M17x UK order 620 or 720QM better for gaming?, why cheaper?

Hi,

I am about the purchase the Alienware M17x gaming laptop and im cannot make up my mind which processor to choose.

the UK dell website does not have the 720QM listed but i gave them a ring and they do offer it as they only list the 620m and 820m and above.

620M up to 3.33 Ghz
720QM up to 2.80 Ghz

The 720QM is less than the 620m does anyone know why this is and maybe also why they dont have the 720QM in the customise selection page.

I am planning to upgrade to the higher screen resolution and plan to play the latest games such as bioshock 2 and mass affect and assasins creed 2 when it comes out.

Which processor would be better for gaming, Thank You all

 

Hi Luke. Personally dont bother with the 720 over the 620. There is next to no gain over them both bar a few mhz and the pricetag. Now if you was choosing a 920xm over the 620 then yea bite the bullet if you could afford it. Personally i would put that extra money into something like extra warranty or bigger hdds or towards a X-Fire setup.

 

Hi,

Sorry i made a mistake in my post above dell is saying the 720QM is cheaper than the 620m by £120

My insurance company is paying for a new laptop and they have specified the 620M but i am able to downgrade to the 720QM being quad core, in other words money isnt an issue between the two.

do you know why the 720QM would be cheaper from dell than the 620m its seems strange to me unless the 620m is the better processor, the uk site has a list of all the processors on the m15x customisation page but not on the m17 so i rang them.

would the 720QM because it is quad core let me run the latest games better like bioshock 2 and mass affect or is the 620m better as its a gaming machine.

 

I myself prefer a slower quadcore to a faster dualcore. But this is because I do a lot of other stuff on the pc than just gaming. I usually Run 1-2 virtual machines simultaneously and it just runs better if you can dedicate cores to the virtual machines.

For most of the gaming you will not see a major difference, as usually the gfx card becomes the bottleneck. Also, note that turbo mode depends on the number of active cores and the temperature you are getting.

Check out for a discussion:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=450403

 

Why would the 620m be more expensive than the 720QM from dell?

I need to tell my insurance company to either go with the 620m or change it to the 720QM, the laptop is purely for playing the latest games

is the 620m better because of the higher clock speed of 3.33Ghz or would the 720QM quad core with 2.8Ghz provide better performance in games such as bioshock 2 and mass affect 2?

which is better?, hope to get some feedback from you all

 

Dazzy if price does not matter which processor would you choose for the latest games?

 

You can google 720 vs. 620. There will be a link directed to NBR. Read it and make your choice. People normally go for 720QM except Sleey In gaming there is hardly difference since GFX card is the bottleneck, not CPU. Spend your time reading on Quad vs Duo Core also helps. Im being lazy on my phone.

For me I choose 720.

 

I have read all the threads to do with this.

I know the latest games are optimized for more cores but i feel like im sacrificing the speed of 3.33 Ghz for the 2.8 of the 720QM.

why would dell be offering the 720QM at £120 cheaper than the 620m , is this because the 620m is faster?

Im not sure to if i should tell my insurance company to go with the 620m or give me the 720qm as i can have either

i want the laptop to play the latest games for the next 2 years, dell told me for games the 620m is better and for multi tasking the 720QM is better so im confused.

which would you guys choose?

 

Normally I'd say go for the 620M for gaming but if the 720QM is £120 cheaper then the quad is the better deal.

The 620M can match the 720QM in apps that use 4 cores and is significantly better than the quad in apps that use less. Gaming falls into that category. (play WOW?). The dual-core Arrandale also does this running cooler and using less power.

The 720QM only gets better than the 620M when you're using the notebook like Wattos is...or when it's £120 cheaper.

 

Hi Phingale,

My insurance company has offered me the 620m and im not sure if i should ask them to change this to a 720QM, the price doesnt matter as they are paying but if the 620m is £120 more doesnt that mean its cus its better for gaming?.

i thought new games these days use 4 cores such as the latest ones coming out like new splinter cell and asssins creed 2 and bioshock 2 so would i get better performance with the 720QM rather than the 620m because of the 2 extra cores and what about the 8 threads?

did you mean gaming uses less than 4 cores?

 

I would lean towards the Quad Core

There will most likely be better support with gaming on quads in the future

 

Those 2 processors cost exactly the same at Dell U.S.A.

 

In the Uk the 620m is £120 more than the 720QM so price out of the way, which processor would you choose.

