i5 vs. i7 for gaming

Currently there are not many laptops that offer the i5-540m in a 17" or bigger display. They are out there, but not mainstream yet (Alienware does offer it).

As far as the i5 series goes, most are offering the i5-520m, and its quad core counterpart, the i7-720qm. So for this thread I'll compare the easier to find i5-520m and the i7-720qm.

From Intel.com
i5-520m dual core
2.4GHz w/ Turbo mode to 2.933GHz
2 cores, 4 threads
3MB cache
Die = 32nm
Max TDP = 35w
Memory supported = 8GB DDR3 800/1066MHz

i7-720qm quad core
1.6GHz w/ Turbo mode to 2.8GHz
4 cores, 8 threads
6MB cache
Die = 45nm
Max TDP = 45w
Memory supported = 8GB DDR3 1066/1333MHz

So the i5 has a higher base GHz and uses less power. It's turbo mode also has a slight advantage over the i7. Both support up to 8GB of RAM. There is an i7-620m 2.66GHz processor you can get as a dual core, but not sure if the benefit will be worth the extra cost over the i5-520m (or 540m).

With games not really to the point of benefitting from multiple cores (although it's coming), I can't see at this time why you would want the i7 quad core for gaming. Everyone is jumping on the ASUS G73JH bandwagon and buying up the i7-720qm ONLY versions right now. For the World of Warcraft players, the i7 is a complete waste over the i5 as WoW is more single core CPU centric. The higher GHz the better.

Yes, future games will more than likely gain multiple core benefits, but at the same time, the i7 (or i8, i9, etc) processors will also improve just like the Core 2 Duos did. Who is to say 6 months from now you can't get an i7-1020qm that is 3.0GHz per core?!



Maybe later the i7 will have its uses amongst gamers, but for now, the i5-520m (or 540m) wins hands down. Benchmarks are showing this as well (google them yourself).

 

your point being? We have tons of dual vs quad threads and the reason for the G73's popularity is its GPU.

 

My point being why dump $1500-$1600 on a system that is subpar to what may be released in the next weeks. The ASUS website already shows the G73JH series with an available i5-540m and i7-620m processor, but no one is carrying it...YET.

People jumped on the pre-order bandwagon and will be upset when a better G73JH comes available...for less, in the very near future. A 1.6GHz quad core is nothing to write home about.

 

While I like the fact that you have taken the pains to explain it nicely, I am not sure I would laugh. I would try to educate and debate, and not gloat.

 

Wait. So technology is still improving?

 

I "laugh" at those who have knee-jerk reactions and drop $$$ on something they know nothing about, and don't take the time to research it. They "think" it is the next best thing, only to find out 6 weeks later that it wasn't and they could have saved an extra $300 on a system that tops what they jumped on the bandwagon for.

Maybe I am just more patient than others.

 

You can also resell your old system and buy a new one when the time comes.

 

I'll just point out that subpar is a state of mind. For your needs, you believe the i5 is better than the i7, but for my needs (researching algorithm scaling in the HPC area) the i7 is the only choice.

 

I understand that some people will benefit more from the i7 if they are doing something that actually uses multiple cores (multimedia, video editing, etc).

But for those who are gamers and just want the newest, biggest, baddest thing out there, the i5 series (or the i7-620) will better serve you than a quad core will simply because games are not quite to the point of being coded to truly benefit from multiple cores.

Wait a few months before buying.

 

i7 is better than the i5 for any task including gaming, but most gaming is definitely more dependent on the gpu.

 

Probably you're right, but we're talking about 300 dollars you might use later on.
Let's say I will play on my soon to be asus g51jx-a1 some games, I know a core-i5 would be much better right now, but I'm also a computer enthusiast and I will end up coding stuff for multiple cores as experiment or running demanding multicore programs, so I think for 300 bucks people would go for the i7 it's like killing two birds with one stone. That's my case for going with an i7, besides here in my country a crappy core 2 duo lap cost about a thousand dollars, when I can pay 300 bucks more for a potent core i7 and a good decent graphic card.

It depends on the user most of the time, just my 2 cents.

 

Vicious, that depends on the game. I am sure there are plenty of dedicated WoW players here on these boards (myself included, along with the other 10 million world wide) and WoW is more CPU centric than GPU. Yes WoW is aging, but it is still going strong. For them, the i5 is the better deal with the higher GHz over the i7.

Perhaps in the Cataclysm Expansion they "recode" the game to benefit from multiple cores, but I don't really see that happening. I am not against a quad core i7, but I also know that in the very near future they will make better higher GHz quads, just like they did with the C2D processors. For that reason, I can patiently wait and get the best of both worlds.

Besides, every benchmark I have looked up shows the i5-540m beating the i7-720qm hands down on games that are currently available.

Right now = i5 for gaming.
The near future = i7.

 

Have you even looked at the i7-620M?

 

Doesn't the i7 processor lock down cores to a single or dual core to best utilize the cpu?

 

But technology is always changing. There will always be something better in a couple months. When making a computer purchase it is always an exercise in finding the best deal for your requirements when you make the purchase.

If I you were one of the ones who "jumped on the bandwagon" for the G73jh when they were first announced you would have saved $100 over today's price, as it jumped up at most retailers.

With computers get the best you can when you need to buy. There will always be better deal in a few months...

