3520M or 3610QM ?

Hey guys! Im growing more and more impatient. The time came to place my order for the 3610qm with a 680m, low and behold the 3610 was out of stock...!

After fiddling with the specs I have came across the 3520M and was wondering why it cost more than the 3610QM and if i'd see much of a performance loss (or gain) in games like battlefield 3 and diablo 3.

I have done abit of googling and unfourtunately I cant seem to find anything in terms of gaming peformance.

At this point any help would be a big help!

 

The 3520M is a dual-core/four-thread CPU where the 3610QM is a quad-core/eight-thread CPU. There's 6MB of L3 cache on the 3610 versus 4MB on the 3520. More L3 cache does help speed up the system when accessing the CPU.

For any games or applications that take advantage of multithreaded performance, the 3610 would be a better bet. For single-threaded performance, the 3520 might be a better bet because it's 2.9GHz versus the 2.3GHz on the 3610. It also has a higher boost clock up to 3.6GHz on the 3520 versus the 3610 at 3.3GHz.

This might make more of a difference with Windows 8 versus Windows 7 for multithreaded performance, though for single-threaded performance, the 3520 would be a faster option.

I'd always prefer quad-core over dual-core for future-proofing, though if you can't get it, that won't obviously work.

 

So, does the increase in dual GHz compensate or lack in performance when compaired to a weaker GHz but quad core?

 

No. Buying the i7-3520M is like begging someone to r*pe you in the ***.
The i7-3610qm has four cores and can get to the i7-3520M clock speed when using only two thanks to turbo boost.

Most likely you can try to find a situation where the i7-3610qm will be slower than the i7-3520M, I doubt you'll succeed and if you do it'll be insignificant. In almost all cases it will completely tramp over it. And it's considerably cheaper.

 

No. If you want to play BF3, get the quad, especially if you're getting a 680m.

 

the other reason the 3520m costs more is that it supports vPro and VT-d virtualization, whereas the 3610qm does not. the 3610qm is the budget version of the quad core series and doesn't have everything fully enabled. the 3520m is fully functional, top tier dual core chip. without VT-d, certain virtualization applications and features won't work, or will perform poorly if they happen to have a software based work around. vPro is a management and security feature as far as i know, you wouldn't use it unless you were a power user or needed it for business or especial management purposes.


in mutlithreading the 3610qm is definitely faster, but as previously stated slower in single or dual threaded workloads by a margin. the 2520m has the equivelent of about an additional MB of caché over the 3610qm if you compare the amount of caché per core in each chip. 2520m has 2MB L2 caché per core, and the 3610qm has just 1.5MB per core. this might have a marginal impact on performance.

personally I'd go for the 3610qm, should be nearly twice as fast in multithreaded performance.

 

Look at the clock speeds. A dual will be faster singled threaded by all of 9%, whereas the quad will be like 80-90% faster in multithreaded tasks. vPro and VT-d and all the other extra extensions are useless for gaming.

The 3610qm is the obvious choice for OP.

 

Even though the 3610QM is the "budget" quad core, it still is a quad core, an in most situations it will actually best or equal the 3520M. Like R3d said above, most of the features that aren't unlocked won't affect your gaming. i suppose an important question is though, what else will you be using it for? Because if you intend on using it for something requiring those features, i would look into a higher model quad core. 3720 perhaps.

Also, bear in mind, if you find the 3610QM is lacking, you can always upgrade later on.

 

i7 3610 2300mhz

1 core 3300mhz
2 core 3200mhz
3-4 core 3100mhz


3520m 2900mhz

1core 3600mhz
2core 3400mhz

You are giving up 300mhz on single threaded apps and 200mhz on dualthreaded apps.

People seem to look at the base clock speeds alot. In my experience with my 3610 on my G75 it turbo's up ALL the time and seldom ever runs at 2.3ghz its always higher. My G75VW gets within 50mhz of the max turbo values above. Not to mention having a quad futureproofs your laptop alot more than a dual core.

So as others have stated already there is virtually no difference, even if you wanted to use the high end features VT ect, running virtualization on a dualcore isn't ideal.

I know there will always be others that will defend dual cores, but really i can't see any negative in getting a quad other than its currently out of stock.

 

Another vote for quad core. Windows 7 manages all your background tasks among the four (eight) cores very well, so even if your application only utilizes 1 or 2 threads/cores the other stuff is managed by Windows on the other cores. And in most cases apps that use only 1 or 2 threads don't beg for raw clock speed anyhow.

 

Quad Core only going forward...

Dual Cores are like yesteryear's muscle cars: one trick ponies that although fast, are not relevant in today's world (at least not as daily drivers...).

 

Out of the non-Extreme quad cores, the 3820QM, 3720QM, and 3615QM have the VT-d for virtualization. The 3612QM and 3610QM don't have it.

I changed the processor selection in my HP Envy 17 from the 3610 to the 3720 for that reason, plus the higher clock speed.

 

These days dual core 2c/4t aere as fast as the desktop quads that first came out in fact way faster on anything single threaded. My dual core is slow and still is ok. Now an i5 3210m is twice the speed with triple rendering scores etc that would be amazing leap in performance for me.

