2720QM vs 2630QM

I am thinking about returning my 2630QM laptop so i can get the 2720QM. HOw much better performance wise is the 2720QM?

 

Depends, is your usage processor intensive? (E.g. video editing, virtualization, etc.) If not, you won't notice anything different.

Though looking back at a previous post of yours in the HP DV6 order status thread, it looks like you didn't get the 1080p screen. That is a worthwhile reason to return it, because it will make a big difference if you're willing to return it and get that. Costs the same as the processor upgrade, but makes a much bigger difference.

 

Honestly right now in the current state of computers, i believe the difference will not matter much at all. But i bought my laptop to last me 4 years, before i can buy another laptop, so i went with 2720qm because later down the line and extra performance will help since the computer will have to be playing catch up to modern technology.

Conclusion, i say upgrade to 2720qm, but defiantly skip 2820qm which is completely useless.

EDIT: As the the above user said. DEFIANTLY upgrade to the 1080p screen. That is a requirement. If your on a budget, i would say upgrade to the 1080p screen over upgrading the proccessor.

 

An extra 14% boost in turbo speed (2.9GHz -> 3.4GHz) and an extra 10% boost in stock speed (2.0GHz -> 2.2GHz) will make no difference in terms of future proofing.

The i3-2310M to i5-2410M upgrade brings a 29% boost in turbo speed for dual-threaded tasks, and a 38% boost for single-threaded tasks (i3 has no turbo), which is twice the relative gain you get from the 2630QM -> 2720QM upgrade.

 

The exact numbers for the 2720QM vs. the 2630QM (in GHz) are:
Base speed: 2.2 vs 2.0 (+10%)
Max 1 core turbo: 3.3 vs. 2.9 (+14%)
Max 2 core turbo: 3.2 vs. 2.8 (+14%)
Max 3 core turbo: 3.1 vs. 2.7 (+15%)
Max 4 core turbo: 3.0 vs. 2.6 (+15%)
IGP turbo: 1.3 vs. 1.1 (+18%)

The 2720QM also gives you VT-d, though I'm not sure what kind of a laptop would use it. If you're getting it for 10% or less of the system's price, then it might not be a bad idea to upgrade. Otherwise, it's probably not worth it.

 

Waste of money IMO

in just 1-2 years both processors will be obsolete so it doesn't make sense to spend money on an upgrade that doesn't make a big difference (and it's like $150 upgrade aint it?)

 

All current CPUs will be obsolete in less than 9 months (when Ivy Bridge comes out). However, it doesn't make the CPU any worse, it just gives you better alternatives.

The price varies: some Sager resellers charge $160 for it which probably is not worth it, but others only charge $25. When I bought my HP dv6t, it only cost $100 extra which I thought was OK since the system without it cost about $1000.

 

Why is upgrading to the 2820QM not a worthwhile upgrade option?

I honestly don't know... just curious.

 

Because last time i checked it was an extra 200 dollars from the 2720qm for a maxium of a 0.4 ghz upgrade. Useless. Sorry

 

It's not necessarily thus, but the price is a lot harder to justify. Its advantage over the 2720QM is exactly 100MHz at base (2.3 vs 2.2GHz) and at all Turbo steps. That means that you get somewhere between a little under 5% at base to a little over 3% at the highest Turbo. The problem is that HP charges a lot of money for it ($200 nominally, but more realistically $130-140 with coupons). So you're getting less than half as much in going from a 2720QM to a 2820QM than from the previous upgrade (i.e. the 2630QM to 2720QM) and you're paying more for it ($135 vs. $100). The extra feature the 2820QM has over the 2720QM is extra cache L3 (8MB rather than 6MB) so it may be worthwhile if you use cache-bound programs, but these are really quite rare.

Don't get me wrong, I'd love to have a 2820QM. They're the best of the current class of mainstream CPUs (the 2920XM is faster, but the TDP is higher). If money was truly no object, then this is defintely what I would get. However, at the price that HP is offering them, the slight increase in performance is a rather tough sell.

