Laptop buying guide part one: Confused memories of a computer shopper – L2 Cache, RAM and Hard Drive
What does all this mean??? Read on to find out...
Computer shopping has always been about specs and stats. That’s unlikely to change anytime soon and it’s important to understand the key vital statistics. Memory choices are critical to the performance and longevity of your purchase, so here in the first of this two part laptop buying guide is the memory geek-speak translation.
Memory tech words which tend to pop up on sales listings are RAM, L2 Cache and Hard Drive (also called Hard Disk). In order to understand them we are going to imagine ourselves in a library.
What is L2 Cache?
In our library there are bookshelves, desks and chairs. We walk in, find twelve books from the bookshelves and put them on the floor next to a desk. We sit at the desk but it’s only big enough for a few books with enough space left for us to work. So we pick the three books we need right now from the floor pile and put them on the desk.
The desk is our most convenient and fastest retrieval location for referencing our books. It’s also the smallest. This our Level 2 Cache, or L2 Cache.
The L2 Cache is a temporary storage space used by computers for ultra-fast access to frequently used data. When we take a book from the desk and start reading it with our brain and eyes, this like a computer retrieving data from its L2 Cache and reading it with its main processor chip. The L2 Cache is actually located within the main processor itself, so it is a physically small storage area of around 0.5-12MB.
How much L2 Cache do you need? I would recommend 1MB upwards for Mac OSX, Windows 7 or Vista. Netbooks running Windows XP are fine with 0.5MB.
What is RAM?
What if we need to read a book which is not on the library desk? We look in our pile on the floor. This is a bit slower than using a book already on the desk, but we can put more books on the floor than we can fit on the desk. Looking in the floor pile is like a computer using its Random Access Memory (RAM).
Accessing data in RAM is fast, but slower than the L2 Cache as it sits outside the main chip and connects via fast data lines like our floor pile of books. Since RAM is not constrained by the physical real estate limitations of the main chip, it can store far more data. RAM sticks with capacity of around 0.5 to 1 gigabyte are common these days. Computers typically accommodate two such ’sticks’.
How much RAM do you need? For Windows 7, Vista and Mac OSX 2GB is typically fine, but it’s worth going to 3GB if you are planning to use a lot of multimedia applications like video or photo editing. This will give the computer some breathing room.
What is the Hard Disk?
If the library book you need is not in the floor pile then you have to get up, walk over to the bookshelves, find the right book and bring it back. This takes way longer than picking it up from the floor pile, but the bookshelves can store far more than your floor pile. The bookshelves are like a Hard Drive. They can store vast amounts of information and Hard Drive data remains intact when the computer shuts down, unlike your desk and floor piles which you will clean up when you leave.
Hard Disk data is stored on a set of spinning platters which are read by a needle. The occasional ticking noise you hear in a computer is the Hard Disk being physically read.
How much Hard Disk space do you need? External Hard Disks can be easily bought and plugged into a USB port, so it is not critical if you under-purchase. However with laptops it becomes inconvenient if you run out of space, as although you can add an external drive you are unlikely to want to carry it along with your laptop. So for laptops my advice is to buy a machine with as much Hard Disk space as you can afford; look for a laptop with upwards of 160GB capacity. Video, photo and music files are typically large so if you plan to store lots of these then max-out on your Hard Drive at purchase all the way to 320GB or more.
It’s worth knowing that you cannot control what gets stored in RAM or in the L2 Cache. The computer decides what to put in there, such as open files the in process of being modified. When you turn the power off anything in the L2 Cache or RAM gets wiped, whereas data in the Hard Disk remains intact when the power is off. Similarly you clear the desk when you leave the library and return any books to the bookshelves. This is why it is important to save any open files before shutting down a computer.
What are the expansion options?
For the L2 Cache, the only expansion route is to replace the main processor, which is typically only feasible for a desktop computer.
Laptop RAM can normally be upgraded as long as the computer’s motherboard is able to handle the extra capacity. For example my older MacBook is unable to accommodate more than 2GB of RAM. If your laptop can accept an upgrade from your current RAM level then it is normally a case of removing the existing RAM sticks and fitting correct spec higher capacity ones.
Laptop Hard Disks can generally be upgraded, but it is a delicate process which involves cloning the data from the current drive onto the higher capacity drive in a precise way. The alternative we discussed earlier is to purchase an external Hard Drive, which are readily available these days at reasonable prices.
Holding back the tears
Finally, when a laptop gets sick (read “dropped”) or feverish (read “struck by a virus”), its Hard Disk can be vulnerable to permanent amnesia. So, be nice to yourself and buy an external Hard Drive to back up your photos, music and all those other precious memories.
So that’s the translation of memory geek-speak. Here’s hoping for clear thinking for your next purchase and an end to confused memories!
I originally wrote this article in 2007 and have updated it to reflect the 2009 laptop market.
Neil Berman
Click here to read part two: How to choose a laptop processor (2007).
Expert question: Why is it called Level 2 Cache? There is actually a tiny cache even closer to the main brain in the processing chip called Level 1. However this is so small that it is really only used for very temporary storage and rarely quoted in store listings.
