Lenovo T520: i5 vs i7

Hello everybody,

Excuse me for the question that might have been discussed many times, but I need some fresh opinions and hope to get some help.

I am in the process of choosing a new laptop for myself. It will be a desktop replacement machine; will be used partially for work and partially for home entertainment (although I'm not planning to play games).

I'm pretty sure that I want the T520 model. My question is -- is the difference between i5 and i7 CPUs THAT great in everyday life? Will it be really notable? My everyday programs are:
Windows: 20-40 tabs in firefox, adobe dreamweaver, photoshop, sometimes IDE, foobar
Ubuntu: PHP/Apache/Mysql, 20-40 tabs in firefox, gimp, virtualbox, guayadeque, IDE or 5-10 Scribes windows.

Also, if I don't play games, does it make sense to pay extra for the discrete graphics card? Will the integrated card be able to connect the laptop to a display with 1920x1080?

Many thanks in advance.

 

If you don't play games the Integrated Intel HD3000 GPU is good enough, it should easily output to a external display with 1920x1080 resolution. The T520 have the choice of Quad Core i7's as well as Dual Core i5/i7 processors, it's not worth going for an Core i7 Dual Cores as it has little performance advantage to that of an i5, the Quad Core i7's on the other hand should provide slight noticeable differences on tasks such as media encoding (foobar) and virtualization work (Virtualbox).

It should come down to how much you're willing to spend, though you may also want to check out the W520 as you may find prices to be similar for the spec.

 

Thank you very much for the reply -- I don't really want to pay for the things that I don't actually need

Perhaps I'll stick with i5 Dual core/integrated card and 1600x900 display.

 

if you are getting a 15"+ notebook I would consider the FHD(1920x1080) screen.

the HD+ is just too poor a resolution for such a large screen IMO

 

It is great having the extra grunt of the additional gpu available when it does actually make a big difference - plus the extra set of software drivers. Similarly there is little downside to having a quad-core i7. That doesn't mean you won't be as happy most of the time with only one gpu and a dual-core cpu. On the other hand, you will notice, even in the smallest tasks, the consequence of whether you chose a SSD or a HDD, a 64bit or a 32 bit OS, and a FHD screen or an alternative.

 

I would stick with the i5 given your usage and the minimal increase in performance with an i7 dual\quad. If you can afford to wait, he T530 will be release probably around summer which give you the next generation architecture.

 

I'm a little late to this conversation, but I'll toss my $.02 in anyway...

The dual-core Core i7 is pointless, in my opinion! The dual core i7-2640M (2.8GHz) costs $140 more than the 2.6GHz Core i5-2540M and the performance increase would be imperceptible to most users! If you're going for the i7, get a quad-core version. But keep in mind that they do consume more power and generate more heat than the dual-cores.

The Core i5-25x0M models are excellent peformers and a great value also.

As for the display, I've used a T520 and a Dell Latitude E6520 (both 15.6" displays) with their respective HD+ (1600x900) display options. I found the resolution to be close to ideal for the display size. And the FHD 1920x1080 display costs another $200 on the T520, which is quite a chunk of cash!