Choosing between i5 and i7 CPU for my new laptop

Hello everyone!

My first post on the forums and I hope you can help me with choosing a CPU for my new laptop. Apologies in advance - i tend to ramble a lot!

I decided to settle down with a laptop by PC Specialist - Cosmos II. Although not top notch, it is a good gaming rig that comes with an NVIDIA GTX 850M GPU on board. Its a formidable upgrade from my trusty 650M and will be enough for my needs. Other bits (RAM frequencies, resolution etc.) are also better than my current set up.

I saw a pre-build Cosmos II being sold elsewhere, but building it from scratch ended up being cheaper! I get 8GB less RAM compared to a pre-built rig (so only 8GB in total) and i will opt out from getting Windows pre-installed on the machine. In return I put in a 256GB Samsung EVO SSD and still come out with about £80 in savings compared to pre-built laptop.

Here is the dilemma. The pre-built machine comes with an i7 4710M CPU. Its tempting, but do i actually need an i7? I looked around and it seems gaming wise there is little benefit for frame rate between an i5 and the i7 4710M. On the other hand, the higher TDP on i7 means more heat and less battery. While i am not bothered about the heat, I am a bit bothered about battery life.

Now, i know that i am talking about a gaming laptop, so battery life shouldn't be something I can moan about, but i still want it to last ~3-4 hours off the grid if possible and my research shows that i can expect up to 5 hours. Although we all know how accurate 'up to' measure can be.

Help me out on this. I am currently running an i5 3210M and I was looking to get the same range but a newer architecture CPU - I5 4210M. By default benchmark-wise its already showing to be noticeably faster thanks to being a Haswell CPU and extra £70 in saving in addition to 'no Windows' bonus seems significant. Why spend more if it will make no noticeable improvement? But then I am limiting myself to a smaller cash and a dual-core versus quad-core set-up.

I am a bit stuck here. Too much analysis leading to a complete...paralysis (no pun intended). Have you had experience of comparing i5 and i7 on your laptops? Any major benefits in splashing out for more?

 

ASUS ROG GL551JK-EH71 Gaming Laptop Intel Core i7 4710HQ (2.50GHz) 12 GB DDR3L Memory 750GB HDD NVIDIA GeForce GTX 850M 2GB 15.6" Windows 8.1 64-Bit - Newegg.com

$880

 

I've seen the Dell M3800 workstation offered with an i5 CPU so they must be a sensible option for some people if multi-threaded processing isn't part of the workload. Check the notebookcheck benchmark list but you may find that the maximum single threaded speed of the i5 might be faster than the i7.

That's a nice price but it is evident that the OP is in UK since his costs are in £.

John

 

I still love how every "what should I buy" topic's first recommendation is a US notebook. Unreal low prices without VAT and shipping... if I order it it will be nearly double the price when I got it. Not everyone can buy from US resellers...

 

You jelly.

 

Yes, of course...

 

You don't need a QC at this moment for gaming, But if you're buying your laptop to last, you will. QC then. Best choice for the future.

 

This is why the "what country are you buying it in/from" question is so important over there and always forgotten =D. Whenever I see a user with 800 pounds pop in looking for one of the $1300 clevos I feel bad for them, because their money is roughly equivalent but the price they pay is not equivalent.

On the plus side, I hear medicine is cheaper outside of the US by orders of magnitude =D.

 

A typical notebook pricing here, where I live: USD=EUR + VAT (27%)

 

The nice thing is prices are usually quoted with VAT included, right? So you know what you're going to pay. Whereas in the U.S. they're quoted pre-tax, so you get to the checkout and have an extra 7% or so, give or take a bit depending on where you live. Which is still a lower percentage, but it ends up being deceptive as well.

And then when I went to buy something on Amazon.de, I was in for a pleasant surprise because the price without VAT (due to shipping to the U.S.) plus international shipping was lower than the price with VAT. On most things it probably would still be cheaper to buy it from the U.S., but that item wasn't available outside of Europe, so it was nice to have to pay less than I expected.

