i5-540M vs i7-620M vs i7-740M.

(Note: This is for the M15x, but as this is more of a general question about processors I'm putting it here on the general board.)

I have two questions:

1. Which processor (620 or 740) is going to perform best in gaming? I've researched this quite a bit but keep getting conflicting answers. Some say that the 640 will perform better since many things aren't optimized for 4 cores and the 640's cores are faster, but others say that having 4 cores will outperform 2 cores regardless. Price is not a factor since both cost the same in the M15x. I'm also aware that the 740 is superior for things such as video editing, but I'm only interested in playing the latest/soon-to-come games.

2. How big is the difference between the 540 and the 620? The i5 is $100 cheaper, and while I'm certainly willing to pay $100 for a decent performance boost, if they are almost identical I don't feel the need to waste money. Is the upgrade to the i7 worth $100?

Thanks in advance.

 

the 620m will be as good if not better than the 740 "in game" because almost no games fully support 4 cores. overall the 740 would be a better cpu for processing power. i have the i5 which ive put through the paces, and it performs pretty well, but if i had the choice i would have gone with the 620m and im trying to get one now, while i waitfor the 940xm tocome down in price a little. you can always upgrade later as well. personally i would go for the 620 dual core.

 

i5-540 - A decent processor for those on a budget, with high-midrange dual-core power. Enough for high-end gaming when paired with 5850.
i7-620 - For those who want the fastest dual-core--which will become obsolete soon. Buy the more future-proof quad-core i7-740; the 620 is the same price as the 740 and not a huge improvement from the i5, still being dual-core and not having a meteoric clock speed increase. The cache upgrade is not worth it, either.
i7-740 - An excellent high-end quad-core processor. A great price-performance value. Performs slightly slower in games than a dual-core, but Turbo Boost makes this slowdown extremely minor. A lot more power all-around. My recommendation.

Note: I own an M15x with i7-740.

 

for gaming it doesn't matter a whole lot. games today are far more gpu dependent than they were 5-10 years ago. plain and simple if all you want to do is play games a dual core will do just fine. if you multitask a lot or just want an overall more responsive system the 740 is the obvious answer, because by the time most games take advantage of 4 core processors and the performance advantage is big enough to squint at, it will be time for a new laptop


besides all of this, both the 540 and 620 have ht, so were not talking about strictly 2 core processors here, they *can* run 4 threads for a decent boost over non ht processors.

 

When is "soon?"

 

I heard this for the last 4 to 5 years. Oh Dual core going to be become obsolete soon way before quad core came out. When quad core comes out dual core will become Obsolete That odd it been 4 years. Fact is Untel More Apps support use Quad core. Dual dual core will be out for another 5 mybe to 7 years.

The only time I seen Computer world change from one type of cpu single core to Dual core really quick. Why there was a real use for it.

What I been learning only a few games that support Quad core. I found some good info from this tread **Contagion Review**Dual Core vs Quad Core**Gaming Results** - Overclock.net - Overclocking.net

 

Honestly, unless you are doing a lot of hardcore multitasking and all, stick with the i7 620m. It will perform better while gaming. But if you are on a strict budget, the i5 540m will probably fits your needs perfectly, it's a great CPU. I have both i7 720 and i5 520m and I can't notice the difference in everyday's tasks... Now when encoding video and converting music and stuff I can feel the quad core kicks in, but thats about it..! Worth 200$ Meh. Bragging rights is the only real reason why I got the 720
EDIT: Just looked at Atol's link, it's quite interesting, it should help you to make a choice.. is the difference really worth 200$ ?! Thats your answer!

 

Well at this point, I'm probably deciding between the 620 and the 740, so price isn't necessarily an issue.

 

yeh pretty much. i wouldn't say obselete, at least not in the near future. eventually it will be phased out.

Just remember how long it took for dual core to become the norm, it took ages from the release of dual core systems to even get games which supported them.

Anyone else remember the AMD timing clock error for some games in xp? that was a nightmare for the first dual core machines. turbo speed or stutter like nuts, no fun at all.

 

Recent games start to use more CPU and some are actually bottlenecked by CPU, which was rare few years ago. The developers start to know there are CPU power left untouched most of the time, so they start using it.

So, nowadays, it's not only about GPUs for gaming.

 

dont forget the business world and the budget consumer..this is far more important than the gaming world. so the dual core will be around for another 2 to 5 years. running office and quick books and email dont need 6 cores.

 

Here what funny Windows from 16 bit to 32 bit Took about 10 years. I have a feeling it will the same with 32 bit to 64 bit.

Now what I notice was when Amd and intel started with single core cpu and switch over to dual core. It was like 2 mybe 3 years almost every New computer it was Dual core. I think it was due to Quad cores where made 1 year after dual core. The cost drop on the Dual core and that why we hardly see Single core cpus. I think Intel and Amd are Waiting for programs to get off there Rear end and start Useing more then one core before adding More Cores to the chips. Also I think Intel and Amd are hitting a Brick wall again.

 

the 980X and 1055/1090 are 6 core's, so are A lot of Xeon chips(they come in 8 core flavor too), and Opteron chips come in 4, 8 and 12 core flavor... and if you want to get technical, ever since Intel introduced HT back into their chips, all their processors have twice the amount of execution cores too. So they both obviously think the program support is there. I think the waiting part is just the typical die reduction technology to catch-up so it can be cheap to the average consumer.

 

yup, however i think a big stumbling block is the programmers mentality.

for servers and large systems, they've always talked about productivity and running things in parallel... however in game programming, for many many years it's been structured around the limitation of the end users hardware... which until a few years back was a single core.

another issue is the API's used, if you are using someone elses code (directx/opengl/openal) you are relying on their code for multithreaded support.... yeh, gl with it coming anytime quickly. look how long it takes microsoft to get it right.

 

I really dont think we are Waiting for a Die reduction. I think we are Waiting for programmers. Anyone now can Amd quad core Desktop for a Low cost Under $600.00

A little fact on HT. Depending on the Software that use on the computer you might see a Performance boost or a Performance drop when useing HT.