i7-3612QM battery life? and other questions...

Hey guys,
going a bit crazy. Trying to find the best bang for the buck laptop, and I'm leaning towards the HP DV4T-5000. My main question is: will the i7-3612QM decrease battery life over the i5-3210? if so, how much loss can I expect?

Also, reviews seem to indicate that the 630m will be more battery efficient than the 650m. Do you guys think this gain is worth it?

My uses: Photoshop, video editing, Light room, Adobe flash, moderate gaming. (I most likely won't be gaming on the road, but I will be doing the rest without a brick)

I was ultimately torn between this and the sony s13/15 and it really comes down to whether I can sacrifice the performance for the (allegedly) great screen on the sony.

All thoughts are appreciated.

 

It will probably decrease it by a few minutes, but I don't think you'd notice it in daily use. With a 9-cell battery and i7-2720QM, I can get about 7-8 hours of battery out of my laptop; Ivy Bridge should give you a slightly longer life over Sandy Bridge, percentage-wise.

 

according to throttlestop my 3610qm uses 7.5w while idling at the windows desktop, I don't have any other 2nd gen i series cpu's i can compare against, but I would go for the quad, difference in power consumption while idling in the newest cpu's isn't going to be that great (talking about mobile ones).

 

With your uses I would say you'll get more work done with the i7 than with the i5 for the same size battery.

In other words: the i7 based system might kill the battery faster, but the work you completed will be greater than with the slightly longer lasting i5.

As soon as you said 'PS and video editing' you ruled out the i5 imo - you need as much performance as you can afford - battery life will always be a secondary concern (vs. any lower performing processor).

 

the 650m is twice as efficent of the fermi 630m.

 

wait, so the 650m will draw LESS power?

 

No, it won't draw less power: it will be faster at the same power draw.

 

It should draw about the same. Maybe less on some less intensive games and slightly more when fully stressed.

630m fermi 40nm version is old gen compared to 650m kepler 28nm version which is brand new tech.

 

There wont be any significant difference in idle or light usage battery life. I agree with Tiller on the under load scenario. It's the whole "race to idle" concept.