AMD vs Intel + graphics card question

So i was recently forced to buy a laptop fr Best Buy rather than online (parents had a gift card)

Anyways, i ended up buying the dv6-3055dx which was the best i could find. The biggest difference between that and the dv6tse was that it had an AMD phenom ii quad core n930 processor (2 ghz) vs intel's i5 that i was planning on getting.

Along with that was that it has amd m880g with 128 mb ATI mobility radeon hd 4250.

two main questions are:

1. is there a big difference in cpu power b/w the two processors?
2. can the graphics card support photoshop cs5 and games like diablo ii (iii?), civilization iv and such

thanks for the help

 

1. The i5 will be better in heavy single threaded applications, but depending on which i5, they're about equal in multithreaded applications.
2. Probably won't get much performance improvement from an integrated GPU for CS5. It'll run DII fine, DIII and Civ IV most likely on lowest graphics settings.

 

Passmark gives about same score for Phenom II N930 and those intel i5s.

Civ IV and DII aren't really graphic intense games, im sure both laptop would work. DIII is not yet out, can't judge on that.

Obviously it you only plan to get integrated video cards, AMD has the advantage, however, I do see dv6tse has multiple choice of graphic card, they are all pretty good ATi cards.

 

HD4250 is the weakest ATI card. You will be better served with a dual core and an HD5650 level card.