Is Sandy Bridge really worth it?

I'm currently looking at a Samsung QX410-S02 which has a i5 480M processor. However, with all the hype about Sandy Bridge, I'm starting to wonder if this last gen i5 is already obsolete. However, because I've heard so much great stuff about SB, I'm also starting to wonder if its power is just overkill for my tasks which are as follows:

-college school work
-CAD
-gaming (Bad Company 2, Modern Warfare 2) I know that the QX410 can run those in medium pretty well

My question thus is this: Is SB actually worth getting or do I not need all that much power. Will the older i5 cut it for now? I plan on owning this laptop for at least 3-4 years.

 

by your time window, you'll find sb to be a very worthwhile investment.

 

For the average Joe Schmoe, Core 2 Duo is overkill. However marketing makes us want to buy faster, better!

All boils down to:

What do you need to do?

Just plain old office work? Arrandale is overkill really, but their affordability is worth it (you can get a consumer grade notebook with an i5 + 4 GB RAM for ~450-500).

However people who do rendering, CAD work will benefit from Sandy Bridge.

 

For the average consumer, I think Sandy Bridge also gives you a large advantage in battery life compared to the previous generation i-core processors.

 

If you are planning to keep your laptop for at least 3-4 years, get a SB laptop, there is no reason to buy last generation i-cores when SB is available, CAD works benefit from faster CPUs, and so does gaming(mostly RTS games).

 

Sandy bridge laptops are not worth a large premium but they can be really cheap. Ultimately the buying decision depends on the usage and price difference.

 

If you want gaming for 3-4 years, then better concentrate on the fastest GPU you can get, and a reasonably fast CPU, and SB would be a good bet.

I just see people all the time that don't want to spend the money, and are satisfied with their games running "medium" settings now, and wonder why they can barely play any new games two years from now. Just consider that since you mentioned gaming.

 

The reviews of this laptop are stellar 4.8/5-18 reviews- 16 out of 16 100%, the nivida optimus hybrid gpu is a plus with core i5 your good to go,battery life is long too, ect.

SAMSUNG - QX410-S02 Notebook customer reviews - product reviews - read top consumer ratings

Cheers
3Fees

 

For me the price premium of paying for a Intel Core i7 2720QM was well worth it when my last CPU was a 65nm Intel Core 2 Duo T7400. xD

Dident really have any problems with it as the C2D T7400 could do 1080p decoding "if" i used a multi core supported decoder.
But the bottleneck on my old HP Compaq nw8440 was the old ATI Mobility Radeon x1600.

Also you should think about if you want your notebook to play Battlefield 3 at mediumish.
According to what i heard from Dice, the new Macbook with AMD Radeon 6750m plays it quite well with a SB quad, and you would probably find some cheaply specced notebooks with similar hardware without the premium price of OSX.
(No hate btw.)

 

Processors won't really bottleneck your gaming unless you have a game like Starcraft 2, Civ 5, GTA 4. Most of the time the GPU bottlenecks you. Case in point going from a T5470 (1.6 Core 2 Duo, 2 MB, 800 FSB) to a T7500 (2.2 Core 2 Duo, 4 MB, 800 FSB) yielded no FPS increase for me in my Vostro 1500, but upgrading my 8400M GS to an 8600M GT yielded a near 40% performance increase.

Even a last last generation Montevina Penryn should suffice for most games, Arrandale as well. Don't just specifically buy a SB notebook for gaming, the GPU would be the most to worry about.

 

Yes, if you do CPU intensive work.
No, if you don't.
Most people think they do, but the reality is they don't.

 

In two to three years time the CPU will bottleneck, absolutely. Games are becoming more and more CPU intensive, and many optimized for a quad core, and that trend will only continue.

As far as other intent for the laptop, it should be fine.