i3-3110M vs i5-3210M, worth upgrading?

Currently have the i3 installed. Considering an upgrade and options seem limited since i3-3110M is FCPGA988. Is this a decent upgrade? I do use Photoshop on occasion but mostly it is a basic office use machine (web browsing, MS office)

 

For your uses, it's not worth it. It's just a dual core to another dual core upgrade and light uses like you mentioned will benefit very little from such an upgrade. Light to moderate photo editing doesn't require much processor power, i3 is sufficent unless you are dealing with batches of large photos(bigger than 10mb each) on regular basis.

 

Yeah, at most a ~30% increase in performance with all the benefits (experience gained) and pitfalls (potentially killing a functioning system) that an upgrade will cost in addition to the hard cost $$ of the new cpu.

While a 30% increase in PS is nothing to scoff at, I agree with lidowxx that for your use it is probably not worth it.

(Unless the 'experience gained' part is also part of this need to upgrade).

See:
PassMark - Intel Core i3-3110M @ 2.40GHz - Price performance comparison

See:
PassMark - Intel Core i5-3210M @ 2.50GHz - Price performance comparison




Good luck.

 

Not really worth it. You gain minimal performance gains (see tiller's links) for massive risks (cost of the new CPU, plus the possibility of bricking your laptop).

 

Thanks all, I figured it wasn't worth it but was curious. I already put in 16GB RAM and an SSD so this is pretty good so far.

Now to consider if going from the Dell 1904 to an Intel 6235 is worth it...

 

I would say go for an upgrade if you can. Note that i5's have turbo boost and i3's don't so that i5 will actually run at up to 3.1Ghz, which is a fair bit faster than yours now. Is this a free upgrade, like do you have the CPU sitting around? If so then just do it. Also, that socket is what all of the current mobile intel CPU's use, so you should be able to swap in any Ivy Bridge mobile CPU up to 35W TDP. That means you can go up to the i7 3520M, which turbo's up to 3.6Ghz.

 

Some OEMs implement BIOS whitelists for their WiFi cards. I know that HP is infamous for that, though I'm not sure if Dell does as well.

 

not a free upgrade but was just something I was considering if the price is right.

Dell doesn't, someone else has already installed the intel card, I'm just curious as to the performance benefit of swapping the cards

 

Ah, alright then. In that case, it'd help pretty well thanks to the better firmware and the extra antenna (2x2), though that last point is valid only if you have a 2x2 router or better. After that, internet speed is all on your ISP.

 

Doing it for internal network transfers. I have a Linksys WRT610N and use a Linksys E3200 as an additional access point

 

I would recommend the Intel wireless solution - but not if the Dell 1904 wireless card (can't find any info on this adaptor...) is also a 2x2 setup.

The performance may be better with the Intel, but if you already have the 2x2 setup - the stability may become an issue with an upgrade.


Good luck.

 

Your wifi card model is non existent. Do you mean 1704 or 1901? 1704 is 1x1:1 2.4 Ghz. 1901 is 2x2:2 dual band.

1704 -> 6235 will make a huge difference.
1901 -> 6235 will make negligible difference (unless you really want Intel Widi).

 

You're right, it is the 1901, my mistake.

 

Okay, with a card that is already a 2x2 setup (can you verify that both antennae are used to achieve expected speeds - at close range to router to reduce interference), you can safely ignore this 'side-grade' (not an upgrade in any real world use).


Thanks for the update...

 

I don't know how good the 1901 is, but I've experienced cases when going from a cheap 2x2 to an Intel adapter made a real difference. However, going by the fact that the 1901 is dual band, usually dual band adapters are usually pretty good.