i7-620M vs i7-720QM

what would be the difference? i know that the 820M has only 4mb cache and 620QM has 8mb. the 620M has 2.66(3.33 overclock mode) and 820QM 1.6(2.8 overclock mode). which one would be better in terms of real-time gaming? does the extra 4mb cache would make that big of a difference even though it's only 1.6ghz?

 

Do you mean i7- 620M?

 

i don't think there is a i7-820m only i7-820qm

 

yes. sorry for the typo.

 

Can you edit the numbers and title in the OP?
Should probably be "i7 620M vs i7 820QM"

P.s I would really like to know if there is a real difference between the i7 920XM and i7 820QM because there is a BIG price difference.

 

Well, obviously, the i7-820QM is a quad core compared to the dual core.

The cache really won't make that big a difference, if any.

As for whether it's worth it, depends what kind of games you play. IF you play games like GTA4 that like quad cores, then yes, the quad would be better.

 

how do i edit the title?

 

didn't know that the i7 620M was a dual core. i thought all i7s were dual core.

 

PM a moderator for the title, (you still didn't state them right it's "i7 620M vs i7 820QM")

But It's Quad v.s. Dual core > 8 threads v.s. 4 threads

 

I think you also mean the i7-720QM here. The 820QM has clocks of 1.73Ghz/3.06Ghz.

i7-620M vs. i7-720QM take the faster dual-core unless you're seriously going to tax 4 or more cores.

 

You are right Phinagle (the speeds tell it actually should be "i7 620m vs. i720QM")

 

well i feel stupid. this is going to become a useless thread. it would be a better comparison for 620 and 720.

 

There have been dumber things posted.

Anyway the 620M vs. 720M topic has been discussed a lot on NBR so you can get opinions from any of those threads but until benchmarks are run on the 620M you won't get answers.

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


Benchmarks on the i7 quads have been run against each other so there's more solid comparisons to be found on them.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=442139

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=452795

 

Hey at its not dumb if others can learn from it ;P

 

LMAO

There is a 620M vs 720QM in NBR. 720QM in overall is more favoured. 620M is Arrandale while 720QM is Clarkfield, the older right?

Edit: It looks like 820QM is just a small step ahead 720QM in those above benchies.

 

Yup any mobile i core with a 6xx model number or lower is a dual-core 32nm Arrandale w/45nm IGP. Any i core with a QM at the end is a quad-core 45nm Clarksfield w/o IGP.

 

you might also want to ask yourself, how important is battery life for you? Dual cores will always get more battery life than quad cores. So it's a trade-off between performance and battery life really. That being said, the actual Real-time battery life increase between the i620 and the i720 might not be significant enough for you to choose the i620 over the i720 SOLELY for the battery life increase. But as i'm not familiar with the exact battery life of each, you might want to look into it, before making a decision.

 

also consider this: they use different motherboards.
so if you plan on upgrading to a faster i7 chip n the future like the i7-920, you may not be able to with an i620 (but it would be possible with an i720)

 

not from what i'm read. what i've read is that they have the same socket and motherboard

 

Thanks Phin! Can you educate me a bit more about these: The role and the advantages of IGP in Arrandale?

 

They use the same motherboard, if it was cheaper to go for the 620 it might be worth it but more and more games are being optimised for multiple cores. For instance check out the gaming forum right now, the battlefield bad company 2 beta runs much better on my 720qm then another users p8700 which I think is a dual core with higher clock speeds then my quad. He is getting 20-30 fps on lower settings and I'm running the game in 900p with med/high settings and it runs very smooth 50-60fps, we are both using 260m's by the way. Some games like quad cores more then others but it seems like forthcoming games will mostly run better on a quad.

 

Uro, I dont think a CPU can affect on game performance that much? Let's see what we are looking at here: Same GPU, different CPU. And we have:

P8700: Low settings 20-30 FPS
720QM: Med/high 50-60 FPS

Sorry but I dont buy that.

 

Isn't it better For this topic sake, to compare; i7-620M vs i7-720QM, else you should compare C2D P8700 with a C2D Q9000 those are from the same branch of development and in somewhat the same pricerange.

But I do believe (some) games are very CPU demanding (GTA IV) for instance, runs better on Quads then Duals.
So comparing this with new tech, I would say, (taking a game like GTA IV) would fare better with an i7-720QM.

 

The C2D had no way to make up for the extra core the XBox had over it, but Arrandale dual-cores have hyper-threading and while a logical core is not as fast as a physical one it does deal with the problem of bad console ports like GTA IV.

