Intel Core2 Quad versus Ivy bridge i5m or i3m

Hello,

Im currently working on a 3 to 4 years old desktop. I want my own laptop for study ( im not even administrator of the computer ). I dont like the computer in general the hard disc is too slow it takes 5 minutes to boot up the machine. But im very content with the processor.
Its a Intel Core2 Quad Q9550.
I never feel it has any trouble with running the aplications i use of which the heavyest are 3D cad design and gaming like Fifa or racing. I was wondering if the current laptop processors would be able to catch up with the Q9550?

Im looking to buy a laptop with a i5 3210m or something in that region but defenetly an Ivy bridge. Would the Ivy bridge i5m outclas the elderly Q9550 or will i have to buy a i7 quad core to match its preformance? How would those 2 compare for instance if im doing some 3D cad design?
For my study ill have to run simulations from time to time. This will ofcourse be a heavy job for the processor.
Im not gaming anymore so the graphics arent too important. Im running the q9550 with a good graphics card. (i dont know what one or how i look up what one it was )

thanks in advance,
Daniel

 

what is your price target??

 

As i want a buisness laptop rather than a customer laptop im limited to the Ivy bridge i3 or i5. Im looking to spend max 800 euro, 1000$ on a laptop if its very good quality and has all the hardware i want. But laptops are much more expensive here in Holland than in the states and if i want to ship one ill have to pay for the shipping.

 

PassMark - Intel Core2 Quad Q9550 @ 2.83GHz - Price performance comparison
PassMark - Intel Core i5-3210M @ 2.50GHz - Price performance comparison
PassMark - Intel Core i7-3610QM @ 2.30GHz - Price performance comparison

My advice buy I7 Ivy Bridge...

 

but would the preformance of the i5 be equal to the Q9550?
I dont need more proformance. I strugle to get the dekstop running into the top 10%'s of its usage. My budget wont let me buy an i7 buisness laptop

 

Since you said you are using 3D Cad design software, that would tell me the software is probably multithreaded, and would benefit from more cores, so since you already have a quadcore upgrading with a i7 Quadcore will give you a large performance increase.

On the other hand the architecture improvements with Ivy Bridge with the dual cores (with hyper threading) you will see an increase in performance in some cases.

AnandTech - Bench - CPU

Now that i3 3220 is a desktop cpu, not a mobile one but as you can see dual vs quad it does well.

If you in fact do decide to upgrade to a notebook or whatever, the cost difference between the ivy bridge dual cores and quadcores is not that much difference at all, the i7 3610 is a great cpu.

I went from an i5 2400 desktop to a i7 3610 in a laptop and i gained performance, so as others have said, if you upgrade go for the i7 mobile if you are in fact looking at a laptop.

 

im not exactly looking to upgrade the processor, just consolidate the proformance. Im buying this laptop coz this desktop isnt mine and i want an own computer :s.

 

the i5 would be close but, just a hair under in performance if you look at those links, the i7 would be a notable boost. Those Q9550s were and area force to be reckoned with. I just got one last year and plan on keeping it for the next 10 years. If i can over clock a pentium 4 and play games like stalker on it and surf the net with reasonable performance then a decent quad should last some time.

so that being said if your using a q9550 now with reasonable performance there should be no reason you can't make the the most of an I7 system for the next 5-6 years (if you really wanted to) just make sure you have decent GPU and the latest MXM slot for GPU support.

 

It will be slightly less powerful that that old desktop, but I doubt it will really be a problem based on what you've stated. Even today's i5's are very good processors.

 

Maybe post some laptops that you are interested in, since with mobile i series cpu's the dual vs quad chips get a bit blurred when you are talking about mobile and desktop chips.

For mobile i5 Ivy Bridge Cpu's The lowest I would go would be the i5 3210 Its 2x2.5gz Turbo up to 3.1ghz
The i5 3520 is 2x2.9ghz Turbo up to 3.6ghz This cpu vs the Q9550 would be close if not faster than what you have now despite having 2 less cores.

i7 3610qm 2x2.3ghz turbo to 3.3ghz max turbo on 4 cores is 3.1ghz so its a 3.1ghz QC when its under load, it will be much fast than what you have now (exception being the gpu in the laptop).

The main point i'm trying to make is, whe shopping for a laptop don't be afraid to get the i7 as it really might only be a difference of 50 bux on the overall price of the laptop but will give you a far more powerful machine.