 

When you say "i5" and "i7", you need to be more specific. The i7-620m is just another Arrandale like the i5's.

Also the fact that the i7-720qm is clocked low doesn't mean much; its a new architecture.

 

The 720qm is more powerful. Dont get so hung up on clock speeds, they dont mean everything. When using 2 cores the i7 is clocked at 2.4 or 2.5ghz which is plenty of power for any game that cant utilize four cores. There are no games that would bottleneck with any i7, GPU power could be your only constraint as of now. I'm not flaming the i5, its still a fairly beefy CPU for most peoples needs but if you are a gamer the i7 can run all the newest games perfectly if you have a capable GPU. Also I'm not sure if all i5's support hyperthreading but I could be wrong there.

 

The answer is right there in your first post.

I am pretty sure in your example of world of warcraft that it supports multithreading and will use all 4 cores.

So the 720QM can give you up to 1.6x4 = 6.4ghz of cpu power there.

The 520m only can give you 2.4ghzx2 = 4.8ghz so thats a really big difference.

If it was a dual core game only (pretty rare I think these days, its ether old and single threaded, or been configured to be multithreaded and use as many cpu cores/threads as there are available)

Then sure the 520m gives you up to 4.8ghz of power but the 720qm will turn on turbo boost and be at 2.5ghz on 2 cores.

So thats still 5ghz of power and beating the i5 520m.

If it was a single core game, the i5 turbo boost is turned on and goes to 2.9ghz, the 720qm would turbo boost up to 2.8ghz. That is only 100mhz of speed difference and most definitely not enough to make any change in performance.

Anything that was single threaded is so old by now that it was designed to run on much older slower cpu's so these new generation cpus will run it with room to spare.

Also you have to show me these benchmarks your saying show the i5 beating the i7 hands down. I simply do not belive it. Even with my last laptop the W90 that came with a 2ghz Q9000 it was tieing every game benchmark with the dual core users. When I overclocked the cpu to 2.7ghz a higher clock speed than the dual cores, my scores did not go up on but a few frames on almost any of the games. The reason for this is that the games were GPU bottlenecked not CPU and mind you the W90 is one of the most powerful gaming laptops in the world with dual 4870 cards in it, so only the other dual 4870 laptops can compare. If the most powerful gpu laptop in the world is gpu bound in all the games I tested even at stock 2.0ghz core2quad speed, then where did you find a laptop that is now cpu bottlenecked with the new i7? Its made EVEN harder due to the fact that the i7 overclocks itself when less than all 4 cores are used with turbo boost and that was the only quad vs dual core argument in the first place with the core2quad series was that in a dual core/single core game the slower clock speed could not keep up with the faster clocked dual cores.

Not only did I prove that wrong with my own hands, but now that only argument is not valid anymore since the i7 quad core cpu's are basically the same speed as the dual core cpu's when doing dual core tasks. This is the major change in the i7 is that they are basically identical to the faster clocked dual cores but with 2 more cores there for even more power when your in a situation where they can be used.

Even if you do find me some benchmarks that show the i5 beating the i7 I can easily supply you with more than a handfull of computer game titles that support quad core that basically require a quad core for optimal play where the i7 will just run circles around the i5. Check out games like Supreme Commander, or Grand Theft Auto 4, or Flight Simulator X. If you do not have a quad core you may as well not even bother due to how cpu intensive the games are.

 

actually when i run most of my games like COH, empire total war and nba 2k10 i see something like 6 cores getting busy.
so the multithreaded, multi core games are here already.

 

This statement is getting old. I can name a dozen games just from 2009 to 2010 which use all cores. You are mistaken if you don't think the time is now.

 

Section 1 - GHz count redone
Fine, let's temporarily set aside the fact that we're comparing across two different architectures, and ignore the fact that simply adding up the speed of each core is a poor performance indicator.

The first thing I have to point out is that your comparison is way off because you're missing some of the details of Turbo Boost, namely that it can act with any number of cores. Intel allocates speed in 133MHz bins, and different numbers of bins are available based on the number of cores in use. I got the specific numbers from Wikipedia.

i7-720QM - 4 cores, base frequency 1.6GHz.
1 core: 9 bins = +1.2GHz -> 2.8GHz
2 cores: 6 bins = +0.8GHz -> 2.4GHz
3 cores: 1 bin = + 0.133GHz -> 1.733GHz
4 cores: 1 bin = + 0.133GHz -> 1.733GHz

i5-520M - 2 cores, base frequency 2.4GHz
1 core: 4 bins = +0.533GHz -> 2.933GHz
2 cores: 2 bins = +0.266GHz -> 2.667GHz.

So, let's redo the comparison at maximum levels of turbo boost.

In single-core and dual-core mode, the i5-520M clearly has a faster clock speed. With one core it's 2.933GHz vs 2.8GHz, but with two cores it's 2.667Ghz vs 2.4GHz, which is a significant advantage (11%); even the low-voltage Core i7-620LM reaches a higher frequency as a dual-core (2.533GHz) than the i7-720QM does.

So, what about when 3 or 4 cores can be used? Well, let's use ViciousXUSMC's method of simply "adding the GHz together", though with one caveat - this method represents a theoretical maximum of what could be achieved if the work to be done was perfectly divided between all of the cores. This is evidently impossible; some applications will come close, but for the most part this is just a pipe dream. It's similar to the way in which a dual-GPU system never gets double the performance of just one of those GPUs.