C2D vs. i7QM is no kind if valid comparison to 620M vs. 720QM...and neither is C2D vs. C2Q. I can make a case that based on benchmarks of Clarksdale (desktop version of Arrandale) that even though it's shown that, with it's 25% advantage in clocks, the i5-661 still loses to Lynnfield and Bloomsfield by 18-21 FPS in multi-threaded Far Cry 2, because the i7-620M has three times that advantage in clocks over i7-720QM (it's about a ~77% advantage) the difference in games that use 4 cores won't be that big....especially after you compensate for the lower overall FPS in mobile gaming.

But until we see real numbers run it's all guessing and speculation.




@ SillyHoney - The M17x chipset doesn't support the Arrandale's IGP so it's not a deciding factor in this case. If AW did support it then the i7-620M would have the advantage of switchable graphics.

 

Well, I went with the 620 so I'll post some numbers whenever it gets here

 

Out of curiousity, does anybody know the speed that the i7 720QM runs in dual-core mode with turbo engaged?

I know the XM is 2.66 GHz (or that might be the 820QM... can't remember or find the site I read it on!)...

 

i7-720QM hits 2.4Ghz in dual-core Turbo vs. 3.06Ghz for the i7-620M.

 

You ruined my last hope

Guess Dell will release M17x R3 around July which has mobo support IGP

 

That would more than likely mean no bios OC'ing.

 

So which is better? Or is it a matter of opinion/budget?

 

You mean with newer mobo that support IGP we can OC in BIOS anymore

 

It would be a different chipset so support would be questionable.

 

Well, so R1: Stutter, pale display

R2: Poor battery life

R3: No BIOS OC (probably)

 

shirleyfu has thrown up some benchmarks for the i7-620M (QS) over in the Hardware Components Forums:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?p=5802924#post5802924

His i7-720QM benchmarks can be seen here:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=452795&page=2

 

the benches ive run with mine to compare to that link above for the 720, mine scores higher than that ES. i cant see why you wouldnt choose the quad over the dual unless the price is a huge factor. lets face facts the M15 isnt really going to give super battery life if you want that buy a different laptop. going dual core in this machine is stepping backwards. if you want battery and some power and portable then get the M11.

 

The man speaks the truth.

 

Guess I'm doing the backstep then

 

Haha doesnt matter if you buy it some games are more cpu dependant then others, not to mention i7 being an entirely different processor then the C2D. Go check out the NBR gaming forum and look at the framerates posted by C2D users with the same 260m in my M15x.

 

Devolver!!!

This, ladies and gents, is why we will end up back in the sea one day...

 

It doesn't matter, sleey0 already has his RMA label ready before the notebook arrives. He's just testing the dual core so we'll know how it performs.

 

^

Yup, yup.

Joker knows what's up! lol

Nah, my decision is going to be based on the screen. If the RGB is better with black levels and contrast than the 1645, I'll most likely keep it

 

Well I'll be damned... You crafty rapscallion...

*feels slightly foolish*

 

Phinagle, correct me if I'am wrong (I think your the person to ask), but I did already do some reading about the differ between i7 Quad and Duals. But when running on two cores can they process 4 threads and on one core 2 threads? Because if so the i7-620m is still a very capable CPU! Only highly multithreaded programs/games are run the big difference in Calculation power comes to light. Or am I missing something here? (disregarding the IGP).

 

A single-threaded app running on a single core isn't going to make use of hyper-threading, and even with the higher overclock via TurboBoost it would be faster to run the two threads on two physical cores than to run them on one physical core and two logical ones.

TurboBoost overclocks on the two physical cores will stack with hyper-threading on 3-4 threads though.

Shirleyfu has a screen shot of it happening in the WinRAR benchmarks for the i7-620M thread linked above. techPowerUp.com also tested the combo for the desktop i5-661 here.

 

Windows 7 isn't smart enough to spread threads automatically on 2 physical core automatically. If you run a 2 thread application, it will spread onto all available logic processors.

 

actualy i remember reading about the fact that win 7 had the capacitie to tell the diference of the physical and the logical so that if you run 2 heavy application it will run them on 2 different physical core and spread the lighter ones on the logical

it was a technologie bieing devlopend dureing the beta test of window 7 ut it might not have made it to the rtm we might see it in sp1 though

 

SMT parking, and Core parking.

http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?i=3634&p=5

Note that Windows Server uses Core parking, while Windows 7 should use SMT parking; the difference being that core parking uses logical cores before physical cores (to save power) while windows 7 uses physical cores before logical cores (for performance).

 

It's probably been said already, but just to be sure:

620 4MB L3
720 6MB L3
820+920 8MB L3

Will help with complex tasks more than games I expect. Higher clocks are good!!!

I'd rather have 2 cores clocked at twice the speed of 4 cores. That way you are more likely to get the speed you want (as 4 cores with half the clock would have to be fully utilised which is less likely than with 2 cores)..

I hope that made sense!!

I mean 2x3.2GHz = 6.4GHz
and 4x1.6GHz = 6.4GHz

But most apps are still better at taking advantage of 2 cores than 4.