 

im intrested in the lenovo t430. I would configuere it with the i5 3210. i Would defenetly take the i7 if it was 50$ more but its not available for the normal t430 and would be too expensive. An i7 upgrade cost more than 150$ usualy

 

T430 doesn't look too bad with the 3210, I would go with 8gb of ram and then later on if/when you can spend the money grab an SSD and you'll have a real zipper machine.

 

ill got with the standard 4gb and add the other 4 gb myself as it is not too difficult to do on a t430. Or does anyone has any other experience? Im not experienced at all with computers/laptops.

 

You don't look you don't find.

 

i've looked at hunderds of laptops. Laptops are just much more expensive here in Holland than in the States. The T430s is not 800 dollars in the US. The cheapest T430s here in Holland is 1400 euro's.

 

This post sounds like it is trying to make a comparison based on the clock speed of the processors. Clock speeds are a fine area of comparison IF the architecture is the same. When you compare across architectures, the clock becomes more or less meaningless, especially if you compare CPUs 4 years apart. Remember that the 3210m supports hyperthreading and in effect, has four logical cores. The Q9550 does not and as such, ALSO has 4 logical/physical cores.

Depending on what tasks you do, the 3210m will be a little to a lot better than your Q9950.

Also, a good number of CAD packages support CUDA/OpenCL/OpenGL. As such, depending on your CAD package, the GPU will be a significantly more important component.

 

My clock speed comparison was based on the ivy bridge cpu's, not the q9550. I was trying to make the point that a newer dual core was faster than the "older" quadcore.

 

does t430 have soldered on gpu or mxm slot? if you eve catch the pc gaming bug that gpu won't do you any favors. I did notice it was an nvs5400, i'm gonna take a geuees and geuss it is a rendering gpu? You did mention you do 3d work and perhaps why you chose such laptop.

The lenovos have good build quality AND design. You could go with na i5 now and upgrade it to an i7 later if the motherboard supports it.

 

You CAN compare clockspeeds between different architectures, just not straight up. You find out how much better the newer architecture is, clock for clock, and then use that to find out the relative performance. Also, that is a bogus way to look at hyperthreading. Logical and physical cores cannot be directly compared at all. Hypethreading doesn't make a dual core processor a quad core, a logical quad core, a quasi quad core or anything like that. Hyperthreading is just a feature that depending on the application can boost the performance of a single core by 0-30%. If you are doing encoding, rendering, video or picture editing, you can be sure of a performance boost on the higher end (close to 30%) and if you are doing gaming you can expect a performance boost on the low end (at or nearby 0%). The amount of logical cores a processor has has nothing to do with anything.

 

Hyper threading is very different from having discrete cores. At best you can consider it as 2 threads sharing a core since one thread cannot utilize all the resources of said core. You can expect scaling with good code on 2 discrete cores to be anywhere from 80-100% whereas you'd be lucky to get 50% improvement by doing the same thing on hyperthread cores.

While it is true that you cannot generally compare clockspeeds, one has to consider that the Intel cores haven't changed much in terms of execution prowess since Core 2, the primary advancements to IPC have been at the front end, decoding, fetching and branch prediction. Therefore, if one factors for the higher performance per cycle by these innovations, one can compare them on clockspeed. Whats tricky, is comparing AMD and Intel clockspeeds since their layout, front end and execution architectures are so radically different.

Clock for clock I go by this rule of thumb. Nehalem is faster than Core 2 at the same clockspeed by 10-15%, Sandybridge is faster than Nehalem by 15-25% and Ivy bridge is faster than Sandy Bridge by 7-10%.
Therefore Ivybridge can considered to be faster than Core 2 by 22-50% at the same clock speed.
You can do a rough mental exercise, 3.0 ghz Core 2 core is equivalent to 2-2.46ghz Ivybridge core.
Assuming perfect utilization of every cycle and perfect core scaling, Core 2 quad can process say... 3000 "hypothetical operations" x4 at a given instant in time = 12000 "operations"

That i5 will spend most of its time at 2.9ghz, since it has a 22-50% advantage, you can conservatively say that its the equivalent of a Core 2 at 3.58ghz->4.35ghz. It has 2 discrete cores so it can do 3580 "operations" x2 to 4350 "operations x2 so it can peak at 7160-8700 "operations". Factoring in the say 30% conservative performance speedup on multiple threads by HT, you get 9308-11310. Because core scaling is not perfect, the Core 2 quad can probably only utilize say, optimistically 80% of its peak performance so the 12000 becomes 9600-12000.

