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L4UNDRYBE4R's avatar
L4UNDRYBE4R
Seasoned Rookie
3 years ago

Buying a Laptop: How Well Does an i5 Intel Processor Run?

Hey there

I'm going off to college this year and my & my parents are looking for a laptop. I think I've figured out what I want, but I want to ask about others' opinions before I purchase.

I have an i7 Intel Core Processor on my desktop, I know it works well, but I also want to save money. If you have an i5 Intel Core Processor, can you tell me how smoothly your game runs? It's the minimum requirement for the Sims 4, but I also would rather spend the extra 100$ if "minimum" means poorly run, laggy, etc.

Other specs I'm looking at are:

Video Card: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060, 4GB, HDDR6, 40 W
Memory: 16GB, 2 x 8 HV, DDR5, 4800 MHz
Storage: 512 GB, M.2, PCl NVMe, SSD

Anything helps, thank you!

1 Reply

  • @L4UNDRYBE4R  The minimum requirement for Sims 4 is any i5 processor, which includes models that go back to 2010.  Current processors have more cores, usually run at significantly higher boost clock speeds, and can always handle a much higher number of instructions per clock cycle, so there's really no comparison between current CPUs and ones from a decade ago.

    A manufacturer will almost always pair a graphics card with a processor that can more than keep up, i.e. the GPU is going to be the limiting factor.  The reason is that the GPU is more expensive than the CPU at any given performance point, and most people wouldn't want to pay a premium for a GPU that can't reach its full potential.  This is especially important in laptops, where processor and graphics card generally can't be upgraded.  The point is, for any given laptop, it will have a CPU that is more than capable of matching the GPU's output in gaming performance.

    You didn't list the specific processor in this laptop, but I can tell you that the RTX 3060 won't be maxed out running Sims 4 no matter what you do.  So the CPU wouldn't come close either.  Also, any i5 processor you'd find in a current-gen gaming laptop, as this one is, is more than fast enough for Sims 4.

    If you like this laptop, then there's no reason not to get it, at least from the perspective of playing Sims 4.