P8800 vs i7 620m

How much difference performance wise is there between these? I currently have a T7500 and i cant wait for the lenovo x201 to become available so was thinking of getting a P8800 x200. I do programming mainly.

 

I am currently using a P8800, and my last laptop was a T7500, and I didn't see much of a difference.

I haven't used any core i myself, but from the benchmark it's a lot faster.

But if you mainly do programming, I suggest you to spend money on SSD drive and etc, I don't think a faster CPU can help you much.

 

The i7-620M is about 30.91% better than the P8800 according to six benchmarks.

Link here:
http://www.notebookcheck.net/Mobile-Processors-Benchmarklist.2436.0.html

 

If you don't stress the CPU, you will see a 0% performance difference. What type of applications do you use?

 

Benchmarks mean very little in real world usage as most typical notebook tasks are not very CPU intensive. Office, Media and Internet aren't likely to push the CPU enough to where you'd notice a difference.

 

Of course, which is why I noted that the results come from benchmarks. However, the original poster asked what the difference in performance would be, and one way to gauge performance (not the only way, of course) is through benchmarks.

The flip side of the issue is this: if the original poster does not have performance issues with day-to-day tasks, why would he or she consider upgrading? For example, the average college student who uses a notebook only for email/webcam/word processing/streaming online videos will not come onto a forum asking what processor to upgrade to if he or she does not require extra computing power.

Now if the issue is responsiveness, an upgrade to the hard drive might be the answer. But there is not enough information that can be gleaned from the OP's post to determine exactly what is needed.

Ultimately, you are right: the i7-620M will not post 30% better performance than the p8800 simply because there is no need for additional performance in most daily tasks. But it is a decent indicator of the relative capacity for increased performance under certain conditions.

In any case, I would opt for an i5, which is much more mainstream and at a more attractive price point.

 

If responsiveness is what you're looking for... Check out the Intel 80GB G1 X18-M on sale for only $149.99

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?p=5941635#post5941635

 

If you are using it for programming then getting an SSD is a bad idea. SSD's have a limited write lifecycle , http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/intel/showdoc.aspx?i=3403&p=3. Everytime you compile an application it writes a file (can be several depending on the compiler). So whilst you may get a nice speed improvement, it will be short lived when your drive dies in 6 months to a year.

 

Yea, I know when you write something like total of 37TB over a period of 6 months.

My Intel Toolbox reports that 2.37TB of data written resulted in 3% write cycle usage.

Yea, not happening in single user scenarios. BTW, its a first generation X25-M drive which I have bought 1-2 months after it came out, so its 1.5 years old. I see most conventional hard drives failing in 3-4 years while mine should be chugging alone fine for 20 years.

BTW, the new CPU had made the system more responsive even though I had the X25-M. So its quite likely you'll notice CPU changes. Actually, with the SSD you'll notice it more, because it opens up the hard drive bottleneck somewhat.

 

That's not fair. Just because some start failing doesn't mean most fail. Last week I just sold a load of old drives I had bought between '03 and '05 and just under one in three were having problems and had to be discarded after 5-7 years. New drives should do even better.

Also just because your drive says it has only gone through 3% of its write cycles doesn't mean it is going to last until it finishes its next 97%. The lifetime of these devices is still fairly uncertain.

 

This is BS (as stated in not so many words above).

 

the i7-620m will be faster especially if you do CPU stressing stuff... although P8800 will be enough , for future-proofing your better off with i7-620m... also it will be more power efficient so you could get better battery life...maybe..