2820QM facts ( pros & cons )

Hello everyone.

I'm making this thread because there seems to be many different opinions and views on this processor, I'm really considering buying this processor just because I don't want to regret not getting the higher performance processor.

Because I am in the UK I don't get the 2720... Which would have been the ideal processor for me so its either the base processor or the best one.

Can you guys list some pros and cons including battery life

Thanks !

 

You might want to make sure your processor exists, here is a list of all second gen i7 (look at the middle of the page).
Your 2828QM DOESN'T EXIST!

If your talking about the Intel Core i7-2820QM, then here:

+supports Intel Integrated HD Graphics
+quad core
+supports 8GB RAM per DIMM (maximum would be 32GB RAM if you have 4 DIMMs)
-doesn't work with previous i7 motherboards

 

Its listed on the alienware uk site

 

Oh w8 my bad could an admin change the title to 2820 please

 

If all your going to do is game on this laptop it has already been proven that just about any of the sandy bridge processors are too powerful to even have them as a bottleneck for gaming. Save your money and go for the more then powerful enough 2630QM. Now if you are doing any actual work on this laptop that is only dependent on the cpu, then you should buy the best cpu you can get on your budget.

 

How much of an impact would it have on my battery ?

 

Not much .... All the m14x processors use 45 watts

 

ah cool thats just what I wanted to hear...

So realistically there won't be any difference at all in battery life

 

Theoretically, correct.

 

Actually the battery life is much better with the 2820QM than with the 2630QM. Why? All chips are produced in the same way. After the production process they get classified and configured. So CPU's who don't get that hot will have a higher frequency. When you save energy, both CPU's are slow. But the 2630 QM will produce more heat. That starts a chain reaction. Fans need more energy, memory gets hotter, ...

German battery test (30% Backlight - no WLAN - no OPTICAL drive):

- 2820 QM 4 Hours 5 Minutes
- 2630 QM 3 Hours 20 Minutes

 

I doubt the accuracy of the test, just few lines of result without much info. And what he said at bottom is not true - 'US version comes with 3 USB3 ports and EU only get 2'

The difference will not be massive. Maybe be should get a better job that allow you to connect to the power outlet every 4 hours, or get a car with 12V socket

 

If there's a difference in battery, it wouldn't be by that much. And the difference between the two at idle should be next to nothing, even if there are slight differences in the processors.

 

My opinion:

Outside of you being a professional designer of some sort that requires the best of the best in terms of CPU, there is literally no reason to get anything more than the 2630QM. This isn't like the previous generation where the 920XM really was much more powerful than the 720qm.

Look up Passmark benchmarks for the 2630QM. It scores in the 6000 range, which is equivalent to desktop i7 processors. It's like 30 points behind the desktop i7-950.

Think about that for a second.

 

Believe what you want. I know my own truth. ;-)

 

Thanks for this ! i think i will get myself a 2820 QM then

this way i know i will have no regrets

When you guys get your nice new laptops can you post anythign you find out about the 2820 Qm please ?

 

Or you could just disable your turbos and get max energy anyway... Think about it.. It's an I7 at 2.0 ghz which at stock speed is going to be MORE than enough for our 555 nvidia.

I would like to see what the battery life is then.

 

No one's talked much about the second option. Would that be a good compromise if someone really wanted to get a good processor but didnt wanna go all out?

 

Link please ?

 

Intel Core i7 2630QM Notebook Processor - Notebookcheck.net Tech

 

Wow. Thank god I went with the 2820

 

I'm going to call BS on the 2820 lasting 45 minutes longer... It doesn't make sense. If you look at the spec sheet for the two, it doesn't look like they're even really that related. The 2630 is missing enough features, imo, that they couldn't just be reject 2820's. It's not like they just clocked it down, or disabled shaders like they do on graphics cards - the 2630 is missing the AES instruction set, all of Intel's higher end technologies (virtualization, wimax, wireless HD, etc.) and it doesn't support PC1600 RAM.
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