WoW MoP: Faster with 2.8ghz i7-640M Dual-Core or 1.73ghz i7-740QM Quad-Core?

As the title states, would World of Warcraft Mists of Pandaria run better/faster with a 2.8ghz Dual-Core Core i7-640M or a 1.73ghz Quad-Core Core i7-740QM?

Currently the laptop running WoW MoP is an 8540W with the i7-640M but a friend just bought an M4500 with an i7-740-QM and she only plans to play CoD4/5 and CoD BO where I know the 2.8ghz i7-640M would run faster but I don't want to swap CPU's if my other friend isn't going to be better served by the quad core seeing as she plays WoW more than the other plays CoD.

I have to open both laptops anyways to apply AC Ceramic to the CPU's and GPU's as both are still running the 3+ y/o stock thermal paste and I want both laptops to run cooler so it's not a matter of the trouble of opening them up, it's a matter of which CPU is going to serve each person the best.

Rest of the spec's for the 8540W that are relevant are:
1600x900 LCD ( WoW run @ Native res )
FX 880M 1gb DDR3 stock clocks 550mhz/790mhz GPU/MEM
120gb Mushkin Chronos Deluxe SATA-600 SSD
4gb DDR3 ( 2x 2gb )


Summary:

This all about which CPU would best serve the 8540W and World of Warcraft so is it a 2.8ghz Dual-Core i7 or a 1.73ghz Quad-Core i7?

 

No input from WoW gamers? Not one little bo peep?

 

The 740QM would run WoW better.

 

No it wont. Altho wow supports up to 3 cores it benefits more from highly clocked two cores than it would henefit from a low clocked quad core. Main portion of the game is still running on single thread with game engine offloading addons/sound/network traffic onto other cores. I did some testing in cataclysm and i3 540 dual core overclocked to 3.8ghz was giving much better fps than a i5 760 quad core clocked at 3.0 ghz. Biggest difference was seen on aoe heavy fights such as adds on ragnaros in firelands raid.

I know im talking here about desktom cpus but point remains the same. Wow isnt properly optimised for quad core performance.

If you have fps issues try turning off shadowscand reducing particle density down a notch.

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You're gonna tell me you have two machines with the exact same GPU that you happened to test WoW performance with?

 

Its not a secret that wow likes high clockspeeds, like many games based on ancient engines - eg. World of Tanks (which only uses 1 core). But to answer your question yes and no. At one point i upgraded from i3 540 to i5 760 and until i overclocked i5 to have the same clockspeed as an i3 i suffered stuttering and fps drop in certain aspects of the game (mainly heavy fights, like adds on ragnaros). Later on i tried disabling 2 cores (basically making my 760 run as a dual core cpu, while keeping it overclocked) and running tru entire wipefest evening and there was no difference in performance. If the architecture is the same - in games like wow, lol, wot clockspeed makes all the difference if you have at least 2 cores.

 

As far as CPUs go, I think the i7-740QM will fair the better. It is a newer generation, offers 4 cores WITH hyperthreading, and it does do turbo, so if wow only stresses like 2 cores then they will likely be set to over 2ghz.

That said, I am not seeing the i7-740QM with any intigrated video options, and the Dell M4500 has the option for some really good GPUs, so the question remains on these laptops you are buying, what GPU's are they coming with? That will be the deciding factor.

 

Both i7 640m and 740qm are of a same architecture - One is codnamed Lynnfield other Arrandale but are both based on Nehalem cores, difference is that dual core cpus have integrated gpu on die and quad cores dont.

Turbo Boost in its first iteration was not as aggressive as it became in sandy bridge, ivy and hasswell. If it were the question of Sandy bridge 2xxxM vs 2xxxQM i would vote for sandy bridge quad (2xxxQM cpu) core no questions asked - much higher turbo speeds, more aggressive turbo, ability to sustain turbo speed for longer period of time and biggest jump in clock for clock speed (lynfield vs sandy bridge favors sandy for around 20%).

