Computers & Electronics

Work Laptop Suggestion

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  • Dec 24th, 2020 12:05 pm
Member
Dec 17, 2011
290 posts
141 upvotes
OTTAWA

Work Laptop Suggestion

Hello,

I do lots of excel calculations where excels take minutes to an hour to calculate on my 4 core laptop currently at work.

I'm going to buy a new one to speed up my work.

What recommendations would you give to speed up speeds? Should I wait for AMD 5XXX laptop processor?

Thanks!
18 replies
Member
Dec 17, 2011
290 posts
141 upvotes
OTTAWA
Gee wrote: Do you need the mobility?

If not, consider a desktop and a 4k monitor.
Yea, must be a laptop unfortunately
Deal Addict
Jul 6, 2010
2242 posts
4462 upvotes
The Ryzen 9 4900H is one of the best CPUs you can get in a laptop right now.
https://www.bestbuy.ca/en-ca/product/as ... 0/14584170



But also consider a Lenovo Legion 5 with an Ryzen 7 4800H, as the Legion 5 seems to have better build quality and thermal cooling. That could offset the slightly lower performance of the CPU.
https://www.lenovo.com/ca/en/perkopolis ... /customize?
(Passcode: GoldPerk2020 )
Last edited by umopapisdnwei on Dec 23rd, 2020 8:33 pm, edited 1 time in total.
On vacation
Deal Addict
Jun 27, 2006
2042 posts
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Do you work for yourself? If not, shouldn't the company be buying it?
Member
Dec 17, 2011
290 posts
141 upvotes
OTTAWA
maple1 wrote: Do you work for yourself? If not, shouldn't the company be buying it?
Yea but I can order it to what I want
Deal Addict
Jul 6, 2010
2242 posts
4462 upvotes
maple1 wrote: OK, I would suggest the P series from Lenovo which are their workstation laptops. Am sure Dell or HP have theirs as well.

https://www.lenovo.com/ca/en/laptops/c/ ... TYPE_ATTR4
The main difference between the T series and the P series is the option of a dedicated GPU, but that's not really going to make a difference for Excel work. And even if it did, the GPU in a typical gaming laptop is far better (and so is the CPU).

Although the gaming laptops don't look like they "fit in" in a business environment, they do give the best performance.
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Newbie
Jul 19, 2015
67 posts
69 upvotes
Victoria, BC
Check out reddit and LaptopDealsCanada. Super helpful, knows his tech.
Deal Expert
Aug 2, 2004
38392 posts
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East Gwillimbury
rbkpwnz wrote: Yea, must be a laptop unfortunately
The X1 Carbon has a 4k option. Not really practical on a notebook, but if you hook it up to an external monitor, it provides a lot of real estate for Excel.

The T series is the go to for business notebooks
Deal Fanatic
Jul 26, 2004
5450 posts
2433 upvotes
Not sure if Excel is more single threaded or multi threaded CPU, heard it depends on your spreadsheet/formulas used? But sounds like you need more raw horsepower for your CPU anyways. I'd say go for Ryzen based Lenovo T-series. Current Ryzens are very competitive in single threaded task and will beat intel's offering in multi-threaded ones anyways. Open up task manager while you run your spreadsheet and check the CPU/thread utilization, see how many core and how hard it's working.

T-series can be pretty portable and durable, should suit a work environment too.
Deal Addict
Jul 6, 2010
2242 posts
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https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/office ... provements
"Starting in Excel 2010, the following features use multi-core processors: saving a file, opening a file, refreshing a PivotTable (for external data sources, except OLAP and SharePoint), sorting a cell table, sorting a PivotTable, and auto-sizing a column."

If your spreadsheets use these a lot, then look at the multicore performance of the CPUs. Otherwise, focus on the single core performance.

@rbkpwnz What CPU do you have in your current laptop?
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Member
Dec 17, 2011
290 posts
141 upvotes
OTTAWA
umopapisdnwei wrote: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/office ... provements
"Starting in Excel 2010, the following features use multi-core processors: saving a file, opening a file, refreshing a PivotTable (for external data sources, except OLAP and SharePoint), sorting a cell table, sorting a PivotTable, and auto-sizing a column."

If your spreadsheets use these a lot, then look at the multicore performance of the CPUs. Otherwise, focus on the single core performance.

@rbkpwnz What CPU do you have in your current laptop?

Current CPU is i7-7500U

Mac won't work too many software we use can't use mac
Deal Fanatic
Jul 26, 2004
5450 posts
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i7 7500u is a low power 2 core 4 thread processor :( Hmmm make sure you're at max performance mode and not in some power saving mode so you're using all the processing power of your CPU.
Deal Addict
Jul 21, 2005
2087 posts
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Alberta
I was in a similar situation just recently and my new Lenovo P17 just arrived yesterday actually. Company paid for it. It's a beast, if you don't need a big 17" 4K screen go for the P15. Probably same for the P15, but my P17 can be a full workstation replacement. It can be configured up to 4TB M.2 NVMe PCIe SSD, up to NVIDIA® Quadro® RTX™ 5000 with Max-Q 16GB, can get it with your i7s all the way up to Xeon Procs, up to 128GB of ram. It's truly a workstation in a laptop. I got a custom built one with i7/32gb/512ssd and Quadro T1000 as that will meet my needs, but it can be really built out like crazy.

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