Continuing on, the i5-520M with two cores gets a "total" of 5.333GHz; that's the best it can do. The i7-720QM gets 5.2GHz with 3 cores, which is theoretically slightly slower (however, because of the aforementioned caveat, the gap is actually likely to be even larger in the majority of applications). When the i7-720QM has all four cores active, that's 6.933GHz. That's a theoretical increase of 30% - finally the quad-core has an advantage!

With these simplifying assumptions, we are led to conclude that the quad-core will only be significantly faster if it's using all four cores. Other than that, we could guess that the i7-720QM could be at most 30% faster, but that neglects architectural differences - e.g. the on-die memory controller of the quad-core could increase performance, or idiot coders could make an application that will multi-thread properly only on a quad-core CPU (However, I think that even the most inept coders wouldn't do this; it would take nothing short of malice).


Section 2 - Comparison by analogy
Unfortunately, the previous comparison isn't really very meaningful compared to real-world performance, and benchmarks in this area are decidedly lacking. As I've already stated, not only is a simple clock speed comparison inaccurate when comparing across different architectures, it's also the case that performance doesn't simply increase linearly as you add more cores. On the other hand, the i7 has an advantage in having an on-die memory controller, something that couldn't simply be factored in to the previous calculation.

I can't find benchmarks of the two mobile platforms by professional reviewers, but here's something we can do - we can attempt to compare by analogy. In particular, since Arrandale and Clarkdale are mobile and desktop versions of the same architecture, as are Clarksfield and Lynnfield, this ought to present the best comparison we can get, as long as we accurately scale the processor speeds between mobile and desktop, and choose strictly CPU-limited benchmarks.

So, going back to basics, when maximally boosted, the 720QM has 4 cores @ 1.733GHz, and the i5-520M has 2 cores @ 2.667GHz.

As our reference points, we bring in a desktop dual-core and quad-core:
Core i7-860 w/ max Turbo Boost = 4 cores @ 2.933GHz (or 2 cores @ 3.33GHz)
Core i5-661 w/ max Turbo Boost = 2 cores @ 3.467GHz

Now that we're comparing within architectures that are basically the same, looking at clock speeds starts to actually be a fair comparison. The i7-860 and i7-720QM are very similar in architecture, but the desktop CPU is a whopping 70% or so faster as a quad-core, and 40% faster as a dual-core. On the other hand, the Core i5-661 is only 30% faster as a dual-core than the Core i5-520M.

So, the question is, how does the Core i7-860 fare against the Core i5-661 in heavily multi-threaded applications? This is, after all, our only remaining point of comparison. Let's look here, and, in order to provide a performance spectrum we'll look at performance over a number of multi-threaded tests. Overall, well-threaded applications seem to offer a ~60% increase. On the other hand, in a few tests that were examples of less efficiently threaded applications, this dropped to 30% or so.

There were two notable gaming benchmarks that demonstrated CPU performance; in particular, the Far Cry 2 CPU benchmark showed a 40% increase. Note, however, that at this time Far Cry 2 is a rare example of a game that does a very good job of actually using multiple cores. None of the other games showed a difference of this magnitude.

In the desktop parts, we can see that quad-core is definitely the way to go. However, when we look at the mobile parts, the situation is not the same, because the clock speed gap between dual and quad is far greater in the mobile CPUs than it is for the desktop CPUs. Recall that out of our chosen parts, the desktop quad-core was 70% faster than the mobile CPU, while the dual-core was only 30% faster.

If we scale the performance back down to the mobile parts, I can conclude that in a heavily multi-threaded application like video encoding, the i7-720QM could achieve a 20-30% performance advantage over the i5-520M. On the other hand, in many games the i7-720QM could actually be the weaker processor. Even if the game is multi-threaded as well as, say, Far Cry 2, the 720QM probably won't provide much extra performance.

The comparison would be pretty much exactly the same between the i7-620M and the i7-820QM, because they increase performance in essentially equal amounts. Consequently, the i7-820QM ought to only be faster than the i7-620M in efficiently multi-threaded tasks.

The only mobile quad-core that is out-and-out faster than the dual-cores is the i7-920XM, and even that CPU actually clocks a little slower than the i7-620M when in single-core mode.


Section 3 - Conclusion
Overall, I would say that as a gaming CPU the i7-720QM is pretty much equal to the i5-520M. It would likely be slightly slower than the i5-520M in non-multi-threaded or poorly multi-threaded games, and slightly faster in games where multi-threading is done well. More generally, in performance across a variety of applications, the on-die memory controller and superior performance in heavily multi-threaded applications makes the i7-720QM a better CPU, but I don't think that it justifies an extra $100 over an i5-520M, unless you do a lot of video encoding or 3D rendering. Additionally, I think that the biggest failing point of the 45nm laptop quad-cores is power consumption - the 32nm dual-cores are much less power-hungry chips. In conclusion, while desktop quad-cores are a good idea for everyone who can afford them, laptop quad-cores are only for those who need superior performance in heavily, and, in particular, efficiently multi-threaded applications like video encoding or 3D rendering. While many current games do indeed use multiple cores, in a complex application like a game it's much harder to efficiently split the load between multiple cores, and because this is mostly limited by coding ability rather than hardware, I wouldn't expect this to change much in the near future. In addition, most games will be GPU limited anyway. Indeed, GTA IV is pretty much the only example of a strongly CPU-limited game, and the only reason it's like that is that it was coded badly.

