m11x R1 vs. M11x R2 Core i5 vs. M11x R2 Core i7?

Forgive this probable repeat discussion thread, but I've browsed through multiple pages of this forum and many pages of the benchmarking thread. I'm not able to find a relatively quick and easy comparison between the Core i5 and Core i7 versions of the R2, to determine if it's worth the extra ~$130 or so.

Any web sites that have done these comparisons? All I see are Core i7 reviews all over the place.

 

I found a comparison in the main section of NotebookReview that just does a wPrime test. It may be somewhat helpful to you. Unfortunately, it uses the SU4100 from the R1, not the SU7300, but it can still give you a good idea. This helped me to decide to go with the i7. I would tell you how it is, but I don't have it yet.

I wouldn't rely too heavily on wPrime, but I recommend running it on your current system to get an idea of how it compares.

Short of repeating what's already all over the forum, you're the best judge of what your needs are.

 

It was recently reported that the i5 is on par with the SU7300 from R1.

If you want more power and a zippier windows experience, I'd recommend the i7, at the cost of less battery life.

But between an i5 and a SU7300, it seems the SU7300 is better, it performs about the same or better in games and uses less battery, unless you want the optimus technology for long term.

 

I disagree with the suggestion to get the Core i7.

If you want longer battery life and a VGA port, get the R1. You sacrifice support for Optimus, and all of the driver updates that are coming out for Optimus. If you want a (slightly) more powerful CPU, get the R2 Core i5. You sacrifice a VGA port and about 15%-20% battery life, but you get Optimus support.

The Core i7 is faster in CPU benchmarks. But nobody buys the Alienware M11x to run CPU benchmarks or do video transcoding - they buy it for gaming. And the Core i7 will not show any significant improvements in gaming for almost every game out there.

If you have money to burn, or simply want "the best" and are willing to pay for it, then the Core i7 may be of use to you. But if you want bang-for-your-buck when buying the M11x, then the extra $150 to upgrade to the Core i7 is better spent elsewhere (like an SSD).

 

DING! agree

 

How about for Emulation? I know that certain emulators need really good CPU speed. Shouldn't the I7 help that?

 

I get around 7 hours with my Core i7. The battery life issues seem to have been resolved via new video card drivers and other updates (Command Center, etc.).

 

The CPU's in the R1 and R2 are both overpowered for emulation. I don't think it will matter.

 

Well, I still can't get past 5 hours reliably, so I can't recommend the i7 for more battery life. I have the new CC update, but not the latest drivers, I'm on the official 257.30

 

Can you post specifics of how you got 7 hours on an R2? Or even a picture.

I have disabled a lot of stuff and still no more than 5 hours.

 

Is this 7 hours of straight use? Or half idling, allowing screen to turn off, comp to sleep. I highly doubt it is straight use and am rather skeptical. Even if you have the screen bright on lowest, wifi off, and sitting on idle you would have a hard type topping 7 hours.

 

I don't believe him honestly, he was posting he got 8 hours before someone else called him out on it.

Maybe with the screen turned off and idling.

 

I get 6.5+ surfing the internet on wireless, screen all the way down, on balanced power mode (I did tweak it some, though), no 335m use, so 7 hours isn't out of the question.

 

I need at least 50% brightness, otherwise it's just too dark for my tastes

 

Unfortunately LCD is one of the most power hungry components on a laptop.

I get 6-6.5 on power saver, wifi, browsing, Outlook, Excel/Word, with one bar of brightness. My browsing (FF with NoScript and Adblock+) is also Flash and ad free unless I allow it. That's me using it non-stop all day at work, sleeping it during lunch.

 

If it were me, and it was my money right now, and I was purchasing a new machine... I would 90 percent sure get the I7. It is no secret that I dont like optimus, however I do really like the added horsepower of the I7.

Do I regret buying my R1... absolutely not. I score very high most all game benchmarks and I have only found 2 games that are just not very playable.

If you want a "more" future proof m11, buy the R2. If you are a control freak like me, and want the absolute most battery, get the R1.

BW, StevenX

 

How much battery life do you really need, the power block for the laptop is abut 1.5x as large as a pack of cards..

 

I agree with you that the difference in battery life between 5.5 hours and 7.0 hours isn't that big of a deal.

However, I need to disagree with you about carrying around a power brick. Usually, the power brick isn't the problem - the problem is that there aren't any outlets near you.