I also liked that le service est compris in most European restaurants. Whereas in the U.S. you'll typically have the quoted price + tax + tip (so in essence 25% or a bit more above the quoted price), in Europe the prices seem high at first, but aren't so bad once you consider that the menu price is usually what you'll pay.

As for the OP, I always recommend i5 over i7 unless you know you need the power. i7 is getting into high-price-increase-for-essentially-the-same-performance territory, with the exception of the jump to quad if your workflow really benefits from it (and they often don't for the average user and the gamer). For a very CPU-intensive job where the i7's faster CPU will save you time and thus money, it's worth it (although in that case, you should also consider a desktop with a much faster i5); for a hobbyist it really isn't most of the time.

A faster per-core dual core is also still preferable to a slower per-core quad core for quite a few games (though this is less true than a couple years ago). I intentionally went with a dual-core instead of a quad for this reason when buying a newer laptop last month.

 

What a crock. FYI we are in 2015, not 2008. The vast majority of AAA releases nowadays take advantage of quads, in fact many are requiring them at a minimum. Increasingly, we are even seeing games scale up to 6 or 8 physical cores since the arrival of the current-gen consoles. Mantle and DX12 will only accelerate this.

Your "newer" laptop isn't very indicative of the current CPU landscape at all. When your i5-520M came out 5 years ago, you had to compromise between more cores or more clock speed. We don't have that problem anymore. Since Sandy Bridge, the quads are clocked as high, if not higher, than the dual-cores. So you get the best of both worlds--comparable single-threaded performance and much better multi-threaded performance.

 

Can only speak for Canada but yes meds are ridiculously cheap compared to the US. What I could get for $20 in Canada (free with insurance) costs $125 south of the border, and for only half the size. So yeah one order of magnitude actually.

 

Some meds that cost $200 in the US cost about $11 in norway or something.

 

Go for quad core. £70 is not much for peace of mind and will cost much more than that to upgrade the CPU later. If all you're going to do is surf the web and use Microsoft Office, then I'd say sure, go with the dual core. Otherwise, anything relatively processor intensive like gaming or encoding or compiling, a quad core will make all the difference in the world.

 

It would help if you provided a link to the site that sells your bare bones laptop that way others can digest the information to know what the insides are to give themselves better heads up for upgrade or downgrades.

 

Yeah we got war on drugs here. We really need a war on pharmacies. But what do you expect. America. Land of profits and hypocrisy.

 

Point being? Gasoline is the U.S. costs half as much. And gas in some South American countries is half as much again. Thing is, petroleum cost the same on the world market. But in one country its heavily taxed. In the other, its subsidized.

The critical point being new releases. But that will take time to take effect. For the time being multi-threaded performance in games would be the exception. Not the rule.

 

I wish I lived in the US when it comes to buying computers. The equation for many things tech-related changes once you move outside of the US. A $1300 Clevo laptop with a GTX 970M? Yes please. Oh wait, you don't live in the US...sorry.

To the OP, if you plan on keeping your laptop for a few years or more before upgrading, I would personally suggest an i7. The cost isn't that much more when you amortize it over a few years, and it will likely help delay your need for an upgrade (thereby saving you some money).

 

Where did I say new releases? AAA titles have been taking advantage of quads on a consistent basis since around the beginning of 2011. That's 4 years ago. DX11 helped a lot as well. Single-threaded games have been the exception, not the rule, the last few years.

 

Here's my rule of thumb about an i7: if you have to ask, you don't need it. The i7s are for heavy users, multi-taskers, editor, animators, and the like. For anyone prosumer and below, its way more horsepower than you'll need or will ever use.

 

Here's my rule of thumb for an i7 QC...

If you didn't budget for it, keep saving. If you have the cash, buy it. If you think a DC will be enough; you'll end up being proved wrong.

For the same (low/idle) workload, an i5 and an i7 will be very close in battery life if the platforms are from the same generation.

For the small amount of $$ needed 'now' to get to an i7 QC level of performance - it is a very small amount when considered over the expected lifecycle of the system.


By buying a lower end cpu all you're doing is speeding up the inevitable need to upgrade (sooner).

