Comparing two laptops - which one is better?

[The_8_Bit_Zombie]

Macbook Pro 2011:

• i7-2675QM CPU
• 8GB RAM
• AMD Radeon HD 6750M 512 MB

Lenovo Ideapad 700:

• i5-6300HQ CPU
• 12GB RAM
• NVIDIA GeForce GTX950M
• SSD

 

I am currently using the Macbook Pro, and I am considering purchasing the Lenovo. My question is, would the Lenovo be any better for KSP than my current laptop? I'm hoping that It'll be able to use significantly higher part counts without lagging. (My Macbook starts getting really laggy around 350 parts)

Also just to clarify, I know that desktop PCs are way better for gaming than laptops. The reason I'm getting a laptop is because I need the mobility, and because its primary function won't be to play KSP.

Thank you! 

[Lisias]

You will still be facing some lag, I'm sorry. But the startup time will be WAAAY faster.

KSP uses a thread for each ship - so, if you only have one craft on flight, the i7 will not make that difference compared to the i5. To tell you the true, this new i5 can be slightly faster than the old i7.

On the other hand, the Lenovo GPU' has 4GB for your textures - so, if the raw performance will not be that better, the graphic's quality will be. You probably will run Scatterer without problems.

— POST - EDIT — 

Follows a link comparing your current GPU with the Lenovo's one.

https://www.videocardbenchmark.net/compare/GeForce-GTX-950M-vs-Radeon-HD-6750M/3171vs283

Edited September 1, 2018 by Lisias
more info

[The_8_Bit_Zombie]

4 hours ago, Lisias said:

You will still be facing some lag, I'm sorry. But the startup time will be WAAAY faster.

KSP uses a thread for each ship - so, if you only have one craft on flight, the i7 will not make that difference compared to the i5. To tell you the true, this new i5 can be slightly faster than the old i7.

On the other hand, the Lenovo GPU' has 4GB for your textures - so, if the raw performance will not be that better, the graphic's quality will be. You probably will run Scatterer without problems.

— POST - EDIT — 

Follows a link comparing your current GPU with the Lenovo's one.

https://www.videocardbenchmark.net/compare/GeForce-GTX-950M-vs-Radeon-HD-6750M/3171vs283

Thank you for the info! Running Scatterer without problems would be awesome, I didn't even realize that was a possibility.

I have one more question about the CPUs if you don't mind: If I had 4 ships loaded on both laptops would there be a noticeable difference in lag between the two?

[Gargamel]

11 hours ago, The_8_Bit_Zombie said:

If I had 4 ships loaded on both laptops would there be a noticeable difference in lag between the two?

Depends on the total part count.   If the total count is small, you might not notice a difference.  If it's big, you might.   Then again, you might not.

 

The only way for anybody to reliably answer these questions to your satisfaction will be to sit them down side by side and play the same save at the same time and compare.    We can tell you what should be faster, but until each machine is benchmarked and compared heads up, it's just really informed guess work.  Plus, you are also talking about a new, clean machine, vs an older used machine with some over time bloat ware on it. 

[Zeiss Ikon]

Not generally familiar with the Lenovo model in question, but there's another issue to consider: cooling.

The Mackbook probably uses the aluminum case as a heat sink, so doesn't depend on a fan to keep cool.  My own Thinkpad T430 depends on a fan, and as a result has developed cooling issues that are probably due to dust/lint/cat hair built up in the cooling duct (blowing out the cooling hasn't helped, I probably need to disassemble the machine for cleaning).  If your (prospective) Ideapad uses no-fan cooling, it will likely do better than this, but my Thinkpad (I5-3250, 3.4 GHz turbo) throttles to as little as 350 MHz even in the VAB in 1.4.3.  Needless to say, that level of slow-down is very frustrating.  Potentially worse, some no-fan machines don't cool adequately for gaming, depending on the intermittency of demand for office type use to allow throttling when tasks have pauses (say, when your browser displays a static page while you appreciate the photo -- OF A GALAXY, what did you think?!).  These may still exhibit sub-par performance when playing a game that depends heavily on per-thread performance.

[Lisias]

2 hours ago, Zeiss Ikon said:

Not generally familiar with the Lenovo model in question, but there's another issue to consider: cooling.

The Mackbook probably uses the aluminum case as a heat sink, so doesn't depend on a fan to keep cool.  

Don't bet your coins on it. I'm running KSP on a MacMini, also on an aluminium case. And it gets HOT. Some MacBooks are not known for running cool neither. The thing can be so bad as some people use copper nickels stacked on the MacBook to help on the cooling. Click on the image for more info.

 

[Gargamel]

10 minutes ago, Lisias said:

copper nickels

Betcha copper pennies would be cheaper ;P.   And easier to acquire in the US.   But as a machinist, this is screaming to have a custom copper cooling mount made.  

[Lisias]

16 hours ago, The_8_Bit_Zombie said:

I have one more question about the CPUs if you don't mind: If I had 4 ships loaded on both laptops would there be a noticeable difference in lag between the two?

Probably yes, but not enough to buy another computer just for it.