 

I never did the math when I had mine built. I just blindly went with the best options. But it makes good sense. Wish I knew then. Thanks for clarifying.

 

Go for the 2720. It is worth the money if you are keeping the computer.

 

Not really. It's worth the upgrade if you have something specific that needs it, but it won't really do much in terms of future proofing.

 

A SSD will do much more than a slight upgrade in processor will.

 

Im a noob so what exactly would a ssd improve other than boot up times?

Thanks

 

Application launch times. Most of the time when you're waiting for your computer to do something that takes a second or two, the bottleneck is the hard drive. SSDs reduce that to almost nothing.

That said, the price is not of the same scale, at least for the dv6. Unless you want to sacrifice the BlueRay, you only have 1 drive so the SSD would have to be pretty large. A 256GB currently costs on the order of $400, bigger ones are even more expensive. There's occasionally a sale where you can get some of the slower ones for a lot less (the record was $200, but that sold out within well under 5 minutes).

So yes, it makes the laptop a lot faster, but this is not a 10% price increase, it's more like 30-40% and, unlike the CPU, it's not a straight up upgrade: you are trading storage space for speed. Besides, it's easier to upgrade a hard drive than a CPU after you buy (in fact, you'll be doing that anyway since HP doesn't offer any SSDs with the Pavilions). IMO, for the dv6, it's better to wait for the price to drop and get a bigger SSD. The dv7 is different because you get 2 drive bays.

 

Agreed. Getting a nice high capacity SATA III SSD is the best future proofing you can do, since you can always migrate it to your new laptop. That's what I did, never regretted.

You need to be doing something extremely specific and computationally hardcore in order to even maximize the full power of the i7-2630qm.

 

Even i was confused
But when i saw
i7-2630QM on many alienware laptops
n d only option on many gaming rigs on Asus laptops
I thought it is more more more than enough
u wont see any difference
The processor speed is bottlenecked by the GPU speed
Its not at all worth upgrading

Remember 1 thing i7-2630QM is way more faster than
previous generation i7 extreme processor

Now u know how much power u have

 

SATA/600 isn't necessary nor does it in itself make it a better SSD. I won't even get into the whole future proofing business.

 

I paid about $114 after tax to upgrade to the 2720QM and $80 after I sold the other modules on Ebay to go from 6mb 1333mhz to 8mb 1600mhz plug-and-play memory modules (the 2630qm won't support over 1333mhz on these motherboards).

Is the performance difference worth $200 (slightly faster top speed for the intel cores and slightly faster Intel GPU and slightly faster memory)? Technically, no. But, I will be keeping this laptop for four years at least and $200 is not a ton to spend on things I most likely won't change in the future.

I will get an SSD eventually but I'm waiting until the capacities are large enough. I don't want to remove my optical drive, so I'll keep my 7200rpm drive until they're big enough to warrant it.

So, the 2630qm is good enough, the 2720qm is not a lot more and if you're keeping the computer for a long time then I think it's worth it.

 

As an aside, it's only faster if you don't overclock the extreme edition and in that case, you're wasting your money. More importantly, yes, Sandy Bridge is way better than Clarksfield... but that's not so much a sign of Sandy Bridge being great as it is of Clarksfield being awful. Remember, in multithreaded tasks, Clarksfield was actually no better than the mobile Core2Quads which it replaced. Its only advantage over them was Turbo Boost. In fact, when Arrandale came out, there were several huge threads in this forum arguing whether the dual-core Arrandale was better than the quad-core Clarksfield (the answer is not obvious). Clarksfield was Intel's worst architecture since the P4 days -- it was quite clear that the tried to stuff a 130W CPU into a 45W thermal budget and only partially succeeded.

 

@Althernai Agreed totally
But then too sandy bridge is a significant improvement