Best Processors for Laptops

Processors for Laptops Buying Guide

When you're shopping for a new laptop, you might be confused by all the the gigahertz, RAM, gigabytes and other technical talk. For a tech translation of the most important considerations, check out the following guide to looking for the best processor for a laptop.

Manufacturer

Intel and AMD are the big names. AMD processors are cheaper, but usually do not perform as well in high demand systems. That being said, if you're looking for the best processor a laptop that will be used mostly for web browsing and daily office work, an AMD processor is more than capable and can save you a lot of money. If you'll be using graphic editing programs, music editing programs, or games, you just might want to opt for an Intel chip with heftier specifications.

Clock Speed

Speeds generally range from 1.8 GHz to over 3.0 GHz in most processors on the market today. If you're doing any serious work on your laptop, look for no less than 2.0 to 2.4 GHz.

L2 Cache Size

To put it simply, bigger caches make for faster processing. Caches of 1 MB or larger are great preformers for office work, and Caches of 4 - 6 MB will be blazingly fast for your more complex resource-hungry programs.