@lily_wray330 A processor's speed certainly matters to Sims 4. But for practical purposes, you don't really need to worry about it. In your budget range, you can afford a good graphics card, and any of the good cards I listed (and other similar ones) will come with a processor that's more than strong enough, and runs at a high enough speed, for Sims 4.
In case you're curious though: Most processors will turbo when running a game anyway, so that's the number to consider. But the speed in GHz is not the only factor. The number of cores matters (more cores means more processes can be handled at the same time), and some CPUs are more efficient than others, so the speed doesn't tell anywhere near the whole story.
Anyway, for the graphics card, an Nvidia 1650 will run all Sims 4 packs together on ultra graphics settings with some room to spare. It may or may not run all current and future packs together on ultra, depending on how demanding those future packs turn out to be. It will probably be a close call either way. A 1650 ti is a bit faster than a regular 1650, and a 1660 ti is faster than that. In your budget range, you could get a 1660 ti, but probably not in a lightweight computer—it would be bulkier to accommodate the hardware, including the cooling necessary to protect the high-end components. Lighter, smaller components cost more money.
The MX-series graphics cards are slower than the 1650, but they also tend to come in the lightweight laptops I thought you were considering. A 1650 is over 200% faster than an MX350 and close to 300% faster than an MX250, at least in gaming. So in terms of performance, you'll do much better with a 1650 or above. But the MX-series would still run the game fine, just not on anything more than high settings at best. So the question is whether it's more important to get the best performance possible, or have a small portable laptop that runs the game well enough for your needs.
The Asus Zephyrus laptop is a good compromise, if you like the line. Otherwise, I can look around for other options with similar features. The first thing for you to do though is decide how much money you want to spend and for what kind of laptop: best performance, most portability, best combination, etc. Then I can list the best options I see, and you can pick whichever one appeals to you. Or, if you prefer, you can take the list of specs you'd want and shop around yourself, then link whatever you find for a second opinion. Either way works for me.
wow thank you you’re so helpful!
the specs i’ve kinda been looking for are 16gb, above like 3ghz turbo boost (i think i’m not sure) and like 512gb.
ive found graphics cards really hard to understand tbh, your explanation is really helpful but slightly going over my head ahaha.
in a laptop i’m looking for something like portable and sleek for my schoolwork and lots of essay writing but i also really want to be able to play the sims with all the packs and mods + cc etc while still being able to play on moderately high settings. i’m not even sure if that’s like possible for my price i looked at a few of your links and some looked really good so i’m going to look into them but i do really like the look of the huaweii one i originally linked (it also has a free watch which is nice ahaha) but know nothing about graphics cards.
do you think that it is a bad option for the sims? as i think it’d be great for my schoolwork but i do really want to play the sims.
thank you for all your help btw i really appreciate it
@lily_wray330 The Huawei is not a bad choice out of context, as in, it would in fact run Sims 4 and all packs. I happen think it's not a good choice at all for the cost: no matter what you want in a laptop, you can do better for an equal or lower price. If you're worried about having only 8 GB RAM, you can easily upgrade any of the other laptops, or pay to have someone upgrade it, and still save money overall.
Memory is the easiest component to upgrade, and the cheapest, so there's no reason to choose a laptop based on installed RAM. Not only are the other components (processor and graphics card) more critical to how well a computer will run Sims 4, they usually can't be upgraded in a laptop, so you're stuck with what you buy.
If you want portable and sleek, then the other lightweight laptops would be better. The Asus Zephyrus is almost as light as the Huawei and much more powerful; the Acer Swift 5 is lighter than Huawei and has a somewhat faster graphics card. I understand you don't know much about graphics cards, but gaining almost 300% in performance (from the Huawei to the Asus Zephyrus) speaks for itself. Even the difference between the Huawei's card and the one in the Acer Swift could mean the difference between medium-high and high settings, although it's sometimes harder to see the difference when the margin is smaller.