So my conclusion would be, very very very theoretically, your i5-3210m is equivalent to all intents and purposes to a core 2 Quad @3.0ghz. However, factoring in turboboost, your i5-3210m will be faster at single thread execution. In your case, the i5-3210m is very probably equivalent at worst, or superior to the 2.83ghz Core 2 quad you have but mind the caveats I've mentioned above.

 

The absolute maximum benefit of Hyperthreading is at about 30%, and you also need to look at how the programs you are going to use benefit from hyperthreading and how well they function on multiple cores.

In your example, anything that is going to see the 30% improvement from hyperthreading is going to be a program that is extremely parallelized, so it is going to see about 100% of peak performance on the C2Q anyway.

Anyway, what really matters is that the two processors offer very similar performance, with the i5 taking some wins and the C2Q taking other wins.

 

True, I was just thinking if there might be a difference between hyperthread optimized programs or a program that has been compiled for quadcore execution

 

at least op can save a lot energy and money by switching to i5 ivy bridge

 

im not planning to game whatsover. There are grafics cards in some of the T models a up to NVIDIA NVS5400M. I want a t-series because of the quality. And my budget doesnt alow me to buy for instance a W series..

Thanks for all the information it has been very intresting and educative . I think the i5 will probably sufficient. As i rarely use all the q9550's power anyway.

 

This is very wrong. I do not know how this 30% number is arrived at.

You run a C or C++ based program that uses OpenMP and you get to use all 8 logical processors. You run this same program in a loop a million times and your CPU usage will go up to 90%ish. Many good packages are parallalized because it is not that difficult to multithread programs nowadays. Most video/image editing packages like CS, most games and the OS itself is parallalized nowadays. This is a screenshot from a simple video processing tool I was running on my work laptop. It is a quad core i7 (2670 or something).

. There is 70% usage on all cores and there are a few parts of this that are not multithreaded. Besides, there is some memory bottlenecking that is preventing over 90% usage. A hyperthreaded processor is not there for the cool name. It is there because it works.

 

In your experience do you know what is the performance speedup for these scenarios?

4 threads accross 4 discrete cores
4 threads across Hyperthreaded dual core
4 threads optimized for hyperthread

I am assuming 100% utilization

 

Impossible to tell, primarily because 100% utilization is never going to be possible. Even if it were, you would need to know how the program is written. There are several variables.

Hyperthreading basically uses the same resources available to a single physical core but makes that core appear as two. As such, both processes can share resources (mainly the cache) which could increase speed of execution. It is a bit slower to exchange information across physical cores that do not share resources. So in theory, depending on how a program is written, hyperthreading will make your program run faster. However, there are way too many variables to say anything with certainty. What we CAN say with certainty is that few laptop processors with 4 cores nwoadays will NOT have HT enabled. That would mean that if you are talking about a 4 core processor, you are PROBABLY talking about an OLDER laptop processor, one that is archtecturally inferior to newer processors from the same tier.

In reference to this particular thread, the Core 2 Quad will almost every time be inferior to the 3210m. On single threaded apps, on multithreaded apps, it does not matter.

P.S. I have no idea what you mean by "4 threads optimized for hyperthreading". HT is invisible to the OS and the threads themselves. The OS literally thinks you are running an 8 core processor when you have a 3610QM. So you don't "optimize" for hyperthreading. HT is proprietary Intel technology. You optimize for "multithreading". And anything that can run on more than one core has to be potimized for multithreading. So there is no difference between the last two things that you said.

 

It is actually very simple to test the performance benefit of hyperthreading. You run any kind of benchmark or program on your computer that you want, with and without hyperthreading enabled, and then you compare the performance. The greatest difference in performance you are going to see is 30%. You can find examples of this on google if you search for hyperthreading benchmarks.

CPU Hyperthreading and Gaming: Real-World Benchmarks - AnandTech Forums
Hyper-Threading Performance « Blog
Maximized performance: Comparing the effects of Hyper-Threading, software updates | ExtremeTech
http://semiaccurate.com/2012/04/25/does-disabling-hyper-threading-increase-performance/
iXBT Labs - How CPU Features Affect CPU Performance, Part 4 - Page 1: Introduction, tests, part 1

Your numbers are wrong because aren't looking at performance, but just the meaningless CPU load numbers from your OS. For every two logical cores you see in the OS, there is only one core on the processor doing the work. If you have a quad-core processor with hyperthreading and you have four threads running at 100%, the four cores of the processor are going to be running at 100%. However, the OS is only going to see the processor running at 50% because it sees four logical cores at 100% and four logical cores at 0%.

