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dmvdmeij1989's avatar
dmvdmeij1989
New Novice
6 months ago
Solved

Help choosing a laptop for my 10 year old daughter

Hi everyone,

My daughter is about to turn 10 and she has saved up some money so we can buy a new laptop together with her. She saved up about 100 euros and we are planning on spending about 350 euros.
We have been to a store so she could pick a model she likes and she has picked a 14” Asus Vivobook. No matter what the laptop we are buying as one of those models. I have looked around and found 3 (actually 5) models that fall around our price range.

I would like your opinion whether these laptops will be able to play Sims 4 at 1080p at 60fps with low-medium settings. We would prefer to stay slightly under budget so we can buy her something else alongside the laptop. But if the lower end laptops will not cut it we will buy the more expensive models.

I know neither of these laptops are ideal gaming laptops, but outside of Sims 4 they are all more than capable to fulfill her needs.

We have the base game and Horse Ranch and are not planning to buy any additional packs for now.

1: 525 euros (slightly over budget)

I5-1235u, Intel Iris XE, 2x8gb DDR4, 512GB SSD

 

2: 450-480 euros (at top of the budget)

I3-1215u, UHD 64eu, 1x 8gb DDR4, 512GB SSD (can upgrade to 1x16gb DDR4)

 

3: 350-380 euros (lower end of the budget, we can buy her something additional)

I3-N305, UHD 770, 1x 8gb DDR4, 256GB SSD (Ram is not upgradable)

 

I have also found 2 Ryzen models (Ryzen 3 75320u and Ryzen 5 7520u) with Radeon 610m. At 450 euros. But they seem to be a lot less capable of handling the game.

We would prefer to stay on the lower end of the budget, but not if that system will not meet the minimum requirements I have stated (1080p, ~60fps, low-medium settings)

If any of you have one of these 3 (5) systems I would like to know your settings, or I would love the insight of knowledgeable people to make a good choice.

Thank you.

ea app
  • puzzlezaddict's avatar
    puzzlezaddict
    6 months ago

    dmvdmeij1989  An Intel Xe graphics chip of either standard flavor (80 or 96 EUs) is a lot faster than the 610M.  But the 610M is faster than the particular Intel UHD graphics chips in the second and third options.  "UHD" unfortunately covers a lot of different chips.

    TechnicalCity has good information a lot of the time but is sometimes very far off.  I don't know why but suspect that some DNF/crash results are clouding the data, which is not uncommon on these types of sites.  Synthetic tests are also often misleading because they don't always mimic real-world workloads.  That's why I check a few different sites and discard any data that's far outside the average from the other sites.

    There's also the fact that results can vary widely from one game or test to another.  And there's the fact that some tests are run at or near release, when a driver might not be updated for the new hardware or to make it work with older games; and those test results may never be removed from the database the site is using.

    Point is, it can get really complicated, and even absorbing all the available data doesn't necessarily offer an actual answer.

    This is my favorite site to check, although I always check others too:

    https://www.notebookcheck.net/Radeon-610M-vs-Iris-Xe-G7-80EUs_11423_10395.247598.0.html

    I like it because it tests real games, although results can be skewed when one GPU only has a small sample size.  It can also show more granular behavior, for example maybe card X is beating card Y in the averages but only because card X is winning by a large margin at high resolutions.  If the user is going to play at 1080p, results at 1440p or 4k would obviously not matter.

    In the above link, you can see how results are kind of all over the map, which is a bit unusual but not overly so.  What I can say for sure is that I haven't yet had anyone show up here or on Answers HQ with a 7x20 iGPU that won't run Sims 4, or that has lag or crashing bad enough for them to reach out for help.  The chip is sort of new but not so much that it hasn't made it to Sims players at all yet.

    For general use, all these graphics chips are fine.  Sims 4 is orders of magnitude more demanding to run than anything in a browser, and most general use is about the CPU and RAM anyway.  The processors are more than fine for now and should be for a few years, at least; beyond that, it depends on how greedy everyday desktop apps get as time goes by.

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  • puzzlezaddict's avatar
    puzzlezaddict
    Hero+
    6 months ago

    dmvdmeij1989  I don't have any of these systems, but I can tell you the first one could run all current packs together on medium-high to high graphics settings before the patch a few days ago.  The game is supposed to have become more efficient after the patch, but the data is still coming in; at any rate, it's not a completely different game than before.  Your daughter might be able to get away with high-ultra settings with only Horse Ranch installed, but at the very least, medium-high should be fine.

    The second and third laptops are not nearly at the same level, and neither are the Ryzen laptops with a 7x20U processor.  If you can find one with a 7x30U CPU, or a 5500U or 5700U, that would be at or slightly above the level of the first laptop.

    Intel CPUs are a bit more difficult to assess because some of them have faster graphics only when there are two RAM modules present, so the memory is running in dual-channel mode.  So a laptop with 2x4 GB would have faster graphics than one with 1x8 GB, even though they're both listed with the same specs.  The i3 models have much slower graphics though—even an i3 13th-gen falls behind an i5 11th-gen in terms of graphics processing, again assuming the i5 has two memory modules.