The 820QM is £290 more than the 620m so it has to be either the 620m or 720QM i have to ask my insurance firm for in the morning (uk time)

Are the latest games such as bioshock 2 and mass affect optimised for quad core?.

does this mean you will get better performance than someone with a dual core cpu even if they have a 2.8 Ghz quad and you have a 3.33Ghz dual 620m.

thanks for the replies guys, i cant decide, i need to know if ill get better performance for the latest games if they are optimised for 4 cores.

can someone explain if the 8 threads helps with the latest games in 720QM than the 4 threads in the 620m

 

My bet is that you wont see a difference. The unreal engine is pretty darn good. and its usually the gfx which is the bottleneck. Again, I would go towards the quad-core, but there will not be a huge difference in performance.

 

so if you choose the 720QM with a clock speed of 1.6Ghz up to 2.8Ghz compared to 2.6Ghz up to 3.3Ghz for the 620m if the game supports 4 cores does this mean you will get better performance and if it doestn the 620m will get better performance due to its increased clock speed.


in other words i want to know if its better to tell my insurance company to stick with the 620M in favour of the higher clock speed of 3.33Ghz

or

give me the 720QM because the 4 cores will give me more performance in future games, its the high clock speed of the 620m which is making me wonder should i switch, im only interested in it for games

 

So you will never actually see that £120 in your pocket if you go for the 720QM?

More and more games are making use of mult-threading but in the specific case of the 620M vs. 720QM the big clock difference and the addition of hyper-threading lets the dual-core catch up to the extra physical cores of the quad. It's different from the the Monty series when the C2Quads could be manually overclocked to reach speeds that matched the C2Duos. With no way to overclock the Core-i CPUs (other than the i7-920XM) the faster clock advantage of the Arrandale duos is going to stay there.

I say if it's not going to cost you or save you any extra money go for the i7-620M for gaming. It'll serve you as well or better in games now.....but if the time comes down the road when it stops serving you well you can always upgrade to a 820QM or 920XM.



The future of gaming though still lies with GPGPU....and that means even less dependency on CPUs.

 

If the game uses more than 4 cores the i7-720QM will have the advantge. (least common)

If the game uses 4 cores the difference in FPS should be small. (getting more common)

If the game uses less than 4 cores the i7-620M will have the advantage. (already more common)

 

Yes you are correct i wont see any of the money.

so do the 620m and the 720qm use the same motherboard, is it possible to upgrade in the future?

 

yes, you can even get the 920XM

 

The 720 is probably cheaper because the 620 despite being dual core, has a faster base clock and turbo mode clock as well as an integrated GPU on die. Although you won't be able to use the integrated chip with the M15x or M17x because of lack of support, you are still being charged for that feature of the chip. That's my guess as to why the 620 is more expensive.

 

Google 720QM Vrs 620 820 920 If you want bang for your buck for performance and cost the 720 is the way to go dont forget the i7's build it will out do any duo no problem it shuts down cores and clocks up needed cored. but again 720QM will get you everything you wanted and more.

 

inst the 620m much faster than the 720qm?

i think i have decided to go for the 620m as most people here are saying it will perform the best in the latest games such as bioshock 2 and mass affect 2 with the 4870 graphics card.

is this true?

 

Yes it is Faster but its a duel core compared to a quad and of course it will run todays games but it will lag in tomorrows a 720 will play todays games and tomorrows so why build a wall to climb over when you have the green light? Future proof your laptop the 720 will be able to demolish any game on the market now and if you do run into lag or fps drop its your GPU.
Always remember when it comes to gaming your processor comes in third on the must have it goes GPU MEM then Processor people get to caught up in the processors when the game is really run off your gpu and the processor helps it chug along.

 

Hi everyone, according to the benchmarks carried out recently the i7 620m is the better processor and performs better by far, also i found out the 720QM operates at 3.0Ghz at 2 cores while the 720QM operates at 2.4Ghz which is what most games run on.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=455347

read the post by IntelUser for the comparison of the 620m vs 720QM

Im guessing thats why its more expensive than the 720QM and the reason Dell dont offer the option of the 720QM on the M17x customisation page in the UK and just have the the 620m, 820qm and the 920.

 

it does offer the 720qm....

 

the link to the comparison and benchmarks

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=455347

 

I think 620qm is better than 720qm for gaming. After all, it has a higher core frequency. Similarly, x9100 is faster than qx9300 when playing games.

 

Agreed, if I had the option I would take the 620 for gaming. Unfortunately we don't have that chip as an option at Dell Canada.

 

I vote for faster dual-core also.....dont worry about "future-proofing" who knows what the future holds.
live for the moment and get the faster 620.
good luck with the purchase.

