Re: new laptop specs: i7 CPU, graphics card, & RAM
On Sun, Oct 27, 2013 at 08:45:33AM -0400, ken wrote:
> At long last it's time for a new laptop. I'm planning to run a lot
> on it: at least 3 VMs (Windows, Linux, and Mac) under virtualbox.
> plus server stuff like apache, MySQL, a CMS or two (likely drupal
> and wordpress) in addition to a lot of 'workstation' kinds of apps
> like Firefox, Thunderbird, GIMP (on large photos), music- and other
> audio-players, video player (to view movies on DVD), etc., etc. on
> the Linux VM.
>
> In other words, there'll be a whole lotta stuff running on this
> machine. And I want it to be responsive... not just "pretty good"
> and definitely not sluggish.
>
> On my current (nearly ancient 150 MHz) laptop running Linux, I can
> do everything "pretty good", except that when watching movies on it
> the sound and video get out of sync and when I browse to some
> particularly hoggish websites, the CPU load goes up to 4 or 5 or 6
> or more. I don't want that to happen on the Linux VM on the new
> laptop... or on the other VMs either.
>
> So does anyone here run something like this? If so, what CPU and
> graphics card does your system have and how much RAM does it have?
> Does it run "pretty good"...? or slow...? or does everything come
> onscreen the split-second the finger leaves the mouse button? Can
> you watch movies and have the video and audio stay in sync? Does
> everything on the web come up fast, or do some pages take awhile to
> render?
>
>
> TIA for responses, favorable and unfavorable.
>
> Shopping with eyes open,
> ken
>
>
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You probably need to max out the RAM that you can feasibly fit in the laptop if you're
running 3 x VM concurrently. You may want to swap out the internal HD for an SSD if you
want maximum responsiveness - some laptops use 5400 RPM drives because the speed is "good
enough" and teh battery drain may be significantly lower.
Be aware also that VMS aren't free in terms of processor load - each VM you add concurrently
will slug the proecessor some more - how much depends vary much upon what you're doing with
each VM.
For a meaningless reference point: this is the smallest Thinkpad I could find. I added in
memory to max it to 8GB and I can manage two VMs concurrently where one is CentOS and one
is Debian with no lag or problem. I'm not running intensive databases and other "stuff"
in the background at the same time, but I am running a desktop (KDE) and graphical
virtualisation manager as well as KVM.
Extra RAM is an easy after-market upgrade: replacing the HD with an SSD is also fairly
feasible.
Hope this helps,
AndyC
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