 

Your pretty good at making up stories and false situations

I have benchmarks to post, why dont you get some up.

Lets start with this.

Take wprime run it on the i5 and take the score and divide it by the clock speed.

Do the same for the i7 (I already have) when you find the performance per clock speed ratio from division watch the two match up almost exactly within margin of error.

Cpu speed is linear within the same generation of cpu's If you have 2 cores @ 1.5ghz and the task is using 2 threads it will do just the same as one core @ 3ghz.

I have never seen this rule fail, thus why I can use the "adding core speed" as a pretty valid representation of cpu power. Yes this total power is only avalible when all cores are being used to 100% power.

But again the i7 when all cores are not being used overclocks itself to almost identical clock speeds to the dual core.

This is nothing like dual gpu's nothing at all, to even make that comparison is way off base than anything mentioned so far from me. But just so you know we do have a few games that show almost a 100% linear gain with the 2nd gpu so that part was wrong too.

Honestly I am not even sure why your arguing the point, its pretty common knowledge by now that a quad core can do anything a dual core can, but a dual core can not step into quad core domain.

If you want a good all around machine for anything cpu demanding you want the quad core. This is not just encoding but also games. As again the quad will play and dual core only game just as well as the dual core. At best your 1 or 2 fps better is not going to effect gameplay.

Que up one of those really cpu intensive games that require a quad core and you wont just be 1 or 2 fps lower... you will be darn near 50% lower and into the relm of unplayable.

If you want to limit yourself and your system in such a manner nobody is to tell you otherwise have at it.

For the rest of us willing to accept the facts, we have quad cores.

Here are a few benchmarks to show how much cpu speed effects gaming performance. Again this was on W90 with dual 4870's currently the most powerfull gpu configuration maybe short of dual GTX280's so it has the absolute highest possability of getting cpu bound in extremly high frame rates. With a slower gpu the gpu will reach its limit first and the overclock on the cpu (or a faster cpu in the case of our dual vs quad comparison) will have NO effect.

Asus W90 Q9000 Stock 2.0ghz vs Overclocked 2.3ghz
This test will demonstrate a 300mhz increase of speed 3x more than the 100mhz difference between the i5 and i7 in this thread.

CoD4



Notice at the lowly 2ghz my max frame rate is 187fps well well beyond the 60fps barrier of performance. Anything past 60fps can not even be seen on screen due to the 60hz refresh rate.
Mind you the Q9000 2ghz is about 25% SLOWER than the i7 @ 1.6ghz

Now overclock to 2.3 and the max frame rate grows to 205. Thus demonstrating the cpu bottleneck but what did you gain? Nothing you cant see, feel, or notice those extra frames. If I was not benchmarking I would have vsync on anyways witch caps the fps @60

So you may be tempted to say, but look at the average frame rate its higher! No its not, the in game fps is the same, you have to understand the nature of min/avg/max fps. Since the max fps is now higher than before it just brings up the average. My in game fps was the same.

The min fps did get better on the overclock of 300mhz but within margin for error since it was not a time demo it was two different plays and only benched it one time rather than several times.

So if we take the best case scenario here a 100mhz difference between the dual and quad could maybe give you 1fps extra on your minimum fps and your average/max will still be faster than you can even notice or take advantage of.

Next Dead Space



Same behavior, here you can see the min fps droped on the 300mhz overclock. This is again margin for error, something happened on that bench test that did not happen on the first one. Showing that the above benchmark of CoD4 does not display any real gains from the 300mhz overclock. Now here in Dead Space its the same though, Max FPS went up but its past 60fps, it brought up the average just because of the new higher cap but the in game fps was actually the same.

Next Devil May Cry 4



This is a built in benchmark, so it was not random. What do you know... its almost exactly identical within margin for error.

Next WC3


Built in FSP cap on this game see what happens when the max fps cant extend? it does not bring up the average and the min was within 1 fps of error.

Need I go on?

Now take all that in and relize I am comparing the slowest quad core ever put in a laptop at its lowest speed up against these games and it had enough power to max them out beyond the 60fps limit and show little to no gains at higher speeds, designating that it already has enough power there to play any game, multi threaded or not.

Now take into mind this was with again the strongest gpu combo out there, so it had the highest chance to ping the cpu for all its worth.

Now take into mind the i7 is not stock at its lowest speed when in these lower core use scenarios and that it auto overclocks to higher speeds almost identical to the i5.

Conclusion?? Well i7 > i5 plain and simple.

Oh and if you would like to know how well the i7 720QM can handle itself in games here are 19 Game benchmarks I did.

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All of these are stock 1.6ghz with turbo boost enabled. There is no problem here with cpu power.

 

??? which is which?

 

Typo; I meant the i5-520M there. It's fixed.

 

Sure, I'm willing to believe that this rule is very accurate for predicting wPrime results. In fact, even some of the real-world benchmarks I linked come close to following this rule (x264 encoding was the best example). However, wPrime is a near-perfect example of parallelization which is simply not going to happen in most real-world applications, except sometimes video encoding and 3D rendering. If you think that it's possible to parallelize a video game to that extent, you're deceiving yourself.

Compared to the i7-720QM, the i5-520M is 11% faster using your own GHz-counting approach; you're picking and choosing the numbers that suit you.

