i5 560m, i5 580m or i7 640m on Z13?

I think I'm about to order a new Z series laptop from the Sony (UK) website - free RAM upgrade option about to end...
My main uses for it will be photograph sorting/editing in Lightroom and Photoshop.
I've done a lot of searching and can't really work out to what extent it's worth my spending a bit extra on the processor.
If anyone has advice on this, it would be very helpful.
Many thanks in advance.

 

I'm sorry, can't really go into details right now, I have a plane to catch, but 580m.

Cheers.

 

Thanks for the reply! If anyone else can shed more light on this I'd be most grateful. On paper, it would seem the step up from i5 560 to 580 is minimal, whereas the i7 640 more of a jump. But I realise it's not that simple...
If I recall correctly the price jump is £60 each time so we're not talking a massive difference.

 

It depend on your needs, even though the autonomy and the speed of i5 and i7 are now very similar.
I decided two months ago to content with an i5 580 and to spend the difference on a 256 Go SSD. I have now a lot of space and an incredibly fast laptop. But no i7 sticker just for show !

 

Caught my plane xD! Allow me to elaborate:

I quote: "The performance of the Core i5-580M should be a bit beyond the Core i7-620M and therefore the second fastest dual core CPU for laptops in 2010. Compared to the older Core 2 Duo models, the i5-580M should be faster than the T9900. Therefore, the Core i5-580M is a high end dual core cpu which should handle all daily work and gaming tasks. Only the quad core i7 CPUs can be noticeably faster at tasks that require four or more threads (e.g. rendering)."

Source: Intel Core i5 580M Notebook Processor - Notebookcheck.net Tech

By second fastest they do mean the 640, don't worry, but in my mind the difference in power offered by the 640 over the 580 enters in bottelneck territorry with the other components of the laptop (GPU mostly but HDD in the case of non-SSD Zs). Basically, if you are trying to do something on a Z that can't be done on the i5, there is little to no chance it will be doable on the i7. May I remind you that the i7 name does not imply quad-core: you're still getting a dual core proc.

Then again, some see the difference when doing non-GPGPU-accellerated rendering of Video or animation (I don't even know if 2010 design programs actually work without some form of GPGPU help), and this doesn't seem to represent your usage of the Z.

That's why I think the 640m is money thrown out the window right now,but then again the more power you have the more future-proof your computer is.

Just my 2c.
Cheers.

 

Even if you had, remove it as it just distracts from the Z's sleek design.

BTT: Personally, I would go for the i7 since the CPU is soldered and you won't be able to upgrade it later easily. You simply got the most performant chip you can get (resale value is higher as well) BUT if there is a huge price difference in terms of 100's of bucks I would agree to the other postings and opt for the i5 and a quad-raid. Even that one is more than lightning fast and able to handle all tasks for everyday use. Between the 560, 580 and 640 there is approx. a 10% performance step between each. When it comes to photo editing and Bridge/Lightroom stuff, you will probably not notice anything between i5 and i7 but you will notice a difference between dual and quad-raids so did I when trying both setups side by side in my sony style store.

Anyways, after all, it's just a matter of the money you are willing to spend.

 

I got the i7 last month because Sony UK were giving it away for free. The free RAM offer ends tomorrow and you might want to wait and see if they offer the i7 again because you can upgrade the RAM yourself for a lot less than the £200 that Sony charge.

If it wasn't free I would have bought the i5 580m but I'm glad I got the i7 for the reasons that pyr0 mentioned.

 

Too many options I think! ;-)
Well looking at my options - customisable ones as I don't want/need optical drive and am waiting for SSD till cheaper:
Basic comes with i5 460 which I've ruled out.
£60 extra for i5-560, £110 for i5-580 and £170 for i7-640 so a pretty similar price jump for each and not that much at all to go from top i5 to i7.... so I guess if i7 gives me more options if/when I want to upgrade anything, perhaps that is money well spent.
I'm also going to go for the full HD screen - have read pros and cons - but for photo editing, it sounds the better option.
Basically I want something that will do a great job of displaying photos as well as letting me view, sort and edit large RAW files.