For example, you may be doing a lot of work in classrooms, lecture halls, conference rooms, or libraries where there aren't outlets near you. Or you're running around in airports a lot, and your particular home airport is an older one that doesn't have power outlets easily accessible. Or you fly a lot, and don't fly on airlines that have upgraded their domestic fleet to have power outlets in each seat.

 

I would like it if the battery was easily changeable, then Alienware could offer a "Extra Battery Pack" option and you could change your battery on the go.

I don't really regret getting an R2, but I do wish it had better battery life. But I rather enjoy the extra processing power, more than I thought I would.

 

Yeah, I also wish that the R2 had a replaceable battery. That would have made the laptop just 100% super-sweet.

I mean, it's replaceable *enough*, if you bring a screwdriver with you, right?

 

The funny thing is the configuration allows for a swappable battery, but for whatever reason they didn't make it that way.

 

Eh, probably because two years down the line when all of our batteries will no longer hold a charge Dell can tell us to send it in for repair and charge us 500 dollars. And when we ask if we can just buy a replacement battery they will laugh in our faces. Not to be pessimistic or anything but I could totally see Dell doing something like this.

 

I'd go with the i7 if you have the $$, i5 if you dont.

Core 2 duo has 2 available cores, i5 has 4-ish. (Not true quad core).

I've seen reviews online showing the i5 getting better formance in games that require more processor power. (In GPU heavy games, its true the 7300 and i5 perform roughly the same)

 

Pretty sure there will be aftermarket batteries available by then.

 

The battery in the Alienware M11x is not swappable, but it is user-replaceable. There are even specific instructions in the user manual on how to do it. You remove the bottom cover, remove the two screws holding the battery in place, and replace the battery with a new one. Then screw everything back together.

They kept the battery internal to save space, not to try and screw you on repair / service fees down the road. Creating a swappable battery mechanism requires the laptop to be larger, since there needs to be room for all of the plastic rails, latches, sockets, etc that are required for a swappable battery.


The chassis on the M11x is not like the unibody Apple MacBook Pros, where you need to send the laptop in to the manufacturer for service on the battery.

 

Benchmarks have repeatedly shown that there are basically no performance benefits to the Core i7 over the Core i5, in either general application use or gaming. Especially gaming. The Core i7 will show improvements in synthetic benchmarks, or with CPU-intensive activities like video transcoding. But nobody buys the M11x to do video transcoding or run benchmarks all day - they buy it for gaming.

Even if you had the money, I would not recommend the Core i7. The $150 you spend on the upgrade from Core i5 --> i7 would be better spent elsewhere, like on an SSD. The only situation where I could see the Core i7 being a worthwhile purchase is if money was absolutely no object, and you simply had to have "the best" just to have the best.

 

Even then, "The Best" is questionable, because the i7 gives you a lot less battery life.

I do believe it's ridiculously fast for a netbook style machine, but since I haven't tested the SU processors I can't say how much better the experience is on an i7 vs a SU. I can tell you it feels faster than my Q6600 desktop with 4gb of ram...

 

you forgot the i3..

why dont u consider i3 ???? it could actually have the same battery life as c2d..

 

The Core i3 is not available worldwide. For example, it is not available in the US.

And the Core i3 will not have significant difference in battery life than the Core i5 and Core i7. All chips are based on the same architecture and manufacturing process.

 

Thanks for all the input, everyone!

I definitely think I'd go with the i5. The extra 1-2 hours of battery life aren't worth the lack of optimus + driver updates, and whatever CPU power there might be to boot, yet I doubt I'd ever make use of the extra $150 worth of i7.

Now the key - anyone know of some good deals going on, maybe some coupon codes? Seems like I missed out on some of the best deals a couple months back, unfortunately.

 

well, by that logic i might as well get the i7 as it is based on the same architecture and will not provide a significant difference in battery life, right?

also, for all the people talking about about the i7 being pointless, please speak for yourself. while it might be true that YOU got the m11x for gaming some of us actually do use it for other stuff as well, including video encoding and the likes, thank you. personally i do enjoy the gaming on the m11x, but i also use it as a highly portable and fairly high powered business laptop on my work trips. i run sim programs on the system, as well as doing video encoding for promotional and private purposes.
and yes, i already had it happen to me once that a customer approached me after a meeting asking me why i brought a "gaming" laptop with me. funny enough after 5 minutes of messing around with it he would have wanted one for himself

lucky me i didn't have to choose between the i5 and i7, as due to a special offer the i7 was only 50 more than the i5 of the same configuration...