You just contradicted yourself. The fact that there are games where there is almost a 100% gain makes my analogy perfectly valid - some applications can effectively use the extra power, some cannot; indeed, there is a lot of variance in the extent they can use the extra power. This is the case for both CPUs and GPUs. Sure, I'm not saying that CPUs and GPUs are architecturally the same, that's why it's called an analogy. I also didn't say that performance would be nowhere near double for SLI / Crossfire, I said it would never be *exactly* double because of real-world factors.

Why? Because a lot of people are exaggerating the advantage of the i7-720QM, yourself included. Better or not, the question of how much better is what's most important.

You're being entirely subjective here as to what minimum standard of performance makes a "good all-round machine"; you seem to have arbitrarily chosen to place this line right between the i5-520M and the i7-720QM.

That's entirely baseless. Using your own GHz-counting method, the i5-520M will only be 30% slower, and video games are nowhere near 100% parallelized; even if they use 100% on all of your cores, there is plenty of duplicated work, and work spent on communication.

I have every intention to, because I value the greater efficiency of the i5-520M more; it will give me longer battery life and less heat, and will likely come in a smaller laptop. If I wanted a system that powerful, I'd just buy a desktop, since a quad-core laptop pushes the limits of portability anyway.

Considering I used your very own GHz-adding approach to show that the i7-720QM was at most 30% better, I think you're the one not accepting facts.

So, because a relatively slow CPU is powerful enough to play any game, you're suggesting that people should pay a lot for a more powerful laptop CPU?

The Q9000 is 25% slower than the i7-720QM based on your benchmarks. Based on GHz counting between the i5-520M and the i7-720QM, the i5-520M is 30% slower - that means the Q9000 and the i5-520M are around equally powerful.

 

Most of your points are again invalid.

If I am not mistaken you were arguing the point that the i5 was better than the i7 for gaming. And saying synthetic benchmarks proove nothing because they are parallel.

So I post up a ton of real life benchmarks to show just how good quad core is in games and invalidate the fact of a dual core being better. So all you did now was change the tone and say "well yeah its better but it cost more, and its hotter, and you need a bigger laptop, why not get a desktop?"

Sorry your points in debate are ridiculous. The gains of a quad core are quite large and very real.

I could use the same excuse for GPU's.. Why get a dedicated gpu, it cost more, it requires a bigger machine, and it produces more heat.

Well that answer is pretty obvious, because you want the performance. The quad core is no different. So its time to admit the quad core is the better cpu, if you want less power and to save money thats just a personal choice of yours it does not change the fact that a quad core is better than a dual core.

You seem to have lost track of the topic at hand in the heat of debate with me. The OP asked about the i5 vs the i7 for gaming specifically this

The two cpu's I have been comparing this whole time.
and I have made the answer quite clear by now as to witch one is better.

As far as arguing heat & price now (because you lost the battle of performance) even though its off topic I will humor you.

The G73 I have is very light and portable and incredibly affordable.

A i7 does not cost a lot more, it would only be producing more heat when its doing more work. If it was doing a dual core task and doing dual core work it would be producing the heat as the dual core while the other 2 cores do not do anything.

If its doing more work its going to get it done faster and giving you more performance.

 

You're calling 8.5lbs light? Sure, weight is subjective, but that is not the kind of weight I would want to carry around on a daily basis. As such, considering that if I bought the laptop it would mostly stay in one place, if I was looking for that level of performance I'd rather build a desktop for <$1000 that would be much more powerful, and buy another laptop (ideally a CULV) that I would carry around every day.

That's ridiculous; the 10W TDP difference between them is far from insignificant, not to mention that the motherboards are completely different. If you want to prove your point, find me a currently available or upcoming laptop that has a Core i7-720QM and is 14" or smaller. Even if there is one, it would probably have heat issues.

Based on raw CPU prices, there's at least a $100 price difference, though the platform also seems to incur additional costs. From what I've seen, the cheapest Core i5 laptops are close to $750 new, while the cheapest Core i7 laptops are around $1000. As for the power and heat, you're failing to take into account the major efficiency improvement offered by smaller architecture. The 32nm CPU is inherently more efficient than the 45nm CPU.

Depends on the situation, as we've already shown. For most tasks you're not using the full power of the CPU, and Arrandale will most definitely consume less power when idling.

 

Fix up your post, I had to edit mine got busy with the kids and couldn't type it all at once. Quote the new stuff if you really want to try to drag this out further.

 

You were mistaken. I said they were about equal.

That's just false. You can't invalidate a dual-core being better, nor approximately equal (which is what I was arguing), without having the results for a dual-core. I could post the results for a netbook and say "Oh look, these are the best results on my graph, therefore this is an awesome gaming system!". Neither I nor you have benchmarks for the i5-520 (I guess you assume I have an i5-520M. I do not; there isn't even a gaming laptop out with one just yet), so the performance can't be proven for sure; we're both just working on assumptions. The difference is that I used *your own* assumptions to prove that the i5-520M is easily good enough for gaming, though I still hold that the i5-520M is pretty much equal in gaming performance to the i7-720QM, based on the reasoning I posted before (which I assume you didn't read). All you've shown is that your quad-core, even the Q9000, is good enough as a gaming CPU.

