i7 940XM or nvidia GTX 460M?

I am aware that the title may seem stupid because one is a processor and one is a graphics card, but let me explain:

I'm buying a second hand M15x and I have a choice of two. Both are pretty much identical in price, and the specs are almost the same too. The only difference is that one has an i7 940XM processor with an nvidia gtx 260M, and the other has an i7 820QM but has an nvidia gtx 460M.

Apparently the 460M is a fair bit better than the 260M, but the i7 940XM seems to be ranked a lot higher than the i7 820QM. I think I'm leaning toward the one with the i7 940XM because cpubenchmark has ranked it almost 100 places higher than the 820QM, and if I ever decide to upgrade, the GPU will be less costly than the CPU anyway..

Either way, you guys know a lot more than me so I figured I'd ask your opinions. Which would you go for if you were in my situation?

 

What's the price difference b/w the two?

 

Practically nothing. The one with the i7 940XM is £20 more, and that's only because of the postage.

 

in reality you wont see much of an improvement over the cpus unless you overclock the xm chip, that being said would you overclock the xm chip or not. the cpu wouldn't give you that much of a boost in the gaming world compared to the gpu upgrade. As for me i overclock my xm on regular basis for video encoding, so if i had my choice i would go for the 940xm(if its an OEM), you can alway upgrade the gpu if your a gamer for and good card for under $400 (oh yeah and the 940xm QS chips goes for about $430 buck nowadays on ebay)

 

I doubt you will see any difference between the two CPUs in regular usage. Perhaps only if you use VERY CPU-intensive software VERY frequently.

I happen to have 2 M15x's at the moment, one with a dual-core 620M, the other with a quad-core 740QM. I would be hard pressed to distinguish between the two.

As for the GPUs, there is a world of difference between them, assuming you play recent games.

 

I would get the 940XM and then upgrade the GPU, since the CPU (from what I've heard here) is really powerful and OC'able to crazy settings. The GTX 560m is going for ~250, or you can also go for 6970m/6990m from ATI. If you're lazy to upgrade, then the second option would be better since the graphics is better and the processor is quite good already I believe.

 

Ok, what do you plan to use the computer for? More for gaming or video editing/encoding?

 

Gaming, with light video editing. So it looks like the better graphics card would be more suited for me?

 

I would say so but those XM's can go for as much as $400 these days and you can always upgrade the GPU for cheaper than that and if you get both you will have a pretty neat system

 

Yeah. I think I'm gonna get the one with the XM mainly for this reason. The GPU can be upgraded for cheaper.

Thanks everyone for the input.

EDIT: I actually changed my mind. After reading this page:
http://www.notebookcheck.net/Review-Intel-Core-i7-Quad-Clarksfield-CPU-Refresh.32161.0.html
It looks like the 940XM differs by literally only a couple of FPS, so obviously the better GPU will be MUCH better for me. Also, after reading that page it's unlikely I'd see the benefits of upgrading to a 940XM at all. So I'll likely get the one with the GTX 460M and leave it as it is.

 

The 460M sounds like a better deal tbh. And you really don't need a 940xm unless you're benching. A 920XM will do you just fine I'm running the 460M + 920XM rig and I couldn't be happier.

 

if you plan on playing sc2, i would go with the processor, b/c sc2 is more processor heavy than GPU heavy

 

i doubt that even in sc2 the processor will bring a great improvement, especially since the other cpu is no slouch either

 

SC2 runs in max res, all setting maxed silky smooth on my 740 with a 5850.

 

have benched the 5850 and 460m on seperate machines through 3dmarkvantage
5850 wins by about 1000 marks, both overclocked

I would go for the machine with the better processor as the video cards are very close in performance

 

but the option is between a 260M and a 460M, not the latter and a 5850. i have had both the 460M and the 5850, and the latter is both faster and less issue-prone (i.e., no throttling)

 

you are correct, sorry about the false comparison..