Will older older programs and games run on i7-720QM

[Guest]

I am looking at buying a laptop with the new i7-720QM Processor or Core 2 Duo P9700. When built with either processor there are only about 100.00 differences in overall price.

I mostly use my laptop for photo editing, some video editing and occasionally playing games.

Some of my older games recommend at least 2.0 ghz. My concern is the older games will not recognize quad cores and therefore not work or run correctly.

I am also concerned abut the heat output and turbo mode of the i7-720QM Processor. I feel like it is like putting a turbo on a 4 cylinder car and every time the turbo kicks in it will wear the system down a little, maybe burn out the system.

I feel like the i7 has not been road tested enough yet. However I need to replace the laptop that became infected and is now just a paperweight very soon.

My dilemma is that I do not want to spend 1400-1800 on laptop with a Core 2 Duo processor that will be obsolete in 3 years. I like to keep my machines at least 3-5 years. (I still have my old desk top running from when 1 GB of RAM was considered wow!)

So I would appreciate any advice.

Thank you,

Wayne

 

[Upendra09]

the games will run fine even if it is a quad and the game doesn't recognize all four, it will jsut use what it needs, it won't break or anything, that is a software issue

the i7 is probably overkill for what ur doing. Just go for a higher clocked Core 2 duo(2.66-3.0) or a middle clocked Core 2 quad(2.4-2.7)

the duo will last about 3-4 years and the quad will last about 4.5 years

they both will last sort of long

The i7 will be overkill for what u want to do, a core 2 quad will be fine and also the i7 will end up burning ur hands once u get turbo and other add ons

 

[Duesouth]

if you are playing any older game, let's say pre 2007ish then any dual core is an overkill of a processor. but it really falls down to your operating system and video card, and ram. but mostly the operating system is a big issue. if your are running linux Ubuntu, get virtualbox to emulate windows xp, but you will need win xp cd. apart from the operating system being an issue, well let's just say stick with what works. why change something that works good. anyways later.

 

[dunklegend]

but for 100 I would go for the i7, no question

 

[danwat1234]

You have a laptop that is infected?? Why do you need a new laptop because of this? Just wipe and reinstall if it is bad.. just a few hours of work (hopefully) and no $ invested.


Get a laptop with a 3 year warranty, such as an Asus, now you don't have to worry about it 'burning out'.

Trust the technology. Intel hasn't made any huge mistakes with processor technology reliability yet (besides a few things..)

For $100 more, you can get an i7 laptop? Of course you should go for this; the i7 laptop will be worth far more than $100 more in a year from now, in comparison to buying a core 2 duo laptop now.

 

[bthartman]

If you're primarily doing photo editing, you should definitely get the i7. Especially if you're using Photoshop CS4, which comes with both 32 and 64-bit versions, and can take advantage of all the cores (and memory) you can throw at it. It can also offload a lot of display tasks to the GPU (http://kb2.adobe.com/cps/405/kb405711.html).

Google for i7 Photoshop CS4 benchmarks and you can see just how impressive the new i7 architecture will be for this task.

 

[someguy7]

For only 100 bucks difference the i7 is the way to go. Do not worry about the turbo thing. It is not like a turbocharger in a car. For the price range you're looking at I think it would foolish not to get the i7.

 

[Scotteq]

/agreed - For $100 it'd be silly to skip on the i7.

 

[cjl]

The i7 is definitely the way to go. It will be faster in pretty much every way. However, why do you think that an "infected" laptop is a paperweight? Even if all else fails, you can reinstall the OS, and you don't need to spend the money on a new computer.

 

[Tonysm]

The new I7 architechture is significantly faster clock for clock then pretty much any processor out there. They perform about 20-30 percent faster at the same clock speed than core 2 quads , which themselves are much faster than previous pentium series processors. Basically those recommendations serve as a guideline , but even if it it cant utilize more than 1 core , the i7 720qm clocks up to 2.8ghz on single threaded apps...however even if it didnt and was running at 1.6 ghz , it would still be able to handle it easily.