T410 with i7-620m L3 cache size

Hi.

I was reading about differences between i7 and i5 cpus.
However, everywhere it says that i7 should have 4MB of L3 cache, versus 3MB on i5. But on Lenovo's webpage it says that all of them, including i7, have only 3MB of cache. So is it some crippled version of i7 or just a mistake?

As a side question - is it worth getting i7-620m instead of i5-540M? The difference here (Canada) is 70$. (and 120$ between 520m and 620m).

Thanks!

 

I would trust the manufacturer's website (intel) more than Lenovo's website
If it would be a crippled CPU, it wouldn't be called i7-620M!

Some people say the i5-640 delivers longer battery life than the i7-620m, which makes kind of sense, but I don't care for those 15 minutes.

Anyways, here are a few benchmark regarding the 620m:
http://www.notebookcheck.net/Intel-Core-i7-620M-Notebook-Processor.23043.0.html

You'll find more info here on the board too.

 

As per your second question, the i5-540 has what, a 130 MHz advantage? I would say either you need/want the extra power and should go all out with the i7, or you're a regular user like me and the i5-520 will be just fine for 3-4 years.

 

What are your usages? For that price, I'd stick with the i5-520M since $50 and $120 more don't give you much benefit in terms of performance and a deficit in battery life.

 

cwarner has it right. If you're just a regular user the i5 will be great. Go for the i7 if you're running any kind of professional software, video encoding or you want to play the occasional game.

If you run multiple apps at the same time, the extra MB of L3 cache will help as well. Apps compete for cache so more cache => fewer cache misses when the CPU is loading memory => less time the CPU is stalled waiting for RAM access.

 

Even a mid-range Core i3 beats out most Core 2 Duo processors. A Core i5 will pack plenty of power, especially if you aren't doing any CPU-bottlenecked tasks (ie: video conversion) - save yourself some money.

 

I've ordered my T510 with an i5-540M. I was all set to get the i7-620M, until I did some googling and discovered most benchmarks give it a negligible performance increase but a noticeable increase in power consumption. The i5-540M seemed the sweet spot for me in terms of price/power/battery. But YMMV as always.

And btw it's not unheard of for Intel to have modified versions of chips for particular manufacturers, while keeping the same name. For example, the "normal" P7350 and P7450 don't feature Intel VT support, while the Apple versions do.

 

That's because, strictly speaking, the Apple versions are different processors because they have different model codes (they are denoted with an E). Intel will not have processors with the same model code but with different specs.

 

I have a T410 with a Core i7-620m. CPU-Z reports a L3 cache of 4MB.

I've not done a proper battery life test yet since I've only had it for a few days, but I ran it for 4h30m today and it had 50% left afterwards. That was mostly web browsing, iTunes, Word, etc. (other specs: 4GB RAM, intel graphics, 128GB SSD, 250GB HDD, 9-cell battery). I think I need to play around with the power management settings but I thought that was still pretty good.

I think the i5's are more than enough for most people though. I sprung for the i7 only because of the discounts on the notebook when I purchased (student pricing, plus another 10% off coupon).

 

I think I will go with i5-540M. Especially after reading this:
http://www.notebookcheck.net/Review-Intel-Core-i3-i5-i7-Processors-Arrandale.25085.0.html
Basically in terms of performance it is:
i7-620M > i5-540M > i5-520M (and all of them are still really close)
but in terms of power consumption it is more like:
i7-620M >> i5-540M ~ i5-520M
So i5-540M looks like a "sweet spot".

Thanks for all suggestions and comments!

 

Oh yeah that's the article I read that made me decide on the i5-540M also. And now you start the waiting game...

 

Oh yeah I guess so eh? Whoops, my bad.