Is it worth upgrading from Broadwell to Skylake

About $250 difference in the laptop price, both identical laptops other than the cpu's (oh and graphics cards are 840M and 940M respectively)

Broadwell - i7-5500u, 840M graphics
Skylake -i7-6500u, 940M graphics

Is it worth the $250 for the Skylake cpu, for what is otherwise the same laptop? Or is the difference so negligible it's worth the $250 saving on the broadwell?

 

No sir, it is not worth it. They are practically identical, in regards to performance.

Here's some evidence: 5500U vs 6500U

Go for a quad-core. Anything in the dual-core range with a "500" in the name will not be worth an upgrade.

 

How about battery life?

 

The CPU will hardly make any difference by itself. What other specs are on the system you want?

If it has an IGZO display, that'll increase battery life, among other things.

 

Well all other aspects are identical. I'm talking about buying one laptop or the other. Not an actual upgrade.

 

If you head over to the, "What notebook should I buy?" sub-forum, we may be able to help you find a suitable laptop within your budget.

But no, I do not recommend spending $250 on essentially the same system with the 6500U.

 

Thanks dre, I know which laptop just the two cpu's difference.

 

No problem. What will be worth the upgrade is the 1040M (or upcoming Pascal replacement) for the 840M you currently have. That will make it worth the extra $250, and will probably have the 6500U as well. The 5500U and 840M are essentially the same as the 6500U and 940M. Should wait and see.

 

6500U is higher clocked and has slightly higher ipc

but it only amounts to ~1.10x-1.15x increase at most

only upgrades are 6300HQ or 6700HQ or 5700HQ

 

Marginal improvement at best, skip.

 

Not worth $250, no. The discrete GPU doesn't matter either, both aren't really suitable for gaming honestly you'd be better off without a 840M or 940M because the integrated is very nearly as fast. Sky Lake has a bit faster iGPU, but not a $250 better one.

 

The P580 should beat the 940M ( but those aren't sold with that laptop )

 

Is it true that the new Skylake i7-6500u are throttled in multi thread applications? So actually no better than the Broadwell.

I'm not after the UX303UB persay but a different laptop with the same spec but have a look at this review under."processor" and "graphics card"

http://www.notebookcheck.net/Asus-Z...GeForce-940M-Subnotebook-Review.156065.0.html

 

Anyone any idea?

 

Any ULV CPU will have at least TDP throttling. Depending on cooling efficiency, there may be thermal throttling as well. It's just the way these CPUs are designed, no way around it.

 

Indeed, this is the main issue.. With BGA lottery, it is possible that you can get one that lasts at a higher speed compared to another one so its really random.

Sent from my LG-H850 using Tapatalk

 

The newer platforms are always worth more in the long run (to me). Is $250 difference too much? Depends on the base price of the systems otherwise and depending on how long you expect to keep them.

See:
http://ark.intel.com/compare/88194,85214

See:
https://www.cpubenchmark.net/compare.php?cmp[]=2470&cmp[]=2607


While cpubenchmark shows ~8% and ~4.5% better Skylake 'scores', the first link may show more important (long term) differences, depending on what you'll be doing with your new system.


A $250 difference is a lot of money on it's own. For a current platform jump (not to mention the better GPU...), it is usually a no brainer when the budget is not an issue (as it seems to not be for you either).

 

If you're buying it at the end of the year, there's the 7500U that clocks higher than the 6500U