designed for heavy duty crunching, and your battery will quickly drain at 100% chess analysis. For the same price you can get a good highly over clockable quad core and over clock the socks of it and keep it at home and still have enough left over for a decent laptop. A cheap overclocked desktop will outperform even the highest end laptop by a large margin. Also unless you have an electric socket where you use your laptop, going for high wattage high power laptops is not a good idea.

[meschle]

This looks awesome value - what do people think?
http://www.officenerd.co.uk/info/Comput ... ops/819178

Unfortunately, there is no free lunch.
Acer is delivering consumer products. That's ok but a lame configuration for Chess enthusiasts.

I propose you something entirely different.

For years now, I'm sticking with Lenovo Thinkpad (former IBM laptop division) portable workstations.

I have now 7 of them and all working for a small office.
Soon enough I will get the next one

I'm getting excellent prices over eBay (with 3 years international warranty and top notch IBM servicing but I needed that only once).

See for example the following config, it's at the high end of your budget but it's almost the very best one could get nowadays in laptop computing for whatever the money.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Lenovo-ThinkPad ... 564b0f1073

You get 32Gb RAM!, 1 128Gb SSD (for OS and programs) and 1 Tb HD for Data. The Core i7 3820QM is from the latest crop of Intel processor (Ivy Bridge, 22nm) just behind the outrageously expensive 3920QM and the best for the money IMHO.

You can settle for a more mundane but already very potent configuration for about £1000 with a 3720QM and 16Gb RAM.
Just search for Lenovo w530 over eBay (or w520 for even better deals on the previous Intel generation).


Oh and I forgot to mention that they have the best screens (beside Apple Retina display) and keyboards (no competitor in this area) and rock solid packaging

Thats a monster laptop!