YouTube and other Flash video about to become smoother for some
This one has been a long time coming, but praise be: Adobe Flash with graphics hardware acceleration is in Beta release. There is finally a light at the end of the tunnel for exhausted computers.
What this means is that if you have a supported video card then Flash will soon be able to use it to decode video streams coming from Flash based sites like Youtube and Hulu. These video streams, especially the HD content, often bring computers to their knees because the processor has to do all the decoding work at present.
It’s not all roses and romance though, because the new version of Flash will not love all video cards. Most importantly it does support acceleration on Intel’s 4 series chipset, such as the GMA4500MHD, which is found in many mainstream laptops. Other supported cards include ATI’s 4xxx series, some 3xxx series ones and most of Nvidia’s 8xxx, 9xxx, GT1xx and GT2xx ranges.
Notably the older Intel GMA950 and X3100 chipsets, commonly found in netbooks and previous generation laptops, are not supported so continue to expect some less than ideal viewing experiences on these platforms. If you can find a site which streams using Silverlight you might have better luck; for example my netbook happily runs Netflix which uses Silverlight.
Neil Berman
Inside the new NYC Apple store at Broadway & 67th
Apple’s latest store opened today to rapturous cheering from fans, some of whom had camped overnight to among be first inside.
Here’s a video of what went down when the doors opened, plus a walking tour of the actual store and a gallery of photos from inside.
Neil Berman
Apple store opening this morning in New York City
It’s a busy morning at Broadway and 67th on the Upper West Side in New York City.
Apple is opening its latest store here in just a few minutes, here’s what the busy scene looks like…
Neil Berman
Update: And the doors are open!
Pre-orders seem like a good idea but…
…only one of mine this year has arrived on time. Halo ODST: Yay bonus code, arrived a week late. Modern Warfare 2: Yay free $20 gift card, but late and getting later. Windows 7: Yay only $49 AND on-time, thanks NewEgg 
The salt in the wound right now is that clearly Modern Warfare 2 has been a huge seller and widely declared to be awesome. In fact the Halo 3 online community has shrunk by about 150,000 this week and I’m stuck being one of those left behind. There can only be one reason for that. At least I know my copy has shipped, I just don’t know if it’s coming by airplane or horseback. Maybe it’ll arrive by stealth bomber like the Droid, although that would leave a nasty hole in the sidewalk.
Neil Berman
Sennheiser MM450 Stereo Bluetooth Headset Hands-on
At yesterday’s CES 2010 preview in New York, I got some hands-on time with Sennheiser’s premium MM450 headset. This pair of ultra-light foldable cans support music streaming, remote control over playback and call management, as long as your device supports A2DP and AVRCP (so iPhone users beware). My initial impressions were positive, with solidly resolved basslines and clear highs. The MM450 also offers active noise cancelling although there is a lesser model, the MM400, which skips this feature and drops the price. Speaking of the damage to your wallet, you’re looking at $299 for the MM400 and $499 for the MM450. That puts the MM450 in a price bracket beyond the noise-cancelling Nokia BH-905 and the MM400 beyond the Sony DR-BT50 (reviewed here recently), but Sennheiser thinks they’re worth it.
Neil Berman
CES 2010 New York Preview
Gary Shapiro, President and CEO or the Consumer Electronics Association
Gary Shapiro and his team presented some interesting info at yesterday’s CES 2010 preview in New York. Here are some choice inclusions:
- 2010 holiday spending will likely be down 3% compared to 2009. By comparison 2008 holiday spending was down 15% on 2007.
- Overall gift spending is likely to be up 4% but consumer electronics (CE) gift spending is likely to rise by 8%. Average CE gift spending per person is likely to be $222 this year compared to $206 in 2008.
- Holiday spend on computers is projected to rise by 17.3% projected for Q4 2009 compared to Q4 2008
- 80% of consumers are hoping for a CE gift this year.
- Netbooks have appeared for the first time in the top ten gifts desired by teenagers.
- We are more likely to see retailers pushing value-oriented bundles of multiple devices and higher margin feature-rich offerings than a flood of basic cheap devices.
- The explosion of affordable devices in the 7-13 inch spectrum is likely to continue. These are likely to be comprised of mainly netbooks or e-book readers. I also expect the new class of Intel’s Ultra Low Voltage CPU powered ultraportables to eat into netbook sales in this class of screen size and weight.
- 14% of tech enthusiasts and 8% of other consumers own a netbook.
- 6% of tech enthusiasts and 4% of other consumers have e-readers such as a Kindle or competing devices.
…and there was a funky stat from Gary that more than 1,200 hours of video footage is uploaded to YouTube every hour!
Frank Davis, Ford’s Executive Director of North American Product Development was also on hand to talk about the technology present in the current Taurus, which was announced as the official car of CES 2010.
Monster Cable announced that John Legend will perform at the CES 2010 Retail Awards ceremony.
Happy holiday shopping, keep the economy going y’all
Neil Berman
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- Frank Davis, Ford’s Executive Director of North American Product Development, talks about tech in the Taurus
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- Gary Shapiro, President and CEO or the Consumer Electronics Association
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- Monster announced the John Legend concert which will take place during CES 2010
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