Clevo(NP8690)W860U and i5-520m incompatibility issues?

I was on the phone with a respected reseller the other day and was talking options with him on a barebones build.

Id rather go the I5-520m rather than the I7 atm, mostly due to price but also less tdp and heat.

He then told me there were issues with the i5's on the current chipset as apposed to the i7-720's.

Part of me thinks he's full of sh*t that he was just trying to sell me on the typical build, he couldnt go into any details on what exactly the issues were with the i5's.Granted this was the day before the refresh with the 5870's came in.

Is anyone running an i5 on this model?..And are you running into issues?..or is this guy full of poop?

 

I dont know if its true or not but if i were you id get the i7 (the real ones with 4 cores (i7-720qm and up) not the new crappy lower models with 2 cores)..
Youll regret it when more and more games will have proper multi core support..
The difference in power between an i5 and i7 is well worth it over the lesser tdp and heat output.. but again talking about the 4 core versions not the 2 core.. if youre considering 2 core than you might as well take the i5.

 

The core i7 620m is a very respectable two core option. It has higher stock clocks and higher turbo speeds than any fore core variant. RJtech.com sells dual core i5's and i7's for the 860 and 870, but I'm also curious if the chipset presents any problems for those processors.

 

This subject has been beaten to death-

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=450403

To the OP, if you want the 620m, just go ahead and get it.

 

This doesn't answer the OP's question. The OP is asking if a 540m will work on a particular notebook. He's already decided the merits of dual vs. quad core.

 

My bad. Is the "respected reseller" RJTech? If not, maybe he can them about the potential issues.

RJTech offers the 520m as an option. I would think they would be willing to support the CPU since they are offering it.

 

I'm guessing it may be RJTech too. For one, you can be sure that the IGP on the processor won't work, as the chipset in a 860 or 870 won't support it.

 

If you are talking about Clevo based unit and more specially 860/870 model, then the problem is BIOS to accept these chip sets, which has not been done except in the 760 series but without the Intel graphic embedded unit (pretty lame if you need battery life - what little there is of this pedigree....). There are no issues except with the manufacturers implementation and current lack of engineering experience of utilizing these chip sets. ASUS has had several recent failures and even with the 73g series that is selling faster than they can fill the orders, the returns and failures is unacceptable in the world of consumers. My very strong personal, if you are not in need to use 4 core applications (2 core will run them also, ablate slower- wow -5 percent loss there), you will be far off better using I540 or if your in need to cream a I7 720xm on most applications, non 4 core, then clearly the I7 620 (2 core) will be the overall winner for years to come and cheaper (note the 820 will beat both, and the 920 is worthless -my opinion ref clevo, due to their blocking of OC capabilities, worse for the venerable 900f. Talking about gaming, it's the GPU, all the fore mentioned CPU's, will not impact or saturate these CPU'S for gaming.. My recommendation is that you spend the time to go through all the threads of interest and if you still have questions, feel free to ask. I like to believe that we are all here to help each other, we are not all knowing and often may make mistakes in our well intended replies, but guaranteed a helpful soul will guide the way to higher knowledge to our collective knowledge.

 

Thx for the replay guys.
Yes im thinking of going i5 cause its clocked higher, its cheaper, less heat etc.
But the reseller didnt want to sell me one, he wanted to sell me the i7 and said it was much better, blah blah.

Anyhoo good to know on the Asus failures, lets hope they get these kinks worked out.

 

They appear to be incompatible with G92 as well...

 

If you want to go the cheaper route, buy it barebones and get an i7-620M off of eBay for $260.

 

Is it really only BIOS update to support new dual cores? I think I read somewhere that the new CPUs will be supported when the chipset is updated to B3 stepping...

EDIT: Found it.

http://www.fudzilla.com/content/view/16392/37/

http://www.fudzilla.com/content/view/16517/35/

 

He really wants the dual core-

 

I had several posts back commented that the BIOS for the 860/870 would not support the I5 chipset. However, when I read your link, it dawned on me that I saw on intel's site the Feb. updates, all the fixes that had to be implemented by the MFG's in the way of new BIOS releases and the stepping fix. Below is the link and may provide some insight on other problems that some users may have had. Now the question is when we will see the new PM55 chip sets with the appropriate BIOS flow down. However, the PM55 can not be used for dual graphic switching. Maybe Clevo will switch over to using PM57 so clients can choose the CPU to meet their needs. Here is Intel's update: http://www.intel.com/Assets/PDF/specupdate/322170.pdf. Of course, Clevo may choose not to allow graphic switching as they did on the 760 series, even though they are using the HM55 chipset. So the issue that will remain for those hoping to have switch-able graphics on a PM55 based unit may be a deal breaker.