Overall most users would still be better of with a dual core but with a 680m a minumum ius an i6 quad core like the 3610qm over the 3520m.

 

Yeah, you've proved my point: comparing today's dual cores with 6 year old quad cores... lol...

Not only have processor's evolved significantly - the O/S's and Software that use them have too...


Note to self: Forget Dual Cores (old, old, old old news...).

 

Don't get the dual cores have 2c/4t so they have 4t hence why theres not much bottlenecks anymore going with a dual core as it will run well on quad core optimised games. Notebookcheck even had only an i3 2310 bottleneck a gtx 560m gpu. now an i7 3520m is around 60% faster which makes it great for mpst gpu's. Even with a 680m it should do ok but the i7 3610qm will beat it on most very high cpu and gpu intensive games.

 

2C/4T gives at most 30% improvement (AT MOST) vs. 4C (plus the additional 8T's which give even more performance over the ancient 2C concept...).

You keep going back to how it doesn't matter with a specific dGPU - but you know what? It just doesn't matter to you (and your 'spec' driven logic).

Even one of the OP's specific games suggest QC not DC:

See:
Battlefield 3 system requirements - Battlefield 3


And this will only be the new 'standard' going forward...

Forget 2C!!!

They're the performance equivalent of 1C (circa 2005) computing standards... and cost the same or more than 4C technology today.

 

Thank you for all the help guys, It's been interesting seeing all the information pile up and has seriously helped me decide on what CPU to go for, the 3610QM.

Again, Thanks guys!

- Edd

 

Good choice. Is that nowback in stock. 3610qm and a 680m will go well with each other and should be good for games in the future.

 

I did say with the 680m an i7 3610qm is the one to go. My point with dual core is they are plenty fast for most gpu's like 650m. Heck my p7350 can play modern games and that was the slowest 45nm c2d 25w tdp cpu back in 2008. i5 3210m with a gt650m is adequate.

go on notebookcheck compare cpu's and most i5 i7 dual cores win easily on most single threaded and dual threaded benchmarks.

I am ne for getting an i7 quad core but a dual core normally does not throttle and most manufacturers use cheap 90w psu that throtle with i7 quads but most machines with i5 dualcore don't throttle.

Look at this and see my point that most laptops an i5 is good enough:
Intel Sandy Bridge Processors Gaming Performance: Part II - Notebookcheck.net Reviews

Only high end gpu's like 680m/7970m an i7 quad is worth while.

Also an i7 quadh as 4 cores and an extra 4 threads with hyper threading which = 8 total possible threads not another 8 threads. The 2c +2t= 4t dual cores are more then enough,

 

2C are not enough for 2012 (even with 4T). Glad the OP got it.

 

You don`t gain so much by going quad core with the two games. But you will with a good amount of games, so quad core is the way to go, especially with a 680m

 

It is more then enough. My p7350 still can play games in 2012 and that was the slowest 25w dual core. The i7 3520m is 2-3x faster then my cpu and has a lot more memory bandwidth and the ht makes it play great on games like gta 4. Also the i7 3610qm is a must with a gpu like a 680m. dual core i7 3520m won't get you cutting edge performance overall when recording gameplay with fraps.

 

cloudfire the i5 3210m hammers those pentiums listed so battlefield 3 single player will easily work with i5. The i5 3210m is as powerful as the top end i3 desktop cpu. An i7 3520m will easily take care of gaming for gpu's like 660m or 7870m.

 

It depends on what you`re aiming for.
There are a lot of games out there that do benefit from more cores and faster CPUs

 

Cloudfire, source for those images?

And likely that is single player and not multiplayer which has a significant difference in requirements.

edit: found it here: http://www.legitreviews.com/article/1877/3/

And it was from single player map "rock and a hard place". I'd like to see MP with quad core vs. dual core, and I can guarantee there will be a significant measurable difference.

 

Well I haven`t looked in to that. That may be true

 

Just for fun I ran a same map caspian border with i7-3610QM stock, recorded framerates, and then used msconfig to disable two (four) cores, rebooted an played another round and recorded with fraps. Same map, same server, same number of players, similar play style (primarily infantry, little tank/jet)

For what it's worth, 4 cores = 62fps, 2 cores = 56fps. However the gameplay was a lot more smooth with the quad core than dual core, with fps dips into 20's with dual core but no lower than 36 with the quad. Not quite an exact comparison but more for reference I guess.

 

It gets ugly with a dual-core when you're playing an RTS or an MMO and it starts to get crowded.

Though in many cases there's not much difference, when it does matter you'd wish you had a quad-core.

 

Ha! That's what you were doing with msconfig (and configuring the boot options...)!!!

Good test! This proves (to me) what Quad Cores offer that Dual Cores just don't anymore: a certain 'minimum' amount of performance, no matter what the task. After all, we're not just running our (single) programs in DOS anymore (everything is multi-threaded now from O/S, drivers to software).

 

Yeah, lol.

here's the fps data with trend line dual vs quad (click to enlarge image).

 

Thanks HTWingNut for the graph. It explains a lot

 

Well, it may not be completely accurate. I'd need an actual dual core to get better data, just a thought though, only thing I can do at the moment.