No, I didn't change my tone. I said the i7-720QM was a better overall CPU from the start, though probably about equal for gaming. However, since you seemed to ignore everything I said, I figured it would be more effective to use your own approach to prove you wrong. Since you seem to think that GHz counting is an effective measure of gaming performance, I demonstrated that using this method the i5-520M was pretty much equal to the Q9000 you posted results for. You're the one ignoring the fact that I used your own methods to prove you wrong - now you have to disclaim your methods, or disclaim your overall point - which will it be?

No, this situation is obviously very different when it comes to gaming. The quad-core offers slightly more performance at most; a dedicated GPU is many times faster (even as much as 10 times) than an integrated one. The comparison is silly.

You have no proof of that. In fact, you've effectively proved with your own benchmarks and methods that the i5-520M is a good enough CPU to run most games at over 60fps.

 

So lets do this again shall we?

So if you now agree that i7 is equal or better than i5 for gaming.

Then therefore we can conclude i7 is better for gaming.

That is the only question here and the only answer that needs to be stated.

More specifically if i7 is equal to i5 in dual/single core game situations but much greater than i5 in quad core situations than i7 is much better than i5 for gaming.

You seem to forget the main point i stated a few times over again now. the quad core can perform any of the dual core tasks just fine, but if your playing one of those games that require a quad core to run well, you can not play it with the dual core at all other than unenjoyable low frame rates that most consider unplayable.

Whats more important is that these games are becoming more common by the day, game developers take advantage of new technology they dont want to live in the dark ages like you. Did you have this same horrible phobia when going from single core to dual core?

If your going to spend the money on a gaming machine, get one that can play all the games, not just some of them. Why spend the money all all the other parts to be top grade and then let your system fall flat on its face because of one weak component? Especially in this case when its only like a $100 difference.

I cant tell you how many posted on this forum "omg why does grand theft auto 4 run like crud on my 280gtx!" or something similar. The scenario is a really beefy gpu but they have a dual core cpu. A dual core just wont cut it in that game due to the large amount of AI and physics.

Google it, you can find lots of people with that issue all over the net. You will notice the trend quite quickly, they all have the dual core cpu.

Plus there are people that want to say record there videos with fraps or have stuff running in the background while gaming, the quad core lets you have that kind of multi tasking ability. If you later need to encode your video from fraps you will be incredibly happy to have that quad core at your side.

But yeah, so OP I answered your question. The i7 is better. Also due to the nature of it being the better cpu chances are you will find it packaged with other higher end components than the i5 giving you an overall better package.

 

I never agreed to that. I agreed that they're pretty much the same for gaming, and that's it.

No, I noticed you said that, but I've already given a number of counter-arguments. Despite your insistence, I disagree about the very existence of "games that require a quad core to run well" - we might as well be talking about flying pink unicorns. Here's a benchmark of GTA IV. You'll note that the Core 2 Duo E8500 @ 3.6GHz is faster than the Core 2 Quad Q6600 @ 2.4GHz; and that if you used your "GHz counting" you'd get 7.2GHz for the C2D, and 9.6GHz for the C2Q - and yet the E8500 wins. In fact, I think this is pretty much equivalent to how the i5-520M vs i7-720QM situation would play out - they would still be about equal in GTA IV; it's possible the i5-520M would win, in fact.

No, the situation with GTA IV is sometimes game developers are lazy and release a game that is, by any standards, a badly coded console port, and requires a ridiculous amount of CPU power to run well. The consequences of this are that the game developer suffers with the vast majority of the PC consumer market, which still has dual-core or even single-core CPUs. Releasing a game that caters only to high-end desktops with overclocked quad-cores and high-end graphics cards and will get two frames per second for everyone else isn't going to make you money.



If it wasn't already obvious, my answer to the question is that both these CPUs are likely equally powerful for gaming, but the i7-720QM will cost more, use more power, and hence shorten your battery life and generate more heat.

 

I just have to say, that although weight is subjective, 8.5lbs is not "very light" by any standards.

Weight can be subjective when you're somewhere in the middle of the extremes... person A thinks 5lbs is the limit, person b thinks 4lbs is the limit.. but when you're at 8.5 lbs and you draw the line there... well there's nothing on the other side of the line lol.

I guess it depends on how often you carry as well. If you just take your gaming machine with you on occasion when you're staying for a while somewhere else, then sure, 8.5 pounds isn't bad. But if you truly carry your notebook, on a daily basis to school/work/travel... then you will hate your notebook for being so obese and you're shoulder won't be too happy.

 

I didnt say you had to agree, I stated that as a fact.

It is factual. the quad overclocks to near identical clocks of the dual core when in dual core situations on the i7, yet it has 4 cores for quad core situations.

Even before turbo boost on the i7 series the core2quad displayed that there is more than enough power in just 2 cores of the quad core for gaming.

I have seen enough games and scenarios where a dual core could not perform as needed in a quad core optimized game.

So the quad core is a clear winner.

There is basically no scenario the quad cant fill that the dual can, but it cant be reversed the other way around.

It must have taken you a long long time to find that horrible GTA4 benchmark lol. 1280x1024 haha you do know that low of a resolution counts for nothing. Nobody would play the game at that resolution, besides do you consider less than 1fps a win? thats within margin of error.