To say once again - in games like wow that benefit more from higher clock speed (we are talking here about 800+ mhz difference as 640m also has turbo boost) difference in wow will be extreme.

If i use "cool" power profile on my laptop (and lock my cpu to 1.8 ghz) and i did quite a few times in various parts of 25 man raids i get serious lag spikes - once turbo is on and cpu kicks in to 2.8ghz or more lag is gone. I did turn off 2 cores once to test how much battery life i would get out of it and by the time my raid started i forgot to turn 'em back on - there was no difference in wow. Cpu was dancing around 3.0ghz true entire duration of the raid and i didnt notice and difference or any lag spikes.

Only scenarios where i see 740qm pulling ahead of i7 640m are some serious video renderings where core count would matter. But considering 1ghz base clock difference i doubt there would be many.

Also about wow and cpu scaling - read this.

 

The higher-clocked dual-core will beat the lower-clocked quad-core in WoW and don't forget that the i7-640M also has Hyper-Threading which will help it out a bit. WoW used to be a lot more single-threaded and the Cataclysm DX11 update greatly improved CPU performance but there's still clearly a main render thread. It's definitely not as well multi-threaded as, say, BF3.

WoT on the other hand is absolutely hopeless. It loads one CPU thread to 100% no matter what while the other 7 just sit there idling with basically 0% usage. I haven't touched the game in a while but as far as I know they still haven't multi-threaded their game engine at all.

 

Are you always this uptight? Unclench a bit bro LOL.

 

Ahh my bad, I thought I was dealing with an ivy. That would explain why the lack of onboard video. However that also brings me back to asking what was the add-on GPU, because if its strong enough it would beat out a 640m using integrated video easily.

That said, it seems like we are dealing with some old tech here now, I don't know why you would not stick with the much better 3rd an 4th gen intel options.

 

640m for games is much better and expensive. Period.

edit: was expensive

 

Sometimes getting a CPU from a donor machine for free is cheaper than buying a new laptop with newer tech
Besides once you go Elitebook it's hard to go back to a plasticky consumer device.

 

I feel you, elitebooks are laptop tanks. I have a 8460p elitebook with 2670qm and 6470m gpu. I only use for for my ebay business. I take it everywhere with me.

I love the 3 years warranty. I can send my laptop out for warranty repair on a Monday and it will be back to me on Wednesday or Thursday, no joking. For business, I will never go back to any consumer grade laptop.

 

...what are you talking about?

 

Paahk the caah in Haahvad yaahd.

Seriously though, you may not realize this but every one of your posts comes off as snarky or overly aggressive in tone. Tone it down a bit man, it ain't good for your blood pressure.

 

I think you might be reading into things too much.

 

Others are welcome to prove me wrong.

 

I really don't get irritated unless someone posts something superdumb.

 

Like when someone claims that a higher-clocked dual-core will outperform a lower-clocked quad-core of the same CPU gen in WoW (which is the truth)? You sounded pretty irritated there.

 

I really don't see where I came off as irritated. I expressed surprise that he was able to test it with two different rigs that both had identical GPUs and different CPUs. Also, my understanding was that Blizzard had implemented better multi threading support in version 5.0. Like I said, reading too much into it.

 

They did but 1+ ghz on the side of the dual core. And such a low clock un first gen i7 make dual core much more viable option. If it were 200-300 mhz difference as is 2nd 3rd or 4th gen i would say go with quad as newer ones have much better turbo control and do not suffer from such massive performance drop at lower clock speed as 1st gen core i series.

At a time when i was wow and overclock freak i did a lot of testing. And most of data i wrote here i did test myself. Expecialy about turbo boost as i did too much testing before i made transition from desktop to notebook. I even sold my htpc as im doing everything by notebooks now.

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Both will run wow fine. I have run wow on an old m4400 core 2 duo, sandy bridge 2860QM and a 4700MQ and its all GPU based for me.