 

Assuming all else is equal, the performance of the quad core without hyperthreading will be about 50% greater than the dual core with hyperthreading.

 

Glad you have your answer and IBM/Lenovo make some solid units. A friend has one and i work on it every now and then and I have had time to study it.

Keep in mind i spend a lot of time working on laptops weather the problems be a user damage or design flaw I'm always looking always to do things better and I have to say it really looks like the IBM guys put some real thought in their machines and I in personally and professional opinion think they make some smart design decisions.

They make some good build quality laptops the first major tell is that looks take a back seat and the second tell is even freaking NASA uses them in the International space station.




As far as I know they are are using specially modified T series Thinkpads.
On a serious note there are some serious tells on the laptops like the cooling vents and vent location.

 

Lol, Laptop in space, definitely would be Lenovo. Space too harsh and maintenance is a must for them pretty Macbooks to survive.

 

Space is cold, so Macbooks shouldn't have any cooling problems.

 

That right there gives me no more reason to debate with you. Seriously. Get your concepts right. Even in the other hybrid HDD thread you were giving incorrect information.

If you have 4 threads on a 4 core HT enabled CPU, the CPU IS ACTUALLY going to be using only half its resources. PHTSICAL resources. I use this stuff at work day in and day out so I would seriously suggest you read up on wha thyperthreading really is before giving other incorrect advice.

 

Well, CERN and the European Parliament use Elitebooks ...

Anyway, I came to say that the i5 should be comparable with the Q9550 by the looks of it (and probably snappier in a lot of programs due to the much better integrated memory controller).

But why not look at some better specced Sandy Bridge laptops? It's practically the same processor as Ivy, just a bit less battery-friendly...

You can also consider importing a laptop from the US or getting it from Germany...

 

Why don't you look at some of the benchmarks I linked to? If what you said is true, hyperthreading should double performance. It doesn't even come close under even the best-case scenario. Better yet, why don't you test it out yourself on your system?

Or alternatively you could surely find some reference to back up your claims, no? We are going to be waiting here a long time...

Look, just because you use a processor with hyperthreading for work doesn't mean you know jack about hyperthreading. And you have obviously never even tried testing or playing with anything, because then you would have realized long ago that what you are saying doesn't make any sense.

 

in the US shiping costs alone are 300 euro, if you want it to be shiped safely.. There arent too many Sandy Bridge around but if they come with a seperate grafics card its defenetly worth looking into, i was just thinking the same And i dont really care about the battery life so..

 

space is an absence of matter.

If I tried to run a computer in the vacuum of space, would it overheat or freeze? : askscience

Either way Lenovo = Decent quality.

 

I was beginning to think that nobody was going to call me out on that.

 

hi there, i was having almost a same problematic right now.
currently i'm using a desktop pc with intel core2duo E8200 stock speed, 4gb ram.
i'am planning to buy a thinkpad, and right now i had 2 type that steal my interest (value budget), they are:
1. thinkpad L412
intel core i3 370M
intel graphic
320GB HDD (the seller said it was 5400rpm)
price $420

2. thinkpad L421
intel core i5 2430M
intel graphic
500GB HDD 7200rpm
price $620

i will only use the notebook for watching movies (720p & 1080p) most of the times,some photos editing with photoshop & design with illustrator.

i have read some benchmark processor performance, and from what i read, i think that the i3 370M is almost par with my E8200 desktop in term of performance.
the i5 2430M also only add a little boost-up from my E8200, so i prefer to choose the i3.and the i3 is more money value.
but because of HDD 320GB 5400rpm, i'm afraid that will reduce the i3 performance.

how significant does HDD with 7200rpm and 5400rpm add the notebook performance?

between the 2 notebook, i saw a thinkpad R400 with core2duo P8600 (2nd hand), cost around $270...love the design.
but i think the P8600 is outdated.
does the P8600 able to play 1080p movies?

 

I would try to avoid the 5400rpm hard drive as they are pretty slow, For your expected usage going with the i3 370 wouldn't be bad and then throwing in an ssd hard drive would really wake it up and be perfect for your needs.

