I3, I5, or pay for the I7??

Can someone please explain the value in the I series processors compared with each other?

I read another thread saying there really wasn't much better performance from the I5 than the I3. If this is so, is it smart to pay extra for the I7 now? I want to keep my new laptop for 3-5 years. Should I just pay for the I7 even though I don't really game?

 

All have hyperthreading (makes the dual core act like a quad). i3's do not have Turbo Boost. Core i7's turbo bost higher than i5's. i3/i5's have 3mb L3 cache while i7's have 4mb l3 cache (quad cores have 6/8mb).

UM use 18W.
LM use 25W.
M use 35W.

i5's are the best value.

 

So in layman's terms... It's 2013, if I have the I3 or I5, will I be kicking myself for not getting the I7 and need to buy a new laptop?

Sorry for the lack of understanding. I don't know the difference between a UM, LM, or M. Thank you for saying that the I5's are the best value. That is where I am at right now and I was just looking for a few extra opinions before making a final decision.

 

In 2013 entry level Intel powered laptops will be powered by quad core processors, so it won't even matter. But for now I'd say go i5 or i7 because the Turbo boost is a great feature that you won't get to experience with an i3. The different amount of cache between an i5 and i7 you won't notice, only the Turbo Boost speeds you might notice.

 

What will you be doing with your machine? The i7's are very fast, but they're very hot and will give you low battery life. The i5's are still pretty quick, and will give you better battery life. The i3's are still quite decent, but they're more in the "budget" line.

Most people are best served with an i5. Unless you do a lot of HD video editing, video encoding or play heavily multithreaded games (most multithreaded games aren't that well balanced and hyperthreading will work almost as well as actual cores), you don't really need an i7.

 

Thanks!!! I think I am going to stay right where I am at with the I5.

On another note, is it worth the $70-$100 that BestBuy charges to give you a restore disc and take all the un-needed software off the computer? They also install WebRoot and give you the first year at half price... The restore disc and taking the "bloatware" off are the two main attractions for me, but I would like some opinions on whether it is really worth it... Thanks!

 

It depends. If you aren't comfortable with creating your own restore discs and doing a clean install of Windows, then I'd say it's worth it. If you feel comfortable doing both of those, then it's not.

 

The memory or hard drives currently available on laptops are UNABLE to continually feed the i7 (and the i3/i5 for that matter) with the continuous stream of data (read and write) necessary to run the CPU at full speed.

By spending the money for an i7, you are buying a pocket full of processor wait states as well as heat generation and greatly lessened battery life.

 

Thanks to all for the advice. I feel 100% more educated on buying a laptop.

 

me too O_O! thanks guys!

 

That really depends what you want to do, if you give the CPU complex instructions to do then it'll do them just fine, secondly hard drives have never been able to keep up with processors anyway (compare the gigabytes of data flashing round in a processor every second to the 70MB/sec you'll probably be getting from a hard drive).