i5 2520m 1GB GDDR5 Firepro M5950 VS i7 2720qm 3GB GT555m GDDR3

Basically which set up between the two will give me better gaming performance?

Intel i5-2520M (2.50Ghz, 4Threads, turbo boost up to 3.20 GHz, 3MB cache)
1GB Firepro M5950 GDDR5

VS

Intel i7-2720QM processor (6M Cache, 2.2 GHz with Turbo Boost 3.3 GHz)
3GB GT555m GDDR3

 

Should be around the same, but the i7+555m combo should give a bit better performance in CPU heavy games.

 

The Firepro is meant for CAD and things like that. Games will run really sluggishly on it as it's not built for games at all. The 555M laptop will run circles around the ATI card.

 

Wrong. I had a FirePro M8900 and the gaming performance is on par with its direct cousin the Radeon 6970M. You will only experience a 1-2 FPS loss. There is only around 200 3DMark Vantage loss between a stock 6970M and a M8900.

Also their BIOS'es are cross-compatible as well as Catalyst support.

Same case between the 6770M and the M5950.

The is not the same case for nVidia Quadros and GeForce as nVidia also does some serious hardware changes between the two as well.

 

Be that as it may, I don't think it's worth spending another $500 on a GPU that performs just as well as the gamer version. With that kind of budget you could spend it on the 580M. Workstation cards are significantly more expensive than the regular GPUs that gaming machines have. Heck, the outdated FX2800 costs more than a 580M even today.

 

I am not too sure about that... Either way, FirePros are actually around the same price point as a Radeon due to companies use them as a base card on their workstations. The Quadros are going to be more expensive than a GeForce. However ATI/AMD side of things, they are comparative actually.

 

This holds true mostly only for desktop GPUs. In the mobile GPU world, workstation GPUs generally don't command too much of a premium over "regular" GPUs when the systems are comparable (ie: Thinkpad T500 and W500).

In any case, though, I believe the GeForce GT555M system will outperform the FirePro M5950 system in most GPU-intensive programs, and the quad-core will give the GT555M system an upper hand in CPU-intensive games as well.

 

Hard to say since the M5950 is really a 6770M and we know where those debates went...

 

I say show proof for such a statement. Proof is your friend. ^_^