 

You'll be perfectly fine with the FHD. I use the FHD as my only screen - I am doing much graphical stuff and I love it.

 

For sure, I took all of them off the first week !
What about noise and heat of an i7 vs i5 ? I didn't see any bech on those points.

 

Check out geekbench. They have several members that have benched their Z's. Keep in mind, these are just benchmarks.

http://browse.geekbench.ca/geekbench2/search?q=sony+z13&commit=Search

 

I read this thread too late, probably you already made your order. My main use of my Z is also photo editing and such with Lightroom x64 and Photoshop CS5.

The bigger the files (specially when using lots of layers) you work with in Photoshop, the more critical the amount of RAM and speedy CPU become.
For lightroom, it seems there is never enough RAM, never enough CPU and never fast enough HDD.

Hard drive is always the limiting factor with Lightroom (if you have already enough ram), so I would recomend you reconsider SSD's despite the cost.

And of course, the full HD screen is the way to go. You may not notice it instantly at first, but you'll probably enjoy a nicer gradient of colour and be able to find exactly the colour and tone you want.

It's truly amazing.

Trying to reply to those who miss quad cores, yes, if I compare my i7 620 to my desktop, it is still slower, but not as much when I take into consideration the portability and autonomy the Z brings to the table. Until they can make 35W quad cores, we'll be happy with dual and keeping battery life and temps under reasonable limits. (BTW my desktop is a Core2Quad@3,72Ghz with 8gb, SSD, and 4x500gb RAID 0+1)

 

The RAM offer ends today so I've still got a tiny bit of time...

Quite understand point about SSD as I have one in my main PC just for processing - trouble is, I'm going to be paying about £600/700 more to get some of any decent size with the way Sony configues their machines. And then I have to get an optical drive as well which I don't need - I know I can change it for a normal HD in due course but again all more money...

I will always do most of my serious editing on my main PC so I can live with a bit of compromise - but if it's a case of £100 odd either way, as it is with the different processors, then I can stretch things a bit further if it's going to make a decent amount of difference.

 

I personally prefer 580m, as the only slight difference between 580m and 640m is the clock. I don't think that affect the overall performance. But 580m is much cheaper.~~

 

If I'm buying a customisable laptop, the difference between 580 and 640 is £60 which doesn't seem a lot if it's worth it - faster clock and also larger cache - but I've seen conflicting info on which actually performs best...

 

Thanks for making me discovering this adress, but I was speaking about noise and heat benchmark between i5 an i7.

 

Its just clock speeds, I think the difference should be marginal at best

 

In my case, I have the 620M which roughly, is the same as an 580 and I am happy, but since it's the part one part I'll never be able to upgrade, I'd choose the faster i7.

About the SSD and sony, hell they are expensive!! I ordered mine with a conventional HDD (no optical drive) and then switched it for an Intel drive.

If I were to buy this little monster again, probably I'd opt to save further for the 4xdrive with 192Gb. Specially to be able to store more in the drive.

Now I am thinking on upgrading to something around 300Gb next spring/summmer.

And waiting for a 1Tb 2,5" USB 3.0 drive to find its way home...

 

I7 640m + hdd = slower than base i5 + ssd.
So if you are opting for a normal hdd then i would suggest you go for the i7. As with no ssd,performance would majorly depend on the proccy.
If you decide to go with ssd, i5 580m would be a great choice as you wil not experience any noticeable gain in performance with the i7.

 

Thanks for all the replies.
I ordered last night and went for the i7 as it was such a small upgrade cost and for the reasons put forward by the likes of runavaio. Cheapest option with SSD would still have been a few hundred £ more and 2 x 64GB definitely not enough for me so I'd have had to spend a lot, lot, more to get the capacity I'd need.
At some future date I can update the HD for a SSD - in the meantime, I will still have something that works at a pretty good speed so I'm happy I made the right choice, given my budget was not unlimited!