how much difference in power consumption between..

i5-2520m dual core and the i7-2630qm quad? i think the i5 is 35 watts and the i7 is 45 watts, but does intel have a feature to disable cores?

 

What is you goal? I'm not 100% clear on what you're asking.

 

what i'm asking is, does the quad 2630qm suck more battery juice noticeably faster than the dual 2520? the difference in price is only $30. am i a looooot less likely to see 5 hours battery on the np5160 or is it feasible? i know i won't be using heavy duty processing apps, but it'd be nice if it there for when it could be used or for stuff like folding@home. the comparison is kinda like an 8 cylinder engine and a 4 cylinder. the 4 cylinder might only get 30 mpg, but if the 8 banger got 25 mpg, rather than 15 it might be worth considering.

 

Well, a 22% increase in CPU power draw will have an effect under load, but what that means while under batter power is different. You'll need to find out what kind of power state each assumes when on battery.

I'd expect the 2630QM to take... an hour off, but that's my baseless speculation.

 

that is basically what my baseless speculation is also. so would you or anybody else happen to know if you can disable cores or the like on a quad core processor?

 

It's a $150 difference according to Intel and Mythlogic.

 

xoticpc there is a $30 price difference between the 2520m and the 2630qm.

 

Code:

I know, but it's $225.00 per unit of i5-2520's when you buy 1000, and $346.00 for the i7-2620 (dual-core, 35W TDB) and I'd assume even more for the i7-2630.

 

oh. i couldn't find the exact price either. intel is weird with prices. the only thing i could gather was that 1000 unit price is somewhere between $346 and $378. and it's weird how that translates into about approximately $30 on the consumer end. hmmm...

 

You're talking a 10W max TDP difference. The system underclocks the Quad cores when on battery anyhow, and I doubt you'd see any significant battery life lost with the 2630QM unless you stress the CPU a lot while on battery.

Look at the power comparison of the 2520M and 2820QM below. At idle they are nearly identical, and at load the 2820QM is much higher, but it also clocks much higher than the 2630QM as well. I know it isn't an exact comparison nor battery life test, but the point is that when the CPU isn't tasked much it's power consumption is relatively low.

Intel Core i5-2520M and The Asus K53E Notebook - HotHardware

 

thanks wingnut. i've been researching all night. i figure i'll be alright on battery life. i haven't kept up since i bought the notebook in my sig. quad's have changed the last 3 years or so. my notebook is usually on the charger, but it's nice to know how long you can be away from the charger. the np2092 in my sig can still get 3 hours on power saving mode. a couple of weeks ago i stressed it under power saving mode while using wifi and surfing the web and i was astonished my battery still has 3 hour capacity after 3 years.

 

Nice, yeah. I don't use my main laptop (previously NP8662 and Vostro 1500) much off the charger, but always nice to know you have the battery life when you do need it. Heck even with the GTX 485m and i7-2720QM on this machine (NP8170/P170HM) I can get over two hours with decent web use.

 

Looking at that chart I can't help to think under light to moderate loads the Quad does not use enough extra power to make much of a difference in battery life. Sure would like to see a direct comparison between the 2520M and the 2630QM. I am about ready to pull the trigger on a 5160 and really the CPU is the part I am having the most problem deciding on.

 

It would be nice of a Clevo rebuilder would post some battery life and/or power draw numbers with the 2630qm and 2520m in the same machine as I'm sure lots of people are on the fence about power consumption when it comes to deciding on a laptop intended for decent battery life. A few different scenarios would be nice too. Idle, max load, movies, web surfing.

 

Is there a backup battery in the machine? If you find yourself REALLLY needing battery, could you hot-swap the batteries if you have two?

Also, WingNut, what's the performance like on battery? Could you play a game or would it be impossible? Kind of sucks if you can't, but I'll live

 

Few gaming laptops run at peak performance when on battery. These machines drop the CPU and GPU performance when on battery to attain greater battery life, so even if it does game decently, you would be lucky to get 30 minutes. Just the nature of the beast. If you want to game on battery then best to buy a notebook with a lower mid-range GPU like the HD 5650 / 6550 or GT 540m. The battery is there really for doing normal desktop apps or light 3D stuff not running at peak performance.

 

kind of funny when i think about it. many of us, including myself, worry about battery life vs. performance. some of us need the performance. i don't really. but think about this. the people that really need the performance, methinks aren't worried about how fast and how long they can encode on the battery. those people are plugged in anyways. i seriously doubt there's anybody where it's mandatory they have to be able to decode x amount of gigabytes of information on a 4 hour road trip/plane trip. i would think 90% of us are more worried about can i check my mail or do some light browsing/gaming on a 4 hour road trip. so the question really isn't battery vs performance. it really is more how efficient is the cpu and/or gpu across the whole spectrum of use. and i think intel really did well with this generation of processors so methinks that the improvements will only get better.

 

Kinda. But not really. That's why I have my M11x. Can game for close to 3 hours on battery...

Granted not some of the newest titles and not at max detail, but 99% of other games run reasonably well.

 

well, uhm, you could always pick your nose the last hour. and wipe your boogers on the keyboard.