But what is more lovely is you just compared a E8500 OVERCLOCKED to 3.6GHZ against a Q6600 STOCK @2.4 ghz thats over 1.2ghz lead and it didnt even manage a whole frame per second better.... Now think laptops where the cpus are much less than there desktop counterparts. Do you think the 100/200mhz lead of a dual core is going to keep that same less than 1fps lead? It wont its going to fall behind. I think you just made my point even more clear for me when you were trying to fight for your own sake.

BTW my desktop uses a Q6600 and its overclocked to 3.6ghz 24/7 if they are going to overclock the E8500 its only fair to overclock the Q6600 and then yet is another advantage of the quad cores. Every bit of overclocking you do can come with 2x the befit of of the dual cores overclocking because your increasing clock speed on 4 physical cores instead of just two.

If you were encoding a video with a 2ghz dual core and overclock to 3ghz you boosted the time it would take only half as much as if you had a 2ghz quad core and overclocked it to 3ghz. Or rather I should say if overclocking the dual core by 1ghz cut 10 minutes of encoding time off the total time. Overclocking the quad core 1ghz would cut 20 minutes off the time. Twice the benefit for the same increase.

Also look at the E6600 on that benchmark its also 2.4ghz, see how far below it is the Q6600 even though they are the same clock speed? Look at how much extra power was given to the game due to the quad core. A massive leap of fps. You trully did post that benchmark on my behalf didnt you?

______________________

Oh and I would like to elaborate even more than the Q6600 is a $189 cpu the E8500 is also a $189 the argument about quads being more expensive would not work out so well in that case. But since that bench is comparing the E8500 overclock to 3.6ghz there is no dual core that runs that speed stock, but it would be like a $600+ extreme edition cpu.

So $600 Dual Core = $200 Quad Core? I like those numbers.
The fastest dual right now is the E8600 and its only 3.33Ghz it would not be fast enough to beat the Q6600 in that benchmark and it cost closer to $300 a 50% boost in cost.

 

On a side note - you can get a Vaio / with a i7 CPU - at 1,43kg so even weight isn't a problem.

 

You can't compare between Core 2 Duo and Core 2 Quad and assume Core ix dual and quad will be similar.

For one thing, in games, 8 threads are overkill. Hyperthreading changes the game in "gaming."

So many games are poorly optimized for 4 threads, let alone 8. However since it can at least take advantage of 4 threads, its really "4 threads @ 2.4GHz" vs "4 cores @ 1.6GHz." I bet the comparison is probably closer due to that.

Talk about encoding? Nope, the thread is about gaming. Unfortunately, gaming code is harder to make it run properly on multi-threads unlike something like encoding.

Background tasks? How many people would actually run something semi-intensive while playing a game when they worry about performance? If anyone is really running something CPU intensive like video conversion while playing a game, that particular game is not demanding to the system, and duo vs quad is mostly e-peen.

Let this fact sink in folks: The Dual core, Hyperthreaded Core i7 620M can beat the Quad core, Hyperthreaded Core i7 720QM in apps like Cinebench. In gaming? 520M is probably competitive and do little better than 720QM while saving you money AND battery life.

 

looks like IntelUser was right (i was skeptical), after reading some benchmarks. but really, the i5-520M, i5-540M, i7-620M and i7-720QM are almost alike, other than the 3dmark06 score. better to get the i5, as previously said, as it would save $$ and battery, and its A LOT cooler.

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

 

The point is that the i7-720QM is too slowly clocked as a quad-core to offer much of an advantage.

If you knew anything about CPU benchmarking, you'd know that when you use a game to test the CPU you benchmark at low resolution to ensure that the bottleneck is the CPU and not the graphics card. Besides, here's a couple of benchmarks from Tom's hardware as well: Far Cry 2, GTA IV. In Far Cry 2, even the slower E8500 at stock speeds beats the Q6600, while in GTA IV the Q6600 beats the E8600 and E8500 - but only by 1 or 2 fps. The point, which I've been making all along, is that for gaming, a 2.4GHz quad-core will be much slower than a 4.8GHz dual-core would've been. Indeed, the 3.33GHz stock E8600 seems to be pretty much equal to the Q6600 in video game performance, and that's even worse news for a 1.733GHz quad-core vs a 2.667GHz dual-core like we're looking at.

Did you think about that before you posted it? The situation is essentially analogous - 3.6GHz is 50% faster clocked than 2.4GHz, while the i5-520M is effectively a 2.667GHz dual-core, which is ~54% faster clocked than the i7-720QM, which is effectively a 1.73GHz quad-core. Consider this - if we overclocked both of the mobile CPUs by 40%, the i5-520M would be a 3.7GHz dual-core, and the i7-720QM would be a 2.4GHz quad-core. Sound familiar?

In a vacuum, sure, quad-core > dual-core, if we're comparing them at the same clock speeds. For the desktop CPUs, where the clock speeds are much more similar between the dual and quad-cores, quad-core is easily the better choice.

However, the i7-720QM is clocked very slowly, which kills off pretty much all the advantage a quad-core has over a dual-core except in something like video encoding. Actually, here's a suggestion to you, because you're the one one with the hardware - if it's possible, try doing those benchmarks over again with only two cores on the 720QM enabled.

If you're talking about the VAIO Z, they're using the dual-core i7s - I haven't seen one with a quad-core. The only VAIOs I've seen with quad-cores are the F11s.