 

i cant argue the facts The 720 is a beautiful processer so is the 620 after the facts and again you can always upgrade so what ever your pocket wants

 

Okay here's a basic thing about processors Core 2 Duo's and Core 2 Quads can be overclocked also the i7 (self-overclocking feature "turbo mode"). We can add some more clock speed of the processors. But we cannot add more core's for the processor. Core 2 Duo has the high clock speed but you can't add cores like all of the processors. Core 2 Quads have low clock speed but you can overclock it so it would increase itself to the middle of today's normal clock speed without reducing the number of cores; you have 4 cores with the same speed and that would be great. The i7 quad's are great because of the new features but I don't like the unusual thing that it will self-overclock AND it will reduce the number of cores. So if the quads have the same feature as the i7 without the reducing the number of cores, this is the best for me in any field of gaming or other multi-tasking thingy.

 

Crylo, you should ring Dell canada to ask them about the 620m as Dell have seem to not list what they always have in stock.

I had to ring Dell UK to find out they did infact offer the 720QM for the M17x and the Nvidia graphics card they still advertise on their main marketing page for the M17x were no longer available.

I am going with the 620m due to the higher clock speed of 3.33Ghz single core and 3.06Ghz dual core and the reduced power usage and the reduced heat, i believe the quad will suffer from heat issues when the fans get older.

 

tbh luke its your call but id safeguard myself and get the quad core.Alot more games espcially this year and next will take full use of quad cores. Its your choice tho.

 

Just for the record, as long as you have the GTS 260M as a graphic card, you will have no problem running Bioshock 2 and such!

 

If you choose the 620 over the 720, you fail hard.

They're the same price! one has 2 cores the other has 4. DUURRRRRRRRRRR

 

People are forgetting about TurboBoost here.

Basically, with the turboboost listing below, the clock is displayed depending on the number of cores being used.

620 Turboboost:
1 core: 3.33GHz
2 cores: Stock (2.66GHz, if I remember correctly)

720 Turboboost:
1 core: 2.8GHz
2 cores: 2.6GHz
3 cores: 1.8-2.0GHz
4 cores: Stock (1.6GHz)

As can be seen, with turboboost taken into account, the 720 comes very close to the 620 in comparable core usage for 1 and 2 cores.

 

Hi i have found this from intel user on another forum at http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2039943

i7 720QM is a quad, but the clock speed with Turbo Mode goes like following.

1.60GHz Base
1.73GHz Quad Core Turbo
2.40GHz Dual Core Turbo
2.80GHz Single Core Turbo

i7 620M is like this:

2.66GHz Base
3.06GHz Dual Core Turbo
3.33GHz Single Core Turbo

See the clock speed differences? Even in heavily multi-threaded apps it'll be a wash because of the massive clock speed gap.

I'd go for the 620M, it'll be faster in most cases and competitive in the worst, and with better battery life and lower heat.

Also shirleyfu1117 who sells the i7 processors on ebay proved here http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=455347 that the 620m is better than the 720QM due to the higher clock speed, which IntelUser did a comparison of both the 720qm and 620m below the benchmark images stating

"In multi-threaded apps the Core i7 620M was on par, or faster than Core i7 720QM.
In single and lightly threaded apps, there was no contest, the
Core i7 620M wins by miles. There's no reason to opt for Core i7 720QM."

i guess it proves the 620m is better and thats why UK dell have removed it from their list for the m17x and only showing the 820QM and the 620m and 920XM.

 

lukehansford, I stand corrected. Didn't know that the 620 could turbo both cores at once.

HOWEVER, I'm pretty damn certain that the 720 can turbo to 2.6GHz with two cores.

All the same I think that the 620 is the better choice.

 

620 will be crap in a years time frame compared to the much more advanced 720 remember everythings going multi threaded so might aswell get the 720 people think about the now to much and also rely to much on a processors speed the 720 will run all the current games no problem so why get the 620? unless you plan on doing other things. But always always remember the only thing that really matters when it comes to gameing on a computer your gpus are the most important they will always always always be your biggest bottleneck.

 

The 720 will be crap in a years time.

So I'd go with the 620 for now

 

What about my poor Q9000?

In all seriousness, I agree, go for the 620. It'll basically perform even better than the 720 in quad-core optimised games due to hyperthreading-it'll see the 620 as a 4 core processor (or the 720 as an 8 core processor) but due to higher clocks, it'll run faster on the 620.

 

First you should research the games you want to play now and then pick your processor based on their individual system requirements.

I opted for the Quadcore because I will be playing a lot of Battlefield: Bad Company 2 when its released in March. Here are the recommended DICE system requirements for it;

Recommended Frostbite PC Specifications for BFBC2 & BF1943
Processor: Quadcore
Main memory: 2GB
Graphics card: GeForce GTX 260
Graphics memory: 512MB
OS: Windows Vista or Windows 7
Free HDD space:

15GB for Digital Version, 10GB for Disc Version (BFBC2)
10GB for Digital Version, 4GB for Disc Version (BF1943)