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Wayne HerbertFlag for United States of America

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Do I Really Need a Quad Core in a Laptop?

I'm looking at Dell Latitude 5580's, latest gen laptop... comes with USB-C (no more e-style port replicator).

I had spec'ed a PC with the following CPU:

Intel® Core™ i7-7600U (Dual Core, 2.8GHz up to 3.9 GHz, 4M Cache, 15W, vPro)

I contacted chat sales to see if I could get a better deal.  They sent me a quote that was more expensive... because... it's got a quad core in it.  And obviously, this also requires Win 10 workstation because of the number of cores.

7th Generation Intel Core i7-7820HQ (Quad Core, 2.90Gz,
8MB cache)

On the one hand, I say, "Kewl!"  Plenty of power for the future.  Yet, these laptops will only be running Office Apps... I don't think they'd ever see a PhotoShop or Captivate app on them.  On the other hand we do use large Excel spreadsheets and Excel supports multiple cores.

I had originally considered just using i5's... my home Toshiba laptop is an i5 and quite a few years old and puts up with most I give it, but, the HP G450's I have at work with i5's are not exactly beloved by anyone.

I also wonder about heat... 15 watts TDP for the U model, vs 45 watts TDP for the 4 core HQ.  To a lesser degree I wonder about battery life, although most of the time, the laptops will be plugged in.

Thoughts about the quad core?  Is this turning into a penis measuring contest?
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dbrunton
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>>  And obviously, this also requires Win 10 workstation because of the number of cores.

No.  Windows 10 Professional will work fine with this.  See  https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_10/windows-10-versions-cpu-limits/905c24ad-ad54-4122-b730-b9e7519c823f?auth=1  as for the number of cores that Windows 10 Professional will work with.

>>  15 watts TDP for the U model, vs 45 watts TDP for the 4 core HQ.  To a lesser degree I wonder about battery life, although most of the time, the laptops will be plugged in.

Those are (usually or should be) maximum figures.  Most of the time it'll be idling.  See  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermal_design_power

Go for the quad core.  Most of the time you won't need it but when you do you'll be grateful.  For example multi-tasking, if you have a number of applications open at the same time.
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Dr. Klahn

There was a time not so long ago when I would have said, "Yes, two cores is sufficient."  With linux, yes.  Windows 7, yes.  Windows 8, barely sufficient.  But not with Windows 10.
I have an I7 XI Carbon with 2 cores and 4 threads and 16 GB of memory. It runs Windows 7 Pro 64-bit, VMware Workstation 14 with several machines running plus Office and web browsers. It still loafs along a <5% CPU and does not have any bottlenecks (any VM has to start fully of course).

That does very nicely for me and I see no need for 4 cores.  

I have done almost as well with an i5 with 2 cores and 4 threads. ThinkPad X230 spare now running Windows 10 Pro 64-bit Version 1709 (1703 is the newest available in production).
You said yourself, it primarily for office apps.  Unless you expect to often have many tasks running concurrently, go ahead and save a few bucks.    Having a bit more CPU power is always nice, but an SSD and more memory on this puppy will make a bigger difference for office apps.  

One CPU is a 2 core/4 thread, the other 4 core/ 8 thread.    According to Passmark  the single thread rating on the cheaper CPU is about 10% higher than the higher priced CPU.  So even though the 7820HO is rated 1/3 higher overall, that's, when its fully loaded with tasks, -- it may not buy you much with simple office apps.  

Note you need to copy and paste the entire URL below to see the comparison.

https://www.cpubenchmark.net/compare.php?cmp[]=3016&cmp[]=2952
So, I use a Microsoft Surface Pro, i7 with a dual core/4 threads and it plows through most everything just fine, including Lightroom and Photoshop.  It also has 16gb of RAM.  That I7 will do you very well with Excel and if you have the extra memory, that will certainly help keep everything running just fine.
Quad Core CPU plus a dedicated GPU are designed for gamers and 3D application designers and you will see the difference in CPU usages on those applications.

https://techreport.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=119009
I do not game and, yes, they require more CPU power. But other heavy duty applications work fine on my machine.
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Steve McCarthy, MCSE, MCSA, MCP x8, Network+, i-Net+, A+, CIWA, CCNA, FDLE FCIC, HIPAA Security Officer
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Found that 8th gen Intel mobile CPU's are quad core, thereby answering my own questions.