When you take into account the fact that setting up your system, testing it and moving all your data to a new system is also $$$ out of your pocket (whether you see it or not), buying the better cpu and keeping the system longer is less money in the long run.

These are simple (economic) concepts; don't over analyze.


Good luck.

 

Too bad a lot of clueless/misinformed gamers still prescribe to your way of thinking and believe a dual-core is all they need in this day and age...

 

Your advice is biased tilleroftheearth. I'm not even sure if you have a concept of economy grade? In any event, grandma does not need a 550 hp Cobra to drive to the market or go to Sunday meetings.

Now did I say dual-core? Anyway, can you give us a game that will max out an i5 QC? I don't think so.

 

Hyper-Threading on vs. off in Crysis 3:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/ali...-trade-your-m18xr2-desktop-2.html#post9857723

When is a mobile i5 not a dual-core?

 

Yeah, my advice is biased. I cannot advise others to foolishly waste their money. Nor do I see the economy of buying cheap (but having to buy more often) while incurring even more cost of needing to setup a system more often over a given time period.

As I almost always state when I give such advice; don't go into debt to buy the best cpu/platform you can. But, if budget or circumstances allows you to buy even a one step up cpu vs. what you might have otherwise bought - you just extended the lifecycle of this purchase by at least 6 months and more likely a year or two.

That is my bias.

Saving real $$$ and time over the long term.

If the OP doesn't have the option to wait/save up for the best cpu they can (afford) to buy - no problem... but at least they know what they're trading off.


Sounds maybe that you are simply biased around grandmas driving Cobras? Sure they don't need it for the mundane driving that everyone does. But neither should they be forced into your version of what an acceptable driving tool is either. If they're capable of choosing (with their money) a Cobra - who are you to convince them otherwise?

Buy as much compute power as you can afford - Always. (CPU+RAM=Work/Productivity on the latest/best platform available, currently that is Intel).

Don't go into debt to buy any system. (Save up, adjust your budget but always pay cash for this highly depreciable purchase).

Max out the RAM from (as close to) day 1 of ownership as you can. (To get the most effortless performance for the longest time of ownership).

Use the latest O/S available to take advantage of the latest hardware and workflows. (Windows 7 is already on 'extended' support, today - but for me, Win7 was 'done' over two years ago when Win8 came out).


My bias is laid out above and people could do with my advice as they see fit.

What I see you offering is to keep me in a constant upgrade cycle at more $$$ over the same time period and less productivity overall.


OP, don't believe in the myth that computers are 'good enough'. Just not true.

Rather, believe that spending your cash effectively on a balanced platform is truly the cheaper route to go in the long run.

A few dollars in your pocket now will be unnoticeable in a week or two (again; assuming you have it to spend in the first place).

Whereas an i7 QC with sufficient RAM (16GB or more) with an SSD and Win8.1x64 Pro will provide you with tangible benefits for it's entire lifecycle.


Put another way; when the market shopping is done and the Sunday meetings are over, the Cobra/i7 QC will still be ready to play and play hard - even two or three years from now. Can't say the same for the Pinto/DC's you're pushing.

 

In response, I'll just say this: If grandma was going out to buy a new car and she pulled into the driveway in a new Cobra would you feel like the salesman had advised her in her best interest? Its a rhetorical question, but I hope the analogy can help you see my point.

I'm not saying your advice isn't sound -- for some. Its just that what is the likelihood of granny (the song notwithstanding) every taking that car to anywhere near its potential? Even a speed jockey like you would have to admit that's a lot of wasted horsepower.

One more thing, buy biased I mean just the pros.

 

At the end of the day, he's not a grandma. He is a gamer and with the trend of games now recommending i7 CPUs (ACU, The witcher) I'd go with the i7. Although I'm not sure if it will matter with the GPU being an 850M.

 

I couldn't agree more.. For gaming a i7 is a must..

 

Fixed
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I7 quad for sure. No Ned getting a dual core unless you need to stretch battery as far as possible, browsing machimg or light documents/gaming.

 

Stop spreading BS.

