i5 2430M vs i7 2670QM (Advantages/Disadvantages)

Hi guys,

I had a few quick questions/assumptions I wanted to run by you all about the available processors for the M14x. My understanding is the i5 tends to run cooler, uses less power, but yields lower frame rates?

The i7, on the other hand, can run very hot, uses more power, but is the better option if performance is your main concern?

So that leads me to my questions:
1) how significant is the power consumption savings?
2) how significant is the reduction in CPU temperature?
3) how significant is the reduction in FPS between the i5 and i7?
4) jumping down to the i5 requires 1333Mhz RAM instead of 1600, how negatively will this impact performance?
5) slightly unrelated to the CPU conundrum above: how big of a power savings does using an SSD give you?

Any experiences? My goal is to increase battery life, but I don't want to significantly handicap the performance of my system.

Thanks guys

 

if your concern is battery life stick with the i5, very few games use all four cores anyway and the performance drop is very minor, but if you do alot of video editing jump to the i7 but i didnt grab the i5 so i dont know too much about it

 

another big difference between the two CPU's is the Heat. I-5 runs cooler and doesn't get as hot as the i-7 does. If you want the maximum battery life and a cooler machine, get the i-5

 

I was actually wondering the same thing, and although I haven't any experience with either processor I have heard that the Core i5-2430M runs quieter, cooler, and doesn't sacrifice too much performance (really, the difference would be almost unnoticeable, except when video editing, when it's a little more noticeable). I have also heard that the Core i5-2430M is faster when completing normal tasks such as typing documents, listening to music, surfing the web, etc. just because of the fact that it's base frequency is 2.4GHz (.2GHz faster than the Core i7-2670QM) and it turbo boosts to 3.0GHz. When gaming you may not see too much of a difference either just because most games are not quad core optimized, and only require 2 cores to play minimum/maximum settings. Some games may actually run better with the i5 because they are optimized for dual core processors, and a although the Core i5-2430M is a dual core processor, it can utilize hyper-threading technology to create 2 more virtual cores, so it's practically a quad core already, which is nice (of course the Core i7-2670QM creates 4 more cores, giving it 8 in total, which is nice but all of that power is not always necessary). So if I were you I'd go with the i5-2430M, just my opinion. Less power consumption which means more battery life, quieter, cooler, and less expensive, all without sacrificing TOO much performance.

 

Before you think about which processor you should get and before you think about any of the other configuration options, you need to make sure you upgrade to the 1600x900 display. The screen is the one upgrade you have to get if you're going to get the M14x. Of all the default specs in the M14x, everything is good except for the 1366x768 display. The 1366x768 display makes things onscreen big and is the biggest limiting factor you could impose upon yourself. The screen makes more of a difference than any other upgrade because it affects everything you do.

 

I ordered one with the 900 display

just needed some validation that my thoughts on choosing an i5 weren't crazy

 

congrats, im sure you will love your new system

 

I will! I used to want one of these when I was younger

The size worried/s me but it's only slightly larger than the dell I currently use for work (albeit 20-30x more powerful!)

 

Here's some validation lol...for everyday, you won't notice much of a difference if you aren't running CPU intensive tasks that will use 4 cores 8 threads.

For games, your bottleneck will continue to be the video card. Putting in a more beefy CPU will only speed things up slightly if at all (and only for game engines that are optimized for more than dual core)