2630qm or 2670qm for gaming / work?

Is there any different between those 2 (2630qm vs 2670qm), except for the 200mhz increase?

Which one would you guys preferred, because 2630qm is $50 cheaper then the 2670qm, right now while the stock? Not planning to upgrade laptop as processor cost double/triple then desktop quad.

I would buy the 2670qm, but I might go cheap if this doesn't do me any good for college work (no cad/animation/photo, and etc), light programming (maybe), and medium gaming / long hour of gaming with friends in school.

 

It depends what your "might as well" tolerance is. Technically, you can get away with just an i5, but since you're getting the 2630, then obviously you're not buying just for "need".

 

Well I might need it, since I not planning to upgrade for long time. The laptop I have is handle down, have it 4 years single core celeron. It did good, but this current gen, opening browser/programs take more then 3 sec, sometime the cpu go straight up to 100%, maybe my spyware program scanner taking up cpu.

I wanted a quad, since I may go back to doing drafting/architecture/engineering, or just stick to my current major in programming.

 

Won't make a difference, save the $50.

 

Oh that what I was thinking.

Can anyone tell me if 2630 qm ever reach to it max up to 2.9?

 

Likely not. From what I've seen, Sandy Bridge CPU's will jump to 0.1 to 0.2 GHz of the max turbo speed, even then for a short time, and then slowly reduce speed. Depends on number of threads running too. If one core is maxed out, then it will probably ride at 2.6-2.7GHz. If more then will drop quickly.

 

For your needs, I would say that 2630QM is more than adequate.

The 2670QM is only 10% faster.
While $50 is not really a lot of money, I don't think you need it.

 

even on my mbp 13 when under load it can reach its mac turbo speed for 2 cores

 

Two cores or two threads? Was it hyper-threaded on the core or two separate cores?

 

Its a guess that it was using HT, but the load was on both cores. 90% load.

 

It's all about the balance of the TDP, it will stay max turbo on two threads all day because shutting two cores off will save more power than it uses spooling up the other two.

 

The only way, IMHO the 2670qm is worth it is:

if you're like me and ordered the 2630qm, and then the 2670qm came out before it shipped. THEN it's worth the 2670qm because the 2630qm dropped in price $50... may as well get the 2670qm and call it a "free upgrade of sorts". This happened to me with my NP8130. If you're going to do a lot of gaming time, while needing to do programming and some basic schoolwork, then a 2630qm / GTX 560m is MORE than enough for 95% of games out there. However, we would need to know what you primarily game with before fully putting judgment there.

In Short:
2630qm (Unless you ordered and can get the 2670qm in its place since it hasn't shipped yet)
GTX 560m

Jason

 

They are both VERY, VERY fast notebook CPUs.

I personally went with the 2720QM over the 2630QM, and paid ~$150 for the jump. The 2670QM gives near-2720QM performance for a $50 bump.

Is it necessary? Probably not. Is it worth it? That depends on the notebook it's going in and what you're using it for. For general use and even gaming, a 2630QM is fine.

Generally the reason most people have gone with higher CPUs than the 2630QM is native support for 1600/1866/2133MHz memory. But 1333MHz is still really fast and just fine, so a system with a 2630QM and 1333MHz memory is really good in terms of bang for the buck, especially if you don't ever plan to upgrade anything, or just add some memory later.

 

Its not worth it, only a select few applications would benefit, and even so, only by 10%. memory doesn't matter either speed wise, since latency goes up as speed does. Just save it for a SSD or more ram.

 

Isn't the 2670QM just the same thing as the 2720QM?

2.2GHz w/6MB Cache

Just had to ask because that's pretty identical to me.

 

they just lack some instructions, much like the 2760qm looks exactly like the 2820qm

 

The added instructions in 2720qm are not crucial though and very few would see benefits in them.
From a performance perspective though, the cpu's should perform the same.

 

Oh I see, but their overall performance should be the same though right? And by instructions what do you mean?

 

Central processing unit - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

read it throughly or do a quick search for mmx

 

Hello,

I am also trying to decide which processor to choose. Besides the price difference, what else is different between the processors? If I look at the Intel compare page, there is just little differences:
Compare Intel® Products

What I also wondered, how about power consumption and (as a result) heat generation?? Will the 2670qm because of the higher frequency use more power and generate more heat? Or is there no difference? (both are specified at '45 watt max TDP')

Thanks!

 

Yeah, the 2670QM, being more efficient, will produce more work/output but no more heat generated than the older/less efficient/earlier stepping 2630QM.

 

Actually the 2720QM has higher turbo modes than the 2670QM btw.

Also not necessarily, early chips can use higher quality silicon to ensure good yields. As this is just a speed bump any improvements could be made to average yield rather than power consumption.

Since intel has 0 competition in this segment they have been really REALLY lax with their binning.

 

talking about efficiency... a little heads up...
I have recently upgraded from 2630QM to 2760QM....
Both have the supposed TDP of 45W , means same heat but more work

HWmonitor showed 49W when putting 2630QM at full stress, while on 2760QM during full stress , it shows 55W. Now that's whole 6W more power consumption which makes 2760QM not as efficient as it looks on paper...

 

'Full stress' is not equivalent workload.

Of course if you push a better processor it will use more power - it is doing much more work.