 

On the contrary, the overwhelming majority of games can run perfectly fine with less than a QC. And the majority of consoles don't have them. As time continues, and more and more new games are developed, they will be optimized to perform at maximum using more cores. But that time is not today.

So as you can see, I'm merely clearing up some errors and offering objective information. This is also a good time for you to learn from your mistakes, and be less biased next time. Instead, offer both sides of the equation, aside from your personal preferences.

 

Ummm, don't the current xbone and ps4 have 8 cores, wiiu 4?, ps3 6, xbox360 3 or was it 4?, psvita 4, Nintendo DS 2?

 

You're right, the Xbox One/ PS4 have 8 cores effectively devaluing his argument.

 

Just wut...

First you claim there are no games that max out an i5 quad-core, so I show you Crysis 3 were Hyper-Threading increases performance by 30% on a quad-core.

Then you claim "the majority of consoles don't have them," whatever that means. Xbox 360 has a tri-core with SMT (6 threads), PS3 has 9 threads--one SMT core and 7 SPEs, both XB1 and PS4 have 8 cores.

When are you gonna get your head out of the sand?

 

That's the whole point though : the majority but not all. But you're also forgetting that this majority are new games that are currently popular. Games like AC Unity sell like crazy so a lot of people might actually need that QC power. Don't confuse the number of games affected with the number of people affected.

 

It really depends on the game that you're playing. Sure, an getting i5 isn't a very forward-looking decision -- but neither is getting a 850m. An i7 will make a significant difference in some games, but it might not be all that noticeable if the 850m is struggling to run it in the first place.

 

At the very least, it'll shift the bottleneck over to the GPU, where it is much easier to control.

 

Which is what I maintained all along. I'm not arguing that multi-cores aren't advantageous; or that they're not becoming increasingly more necessary especially with demanding games -- despite the condemnation to the contrary of some here. Only that you can still attain a satisfactory gaming experience even while on a budget.

Finally somebody gets it: In demanding games that are optimized for multi-cores. I never stated otherwise. Rather, I give credit where credit is due. But just because you're for one thing doesn't mean you're totally against the other. And there are many articles and tests that support this position. In any event, I won't respond again. Someone else can have the last word.

 

Exactly. If you're mainly buying AAA games that came out in the past 6 months, yeah, a quad core probably makes sense. But there's a lot more to the game market than that, and most of the broader market runs perfectly well on a dual core. NBR's gaming forum is very focused on the latest AAA games - my guess is because it's focused on high-end hardware, and people looking for high-end hardware are probably also looking to play the most graphically intensive games - but it's hardly the entire market. There's a lot of people playing through large Steam backlogs and often playing games that came out years ago, and there are still a lot of new games (often non-AAA) that have modest requirements as well. Take Five Nights at Freddy's 2, for example, which came out in November. It lists a 2.0 GHz Pentium 4 as its requirement. Or another title from Steam's new releases list, Distance - it requires a 2.3 GHz dual-core Intel or 2.5 GHz Athlon, and recommends a 2.5 GHz i5 (without specifying quad).

So it really depends on what you're playing. If the OP had mentioned playing gigantic GalCiv III maps, or the latest Thief game, a quad would clearly be recommended. But without mentioning any such games, and with mentioning cost savings, a high-end dual core seems to make more sense.

Now in desktops, Intel quad cores are a lot more compelling due to the improved performance rice and unless someone was on a very limited budget, I'd almost certainly recommend going quad. But with a Core i7-4700MQ going for $383 in lots of 1000, it's a lot less of sure-fire thing than a Core i5-4430 at $182 or a 4670K at $242.

 

We're all wasting out breath here. OP hasn't replied back or listed the games he/she plays.

 

True. Time to get back to playing games on our respective dual/quad cores!

 

Sales tax in the US ranges from 0 to 12% depending on your jurisdiction. 7% is definitely above average though. I'm from the US, and sales tax is something quite alien to me, to be honest.

 

Come here buddy. 27% tax on everything.

 

Always opt for a quad. I don't really see why you wouldn't, when the pricing is so close.