 

Are you a US resident? I mean, for 150$ more than the 949$ they sell the base i5 model, you could upgrade the processor to i7, 2GB of RAM to 4, and 160GB 5400 RPM HDD to 320GB 7200RPM, and BT, which still won't make the biggest improvement on performance, but it's quite a deal IMO. Of course, it also costs a bit more tax too, meh.

 

That is correct. The Core i7 does not decrease battery life in any noticeable way. The people that state otherwise are talking out of their butts.

Read my last post about Core i5 vs Core i7. It specifically states the use case of video encoding being the one reason to get the Core i7.


>>>Benchmarks have repeatedly shown that there are basically no performance benefits to the Core i7 over the Core i5, in either general application use or gaming. Especially gaming. The Core i7 will show improvements in synthetic benchmarks, or with CPU-intensive activities like video transcoding. But nobody buys the M11x to do video transcoding or run benchmarks all day - they buy it for gaming.

>>>Even if you had the money, I would not recommend the Core i7. The $150 you spend on the upgrade from Core i5 --> i7 would be better spent elsewhere, like on an SSD. The only situation where I could see the Core i7 being a worthwhile purchase is if money was absolutely no object, and you simply had to have "the best" just to have the best.

That may have been the case with your specific purchase, but it may not be available for everyone. And even if it was available for everyone, I would question the benefit of a Core i5 --> Core i7 for people who want to use this machine for general application use and gaming. For those people, I still believe that money is better spent towards an SSD than a faster CPU.

 

Or you are always saving money by flying last class which means that the only outlet is in the galley and the flight crew will pointedly remind you that they have dibs on that one.

 

There have been a few airlines and models of planes that had 12V in-power seating, where you could charge with a 12V DC airline power adapter in coach (last) class, where the poor people like me sit. However, this was uncommon in the airlines that I have flown.

More recently, I'm also starting to see a lot of airlines with newer planes that have in-seat power just about everywhere. I flew Cathay Pacific from JFK to Taipei, and they had in-seat power (see pic below). When I flew Continental from EWR to Amsterdam, they had shared in-seat power (2 outlets per row of 3 seats).



I think it's great that the M11x has relatively awesome battery life. But if there's in-seat power, I'll take it!

 

I think he was referring to more recent emulators, such as PS2 and Gamecube. In those instances, yes the I7 would definitely give a nice boost. For actual PC gaming however, the I7 makes no real difference except in a handful of games.

 

I am a US resident, and I would definitely pick the 7200RPM over the 5400 RPM drive, 4GB over 2GB, and maybe the bluetooth upgrade instead of the Core i7. After reading this thread, I personally would have absolutely no use for the i7 vs. what the i5 gives.


Now just looking for some nice coupons but if I don't see any, I'll probably order one within the week.

 

I have the R2 with i7, 8GB, 500GB 7.2k, 258.96 drivers and running McAfee. 5 hrs was the best I've got.

I think those who manage to get 7 hrs are running on SSD, less taxing antivirus, disabling plenty of services and etc. Users getting 7 hours, care to share your setup?

For me, I have no regrets getting the i7. I do a lot of work on AutoCAD and surprisingly, the R2 handles it quite well. Indeed my previous XPS M1530 with C2D T9500 runs AutoCAD faster at high res, but the weight kills my back and the battery runs flat after an hour or so.

 

I also run AutoCAD 2011 on my machine. with official driver. but it's not smooth enough for my work. the software still detect only the intel adapter and not the Nvidia one. have also experience this with the official driver?

 

wow, a 7 month necro.

 

This thread might be more relevant when the R3 refresh comes out. A lot of people (myself included) are going to be weighing the R1 vs R2 vs R3, looking to save some cash and get the best bang-for-buck.

Let's keep it going.

 

I know you're going with the R2, but for anyone else looking at this thread, you might be interested in this.

Newegg.com - DELL Alienware M11x (AM11x-826CSB) NoteBook Intel Core 2 Duo SU7300(1.30GHz) 11.6" 4GB Memory DDR3 1066 320GB HDD 7200rpm NVIDIA GeForce GT 335M

M11x-R1 down from $900 to $650. The same config is $745 on AW.com.

Just my $0.02, because I've been looking into an M11x. Personally, I'd wait to see what the R3 brings to the table if you can't, but if you have to buy now, I'd go for the i5 R2.

 

If I buy a M11x, it'll be after the R3 comes out. Then, I can see if the R3 is worth the extra buck and the i5/i7 R2 will be cheaper on the Dell Outlet (refurb).