With equivalent workload, the heat output will be the same or less for the '60.

When the cpu is given it's 'head' - it will heat up more - but it will finish the job faster so the total heat given up will be the same, or less, for a given finite and not an infinite (time-wise) and synthetic, load.

So while it can hit 55W - that shows the efficiency to me - not the inefficiency as you think it shows.

 

u didn't get my point.......
as both processors are rated at 45W TDP max.......
so now lets say' 2630QM does 54GRops when fully utilized.... and it does so by using 49W.
And 2760QM does 60GRops when fully utilized... now officialy both have TDP max of 45W so i would want this processor to use at least 49W if not less.... and maintain 60GRops.....
If it does so then it is TRUE EffICIENT compared to 2630QM..... but if it doesn't and only does 60GRops while using 55W then i would say it's simply a FASTER processor not EFFICIENT.

Now about heat output ... u said for a given workload ,total heat will be same or less???
but that won't matter because while finishing that workload.... 2760 will be at 55W and produce more heat at any given time than 2630QM. Sure it will finish early but while doing the job it will be hotter than 2630QM.
Hope i make myself clear....

 

These CPUs are allowed to deviate from their specified TDP, but only for a short duration of time.

In the long run, heat will be roughly the same because they will scale to about the same turbo bins just to maintain the same 45W specified TDP. Of course, there are a dozen other variables that can affect the turbo multiplier. In the short run, if you can finish X task in less than one minute, then you wouldn't even care about the heat produced. Efficiency is highest when the task is completed fastest, no matter what way you look at it. The CPU is able to idle fastest, thus reducing the overall 'average' power consumption.

 

gull, no, you are not clear because efficiency is not measured like how you would like it to be measured.

See:
Sandy Bridge-E: Core i7-3960X Is Fast, But Is It Any More Efficient? : Sandy Bridge-E: Could The -E Stand For Efficiency?


That is how efficiency is measured: on an equal workload. Not on the peaks (or valleys).

 

I understand what you are trying to say since your first post.
but u didn't get my point.

 

Very interesting...

So if I understand correctly, when both processors are put under full load, the 2670qm will use more energy and produce more heat. But only for a minute or so. After it throttles back, it will perform the same as the 2630qm, and use the same energy (and produce the same amount of heat).

So that means that if you compare the processors, the advantage is clear for the 2670qm if you use the processors for 15 seconds under full load. It will then be able to do 10% more work.

But if you would put the processors under full load for 15 minutes, the difference would be much smaller because the 2670qm will throttle back after a minute or so. So for the last 14 minutes they will do the same amount of work.

Is this correct?

 

2630QM when put at stress can still maintain 4 cores at 2.4GHz for long time.
while 2760QM can maintain 4 cores at 2.8GHz under continuous stress.
so i guess 2670QM should be in between somewhere (u get the idea)

 

do u mean energy efficiency?

 

yes
all i am saying is that if one processor is faster... so what ??? it does so by consuming more energy. Then why is it being labeled as more efficient????

 

I misunderstood what gull was asking, I thought he was referring to the turbo bins, not the total frequencies. There are so many factors that come into play, but Intel bins their chips accordingly to allow for higher sustained frequencies based on the base clocks.

 

gull, I think we are saying the same thing.

But true energy efficiency is not a static 'snapshot' of a component.

It is power consumption over time for a given workload.

The 2670QM will work harder/hotter when pushed (but will still stay within it's TDP...), but for the same workload - it will finish faster than the lower performing 2630QM.

So, with the workload the same, we can compare that the '70qm consumed 'x' Watts of power over 'y' minutes and the '30qm consumed 'X' Watts of power over 'Y' minutes and then calculate that the '70qm used less overall power (in Watt Hours) and is therefore more energy efficient.

The flip side to this is that with the greater output/performance of the '70qm, we can demand more from it and it can seem like it is less efficient while still staying within it's TDP (seen as less battery run time, etc.) - but that is comparing apples to oranges.

Almost like saying an athlete sweats much more than a 'couch potato' when both are running/crawling the 4 minute mile - so therefore the athlete is 'less efficient'.

 

so which is worth buying the is 2670 or the 2630?

 

I'd go with the 2670 because it's a newer model and faster overall processor than the 2630. It probably has a great deal of the kinks worked out that were plaguing the 2630.

 

As usual, the newer model is the one to buy currently - even if it is offered at a slight premium to the 1 year old version.

 

With all 4 cores at 100%, the 2630qm will run at about 2.6-2.7ghz during the short duration of the turbo boost cycle (when the TDP is at 56w). Then, after about 30 seconds, it will start dropping like you said, and eventually settle @ 2.3-2.4ghz once the TDP drops to 45w

This is of course changeable with XTU

 

If I could buy again a laptop, I would never buy a i7 again (with exception of the dual cores in the i7 range)

I suggest you buy i7-2640M, which is a dual core with hyperthreading running at 2.8ghz
This one is more TDP efficient. So Turboboost runs longer when activated.

And when gaming when your video card is being used at the same time, you will definately like the combination.

I have found many cases already where I wanted a faster clock per core.

If you happen to compile stuff like Android AOSP ROMs, kernels or doing other cool things, the 2630qm will come in more handy.