Let's take my machines as comparison: I'm running KSP on two machines mainly, a 2011 MacMini5,1 (i5-2520M 2.3 to 3.2GHz, Dual Core, 4 Threads) with 16GB RAM, and a monster running Xeon X5470 (4 Cores, 3.3GHz no throttling down, tons of cache, tons of data lanes) with 48Gb RAM.

There's an abyss between the performance of these two machines. It's plain ridiculous how fast the Xeon machine is compared to my MacMini.

But yet, I have a huge vessel (1200 parts) that runs approximately with the same performance on both machines (the Xeon is only slightly faster). The Xeon, obviously, can withhold a hell more of mods due the absurd amount of memory I shoved on it - but my "best" crafts runs approximately at the same performance because the part count chokes the running thread equally on both computers. Of course, all the rest is way faster on Xeon (hell of a CPU), and I hung a decent RX-460 on it (way better than the HD3000 on MacMini).

So… Your mileage will vary about performance. Your current CPU is not that bad, and the new CPU is not fully used by KSP. Your main gains will be on the SSD, more RAM and way better GPU for sightseeing.

6 minutes ago, Gargamel said:

Betcha copper pennies would be cheaper ;P.   And easier to acquire in the US.   But as a machinist, this is screaming to have a custom copper cooling mount made.  

Probably!  Hell, I'm always confused by these Imperial Monetary System! (Pennies, Nickels, Dimes, Quarters… By God, give me the cents!)

[Zeiss Ikon]

55 minutes ago, Gargamel said:

Betcha copper pennies would be cheaper ;P.   And easier to acquire in the US.   But as a machinist, this is screaming to have a custom copper cooling mount made.  

Those are (apparently) actually 10 yen coins shown in the photo, and they're made of a hybrid between bronze and brass.  In the USA, copper pennies aren't easy to find -- they quit making them in the early 1980s (replaced by copper plated zinc alloy).  However, US dimes and quarters are made of the same core alloy as the cents were from before the introduction of the Lincoln head (1909) until 1983, except for a short run of unplated zinc during WWII (these "silver" coins have been clad with pure nickel since the mid-1960s).  The copper-nickel alloy used in American coins isn't all that great a conductor, as metals go, however; pure aluminum is better, pure copper better still.

If you have access to a MAPP plumber's torch and a steel ladle (a stainless measuring cup would work, though you'd want to hold it with tongs because the handle is probably too short), you could melt down pure copper from the windings of a scrapped electric motor or an old lamp cord or extension cord, and pour the melt into a mold made from wood (with shallow holes cut with a Forstner bit; single use mold, probably) or steel (drilled holes in one plate, a solid one under it).  Please don't do this in a mobile home or apartment...

[Harry Rhodan]

12 hours ago, Zeiss Ikon said:

The Mackbook probably uses the aluminum case as a heat sink, so doesn't depend on a fan to keep cool.

It has a 45W CPU, it will definitely depend on a fan to cool that thing.

[The_8_Bit_Zombie]

Thank you very much for the information everyone! I really appreciate it.

10 hours ago, Lisias said:

Probably yes, but not enough to buy another computer just for it.

But yet, I have a huge vessel (1200 parts) that runs approximately with the same performance on both machines (the Xeon is only slightly faster). The Xeon, obviously, can withhold a hell more of mods due the absurd amount of memory I shoved on it - but my "best" crafts runs approximately at the same performance because the part count chokes the running thread equally on both computers. Of course, all the rest is way faster on Xeon (hell of a CPU), and I hung a decent RX-460 on it (way better than the HD3000 on MacMini).

 So… Your mileage will vary about performance. Your current CPU is not that bad, and the new CPU is not fully used by KSP. Your main gains will be on the SSD, more RAM and way better GPU for sightseeing.

This is all really helpful to know, thank you! About the CPUs and part counts, do you think it would be worth it for me to get a laptop with a better CPU than the Lenovo? I found a Thinkpad laptop with 32GB of RAM, an SSD, a NVIDIA Quadro K2100M, and an i7-4900MQ. And although it's only 4th gen, the CPU appears to outperform both the Macbook's CPU and the Lenovo's CPU when it comes to single-thread processing:

(From top to bottom it goes Thinkpad, Lenovo, Macbook)

I'm not sure if it'd be worth it though. It'd depend on how many more parts it'd be able to handle. And like you said, that can cap off after a certain point.

11 hours ago, Lisias said:

Don't bet your coins on it. I'm running KSP on a MacMini, also on an aluminium case. And it gets HOT. Some MacBooks are not known for running cool neither.

Yup, I have the same issue with my Macbook Pro. The metal gets uncomfortably hot after playing KSP for a while, and my fan sounds like it's trying to take off. I'll have to try out the copper coin trick, looks very useful!

