Just a quick question.

Hey guys i ordered my m15x with a i5-540 and was wondering should i upgrade it to the i7-740qm. I will be using this laptop for starcraft 2, CoD, WoW and school. Thanks alot.

 

I was in the same situation as you. Long story short I went with the 740M. I don't regret this at all. Not to mention by machine is now somewhat futureproof.

Especially with next gen MMO's and FPS coming out you'll love the Quad Core.

 

starcraft and WOW are pretty cpu intensive along with GTA IV as well. If you can step up to i7 either the 620m or 740qm. The 620m is awesome for gaming and the 740qm is overall well rounded for all usage since it is quad core but in gaming slight decrease in performance compared to 620m. 1 is dual core and one is quad core. The dual core has higher clock speeds and most games do not use quad core technology yet.

 

But just to give you an example of such. I'm running WoW on max resolution and settings as well as 8x AA. I have absurdly high FPS in all zones,cities and raids. I cant wait till FFXIV comes out

 

I went with the i7-620M/5850 combo and I can max all the settings in most games (except the damn shadows!!!) and be FPS maxed. WoW looks amazing now compared to my old 8600GT laptop. Since you play a lot of games I suggest getting the i7-620M instead of the i7-740qm or the i5-540.

 

I've been able to max the settings of every game i've played (as well as crysis). Now those are games that utilize only 2 cores, so when games that utilize 4 cores roll out (starting this september) the Quad cores (740M) and going to be steamrolling Dual Cores. Besides I love playing games and photoshopping and listening to music at the same time

 

Playing games and photoshopping at the same time is awsome... Kinda awkward when with your left hand you try to shoot the zombie you are drawing with your right hand though.

 

Just to correct, maxing settings in games(unless they relate to "intelligentness" of A.I. or player datas[no such option should even be available lol]), doesn't have much to do with CPU. At most maybe writing those settings to a conf file.
In theory you would get much less same performance from any game whatever maxed or not, considiring you use the same CPU, and your GPU doesn't have a problem.
However there is one important case, physical calculations! If you have a PhysX enabled game and a recent(after Ageia got bought by nVidia) nVidia card, then your CPU will be free of physical calculations. But if you don't have an nVidia card or the game doesn't support PhysX, then those physical calculations will need to be proccessed by your CPU, in which case I'm pretty sure an i7 quad will server you better but I doubt that there will be a recognizable difference between 740qm and 640qm due to the fact that 640qm has a much higher clock speed. In Benchmarks, you get pushed to the limits, where you will face the real difference between those two technologies, in which case quad is of course the eternal winner.
While this said, there is supposed to be a huge difference between i5 and i7 be it dual or quad.
But I higly doubt you'll get pushed to limits by WoW. While it is correct that player datas may overload your CPU however any i7 is good enough to take that load. At the end WoW is not a very demanding game, most people are usually limited by their connection(just because you have a 25mbps doesn't mean your connection is better but geolocation does).

If you want a quad, go for 840QM. If you can't afford it or doesn't care about quad/dual, go for 620M.

Note: Proper support for quad core(or even dual cores) isn't this september. Just because a few games which has a so called option to enable "multi-core processing" doesn't mean it is better. Dual core support is in games for a while but the support is like a crap and honestly I think game developers are joking with us No offense but thats just how it is. If they could provide support for many cores this easily, they could have done it long time ago as many core CPUs are in the market for a very long time.

 

I wish i could get the 620M but they are not offered in Canada right now

 

Go for 840QM then Is the price difference big, can you afford it? If you can't afford it, don't worry, i5 or 740qm will be enough for todays and atleast next years stuff. Games don't expand their CPU hunger much in time so no need to worry much

 

Can't afford the 840QM right now so what should i go for?

 

I went with the 740QM because I wanted a quad core processor for university work, I also know that it can run games like a pro. Although as long as you get the 5850 you'll be happy with either .

 

Did you read my mind? GET OUTTA MY HEAD! Jk.

Thats the exact reason why I got that cpu/gpu

 

Well.. No instant upgrade is required because your i5 is already capable of some firepower!
I recommend you to wait and collect some money. As I see you already have the i5 but thinking about upgrade, if you are upgrading, make your money worth the hassle. When you have enough money, go for 620M(NBR marketplace?) or 840QM.. or even something higher like 940XM if you can get enough bucks
But if you want to make an instant upgrade, it seems 740qm is your only choice, of course unless if you can find something better for a lower price from NBR Marketplace or around your city