 

HP Elitebook 8440w. HP's page lists it as being available with up to i7-820QM.
http://h10010.www1.hp.com/wwpc/us/en/sm/WF06a/321957-321957-64295-3740645-3955549-4097189.html

The notebookreview.com review didn't notice any major heat issues, but they tested with an i7-620M, and not a quad.
http://www.notebookreview.com/default.asp?newsID=5453

 

Well, I'm honestly surprised. This reviewer had the 720QM and it seems like battery life and heat was pretty decent, though the two reviews can't be directly compared because of different testing conditions. It also seems that the Dell Studio 14 has an option for a 720QM, though there's no reviews of it at all.

However, you'll note that the upcoming 12.1" EliteBook 2540p offers the dual-core i7 but not the quad-core, which supports my argument that the dual-core is more efficient. It's just that I underestimated how good their engineering was.

 

Ok, too much mumbo-jumbo for me.

WoW devs have already stated that the game relies more on CPU power and not so much GPU power. It is for that reason I am looking to the higher GHz of the i5 series. WoW does not really benefit from multi-core use as the game is not coded for them.

Since I play World of Warcraft only as a computer game (rest are console games) can someone please do or show a benchmark for WoW between the i5-520m and the i7-720qm? Obviously you'd want this during a 25 man raid with full details. If the i7 comes close or beats the i5, I'll go with the i7 and be "future ready" as well.

 

Desktop benchmark for WoTLK. It seems that when at the same clock speed, you'll get a minimal performance boost from a quad-core over a dual-core; e.g. @ 3GHz the Q9650 gets 1fps more than the E8400, and @ 2.4GHz the Q6600 offers a couple of fps more than the E6600. As you said, raw clock speed will be more important for WoW.

Based on that benchmark, I must agree that WoW doesn't really benefit much from quad-core. Consequently, a ~2.5GHz dual-core will be much better than a 1.73GHz quad-core for WoW. However, we must remember that the i7-720QM is also effectively a 2.4GHz dual-core CPU; as such, if the i7-720QM is running on two cores, it will lose slightly to the i5-520M, but if it's running on four cores it's going to be a lot weaker. You'll get pretty much equal performance from both, but only if you make sure that WoW runs on only two cores on the i7-720QM so that you can get maximal Turbo Boost.

 

If money and battery life isn't a problem, I really see no reason why you would go for a dual core over a quad core. As far as I know, there is no game that is going to perform badly because it had a quad core instead of a dual core. And please, all this nonsense for just World of Warcraft...? its a five years old game. Hell I even think it'll run ok on a netbook.

To the OP... if you only care about World of Warcraft and affordability, then just get an i3 processor. I don't think there is any need to go for a highly clocked dual-core instead, unless you can show me otherwise.

 

Actually, based on those benchmark results, WoW is relatively demanding on the CPU.

Getting a Core i5/i7 over a Core i3 is justified, based on those results. As Purlpo said, if money and battery life isn't a problem you might as well get the i7-720QM, but it's not going to be any better for WoW.

 

Actually, the review says he has the even hotter i7-920XM. It's worth remembering that usually in any system with a very powerful GPU, the GPU will almost always be a bigger contributor of heat than the CPU.

Actually, I suspect they're not putting in the quad-cores for a much simpler reason; you'll notice that they only list the 2540p with Intel HD Graphics ( http://h10010.www1.hp.com/wwpc/us/en/sm/WF06a/321957-321957-64295-3740645-3955549-4138624.html), which means they're probably using the IGP on the Arrandale chips. If they were to use a quad-core i7, they'd have to add a video card.

Edit - As a little aside, remember that all the new i7 chips have their own memory controllers, which eliminates the old northbridge, which means that if you want to compare a new i7 to an older C2 series, you should probably chop off about 5-10 watts of TDP to account for the TDP of the now missing memory controller. Of course, this can work out even better for the Arrandale chips, as they also have an IGP that can account for even more TDP.

 

Yeah, definitely so if it's an NVIDIA. Some of AMD's high-end GPUs have surprisingly low power consumption, though - 24W TDP for the Mobility HD 5830, and 39W TDP for the Mobility HD 5850.

Actually, it's a little more complicated than that. The memory controller for Arrandale also sits on the chip, but on the GPU die rather than the CPU die. Hence Arrandale doesn't need a northbridge either. It seems that they can also both use the same chipsets.

 

Their latest generation, yes, although I think there's some quibbling about exactly what those listed TDPs involve, as I think I recall hearing that those wattages are "just" for the GPU die, and after you add in the memory and other components, it's actually more, although admittedly still less than NVidia.

 

Check this review to see the affect of HT and TB on games.

http://ixbtlabs.com/articles3/cpu/archspeed-2009-3-p3.html

 

I actually meant to say "all the new core i" as opposed to "all the new i7". Still haven't quite gotten the fact that Arrandale is out integrated into my full thought process yet, so for me "core i" and "i7" are still largely synonymous, even though they aren't, really. But yes, they do largely use the same chipsets, although the chipset originally designed for Clarksfield (the PM55) won't let you use the IGP in the Arrandale (it's missing the proper hardware for it).

 

To: Lack of Cheese:

You seem an expert on processors. Can you discuss specifically why a:
i7-620LM would be better than an i5-520M.

 

for the record, within the last few patches Blizzard removed the 2 core limit.



I miss the hell outta OS X, but the G73 really *IS* a nice machine