    It would be nice to have more than 8 GB RAM as well, for futureproofing if nothing else, but you can upgrade later as long as the laptop supports it.  Sims 4 itself shouldn't use so much memory that it maxes out an 8 GB laptop with nothing else running on it, and if that does happen, it's typically because of too many background processes, not the game.  That in turn is simple enough to fix.

    Finally, if you'd like, I can take a look at online stores where you'd be willing to shop.  The language barrier isn't really an issue since the hardware is listed the same in any case.

  • dmvdmeij1989's avatar
    dmvdmeij1989
    New Novice
    6 months ago

    Thanks Mark,

    Regarding the shops. My daughter is set on the model laptop. It is a 14" laptop with a numpad in the mousepad. She absolutely loves it. And would be dissapointed if the laptop she got did not have it. 

    We will also be using expiring gift cards for our share so we only have 2 shops we can buy from. The models I have listed are all the models available with both this model and at the stores we are going to buy.

    She literaly stated she would sacrafice preformence to get a laptop with this look. 
    But thank you for offering.

    I could link the laptops I have found if there are specs you want to see that I have not listed.

    I did figure the first option would preform the best since all specs are better. 

    It is good to know the more expensive one will be able to handle the game really well. Would still love some insight on someone that might be using a laptop with (similar) specs to the other options aswell to make a good comparison.

     

  • puzzlezaddict's avatar
    puzzlezaddict
    Hero+
    6 months ago

    dmvdmeij1989  The helpers on this site and Answers HQ typically have gaming laptops or desktops, or both, or a Mac.  I know the hardware setups of a couple dozen people and haven't found one yet who has any of the configurations you've listed.  That doesn't mean they're not out there, only that they're not typically looking at tech-related posts, in any subforum.

    Feel free to list any other configurations available.  If there aren't any others of note, the 7x20U processors with the 610M graphics chips would be better than the N-series CPU (option 3) and likely better than the i3 (option 2) as well, but there is a significant drop-off in performance.  Still, it's not like the machine wouldn't run the game at all, and with only Horse Ranch installed, quality might be good enough that your daughter is satisfied.

  • dmvdmeij1989's avatar
    dmvdmeij1989
    New Novice
    6 months ago

    Thnx again for all the information.

    You say the Ryzen chips I have mentioned would likely be better than the Intel chips. However when I do vs comparisons online the intels and their corresponding igpu's score higher than the Ryzen's.

    Are these comparisons misleading and do Ryzen chips generally do poorly on these sites? (Technical.city)

    Would they typically do better in general use, or purely in this game? Thou neither would be optimal ofcourse.

    I might be asking a lot. But would really appreciate if you could give me a little more understanding. 

  • puzzlezaddict's avatar
    puzzlezaddict
    Hero+
    6 months ago

    dmvdmeij1989  An Intel Xe graphics chip of either standard flavor (80 or 96 EUs) is a lot faster than the 610M.  But the 610M is faster than the particular Intel UHD graphics chips in the second and third options.  "UHD" unfortunately covers a lot of different chips.

    TechnicalCity has good information a lot of the time but is sometimes very far off.  I don't know why but suspect that some DNF/crash results are clouding the data, which is not uncommon on these types of sites.  Synthetic tests are also often misleading because they don't always mimic real-world workloads.  That's why I check a few different sites and discard any data that's far outside the average from the other sites.

    There's also the fact that results can vary widely from one game or test to another.  And there's the fact that some tests are run at or near release, when a driver might not be updated for the new hardware or to make it work with older games; and those test results may never be removed from the database the site is using.

    Point is, it can get really complicated, and even absorbing all the available data doesn't necessarily offer an actual answer.

    This is my favorite site to check, although I always check others too:

    https://www.notebookcheck.net/Radeon-610M-vs-Iris-Xe-G7-80EUs_11423_10395.247598.0.html

    I like it because it tests real games, although results can be skewed when one GPU only has a small sample size.  It can also show more granular behavior, for example maybe card X is beating card Y in the averages but only because card X is winning by a large margin at high resolutions.  If the user is going to play at 1080p, results at 1440p or 4k would obviously not matter.

    In the above link, you can see how results are kind of all over the map, which is a bit unusual but not overly so.  What I can say for sure is that I haven't yet had anyone show up here or on Answers HQ with a 7x20 iGPU that won't run Sims 4, or that has lag or crashing bad enough for them to reach out for help.  The chip is sort of new but not so much that it hasn't made it to Sims players at all yet.

    For general use, all these graphics chips are fine.  Sims 4 is orders of magnitude more demanding to run than anything in a browser, and most general use is about the CPU and RAM anyway.  The processors are more than fine for now and should be for a few years, at least; beyond that, it depends on how greedy everyday desktop apps get as time goes by.

  • dmvdmeij1989's avatar
    dmvdmeij1989
    New Novice
    6 months ago

    Thank you so so much for the time and effort you have put into answering me. I really appreciate it.

    We will most likely be going for the option that is slightly over budget.
    But if for some reason we are unable to stretch the budget I have a much better understanding of what other options are good for my daughter.

    I will save the site you linked to do some comparisons in the future if I ever need to compare other systems.

    It is people like you that make forums a nice place to go to for answers.

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