Edited September 2, 2018 by The_8_Bit_Zombie

[Lisias]

7 hours ago, The_8_Bit_Zombie said:

This is all really helpful to know, thank you! About the CPUs and part counts, do you think it would be worth it for me to get a laptop with a better CPU than the Lenovo? I found a Thinkpad laptop with 32GB of RAM, an SSD, a NVIDIA Quadro K2100M, and an i7-4900MQ. And although it's only 4th gen, the CPU appears to outperform both the Macbook's CPU and the Lenovo's CPU when it comes to single-thread processing

It's way better machine, but the GPU is not top notch for gaming. 

https://www.videocardbenchmark.net/compare/Quadro-K2100M-vs-GeForce-GTX-950M/2665vs3171

It's not bad, it's just not better enough than what you have to worth the price, if you have only KSP as motivation for the upgrade. 

The CPU will make you smile on the every day tasks, but I don't think the difference will worth the price tag if KSP is the only reason for migration. 

The memory is EXCELLENT. But... A bit of advise. There's a glitch on the Win64 port of KSP that may impair the usefullness of the extra memory. So KSP usually crashes before being able to use that beautiful extra memory.

On my Mac machine, KSP processes with 10 to 12 G of memory allocated is usual. I once managed to get a circa 24G KSP process on the other machine under Linux, but it was a synthetic run: I just wanna see how much I would shove on it, I was not really playing.

When running Windows, however, there're consistent reports that KSP crashes on certain situations when the KSP process grows to more than 4G RAM. The bigger the process, worst your chances to stay playing. I'm successfully ran KSP64 on that Xeon until about 8 to 10G, but your mileage may vary (it appears to depend on the memory footprint profile on the running mods, and how much do you change scenarios).

KSP win64 is known for capsizing with no mods too, but it's way less prone to it - I believe the trigger is the memory footprint. Using Making History appears to increase the rate of the crashing, what apparently confirms the memory footprint thesis.

Edited September 2, 2018 by Lisias
Better phrasing

[Harry Rhodan]

57 minutes ago, Lisias said:

When running Windows, however, there're consistent reports that KSP crashes on certain situations when the KSP process grows to more than 4G RAM. The bigger the process, worst your chances to stay playing.

That was fixed in 1.1 two years ago.

[Lisias]

6 hours ago, Harry Rhodan said:

That was fixed in 1.1 two years ago.

No. It's still happening. Or we are facing a new problem with the same modus operandi. Or even a regression, but it appears to be something on KSP for ages. See:

 

Edited September 2, 2018 by Lisias
Typo.

[Kerbinchaser]

Mac is love, Mac is life. 

[The_8_Bit_Zombie]

On 9/2/2018 at 8:01 AM, Lisias said:

The memory is EXCELLENT. But... A bit of advise. There's a glitch on the Win64 port of KSP that may impair the usefullness of the extra memory. So KSP usually crashes before being able to use that beautiful extra memory.

Ah, that sucks. How likely is it that the bug will be fixed soon, you think?

On 9/2/2018 at 8:01 AM, Lisias said:

It's way better machine, but the GPU is not top notch for gaming. 

https://www.videocardbenchmark.net/compare/Quadro-K2100M-vs-GeForce-GTX-950M/2665vs3171

It's not bad, it's just not better enough than what you have to worth the price, if you have only KSP as motivation for the upgrade. 

Thank you for the info! There are a couple other non-KSP motivations for buying that laptop, so I'm considering it. Do you think its GPU would be able to run Scatterer/EVE?

[Lisias]

59 minutes ago, The_8_Bit_Zombie said:

Ah, that sucks. How likely is it that the bug will be fixed soon, you think?

I can't say anything that would not be wild speculation. Sorry.

 

59 minutes ago, The_8_Bit_Zombie said:

Thank you for the info! There are a couple other non-KSP motivations for buying that laptop, so I'm considering it. Do you think its GPU would be able to run Scatterer/EVE?

Yes, but I don't have enough experience with Quadro GPUs to tell how much good it would be. Quadro GPUs are known for excellent OpenGL performance when compared to consumer grade GPUs from same generation - but consumer grade GPU advances way faster than Workstations'.

The benchmarks I saw suggests tha it performs similarly to the Geforge 940M and Radeon HD8650G. Try to get advise from the Scatterer/EVE users and developers about these GPUs. They should do a better guess than me.

EDIT - the K2100M is Directx11 and Shader 5 capable.

Edited September 4, 2018 by Lisias
Typo.

[The_8_Bit_Zombie]

On 9/4/2018 at 12:23 PM, Lisias said:

Yes, but I don't have enough experience with Quadro GPUs to tell how much good it would be. Quadro GPUs are known for excellent OpenGL performance when compared to consumer grade GPUs from same generation - but consumer grade GPU advances way faster than Workstations'.

The benchmarks I saw suggests tha it performs similarly to the Geforge 940M and Radeon HD8650G. Try to get advise from the Scatterer/EVE users and developers about these GPUs. They should do a better guess than me.

EDIT - the K2100M is Directx11 and Shader 5 capable.

 

Ok cool, thank you for the info! I asked the developer of EVE, they said the graphics card is pretty low end for that mod. So I'll have to choose between a good CPU and a good GPU. I might go with the one with 32GB of RAM, because it would be better for things other than KSP even though it has a bad graphics card. (It has a 1.5TB hard drive.)

Thank you for all the help!

Edited September 8, 2018 by The_8_Bit_Zombie