The i5 2430 is going to be decently faster than the i3 370 but it isn't worth the 200$ increase in price, yes the 7200rpm drive will be fast but once again those 2 upgrades alone don't warrant spending an extra 200$

 

I think the $270 is most certainly worth it - especially if you'll be keeping this system for more than a few months (18 months +).

For a 47% increase in price, you'll get ~60% faster HDD performance AND about 50% faster cpu performance vs. the outdated i3 model. Well worth the money when you consider that you'll be almost double the performance of your old desktop setup (overall).

If you're used to 7200RPM drives in your desktop, don't even consider the 5400RPM drives in a notebook to power the O/S and programs - you'll be sorely disappointed.

Highly recommend Win7x64 with 8GB RAM or more with either of those setups and your intended workflow...

btw, that P8600 is ~27% slower than your current desktop (much, much worse than the two+ year old platform the i3 is based on).


Depending on how much is 'a little' PS and Illustrator work you'll be doing, I would not recommend anything less than a SNB i5 going into 2013 (but again, if this is just a temporary purchase - buy the least expensive option and get a current platform ASAP).

Hope this helps.

Good luck.

 

yes, i also think spending an extra 200$ isnt worth for those upgrades.
for the moment, i wont be changing the hard drive to ssd on my system (especially on my future notebook,coz they wont be my primary system), the ssd is too pricey....and i think, i can still keep up the speed with 7200rpm hard drive (on my desktop).

oh yeah, one more thing....yesterday i asked the seller, if i change the hard drive, it might break the 1 year warranty...coz the seal for hdd places comes from lenovo. is it true?

thanks

hmmm....after reading your post, i might want to try the P8600.
since the notebook wont be my primary system, only use them when i was mobile or travelling.

but is it true what you said that with the i5 2430M system, they could double the performance of my old desktop setup (overall)??
well,to be honest i still doubt the i5 2430M could surpass my E8200 soo much.( istill think the mobile proc is still slower than the desktop proc)
if the i5 2430M really that fast, maybe i'll consider the $620 thinkpad

yeah, i was currently using two 7200rpm hard drive on my desktop.
i'll remember your suggestion, will try to avoid 5400rpm hard drive

well, i can see things more clearly right now.
thank you for the suggestions

 

To really let the SNB or IB platforms breathe; start with a clean install of Win8x64 PRO and 8GB RAM or more.

Here is a relative view of the processors you have/are considering in order of performance:

See (PM score: 1513):
PassMark CPU Lookup

See (PM score: 1915):
PassMark - Intel Core2 Duo E8200 @ 2.66GHz - Price performance comparison

See (PM score: 1963):
PassMark CPU Lookup

See (PM score: 3321):
PassMark - Intel Core i5-2430M @ 2.40GHz - Price performance comparison


Again, without knowing how long you're considering keeping this system for, we're just having a theoretical discussion of which is the 'better' option for you (overall).

 

now i see what you mean.
the i5 2430M score around 175%+ more than my E8200.
hmm....guess choosing a new notebook with upgrading the performance wont be a bad idea

hahahaa....this makes me more confused to choose.
gonna take a while to think about it.
thanks for the PassMark link

 

Hey, glad to help/confuse you a little more.

Don't forget to take into account how long you think you'll keep the system for (the longer you want to keep it; the more I'd be looking at a current platform (IB) with a quad core i7 and 16GB RAM or more all powering Win8x64 PRO run from an SSD (240GB or bigger)).

This is the performance you should expect from that setup:

See (PM score: 7367):
PassMark - Intel Core i7-3630QM @ 2.40GHz - Price performance comparison


Yeah; about 4x more powerful than your current setup. If setup as hinted at in this post (O/S, RAM and SSD); in reality about 10 times faster and about 20x more responsive.

So (sorry, for the last time, I promise), how long is this setup supposed to last for you?

 

Go quad... or go home. Seriously. If you want to do any amount of real work with a CPU, get Ivy quad. Done.

i3/i5 dual core is more for general purpose, web surfing, movie viewing, Word, Excel, and basic gaming.

 

hahahahaa...i would love the IB i7 Quad series too.
unfortunately my budget is tight right now, and maybe i would prefer upgrading my desktop if i really want a power cpu performance

hmm...i am not a tech geek who always update my system, soo maybe i will use the notebook for around 1~2 years.
the notebook will be used for light works (i would prefer working on a desktop system), surfing the webs and watching movies..so i think the i3/i5 or perhaps the C2D P8600 would be enough.
thanks