I7 720qm vs i5 540m for GAMING

Considering the same GPU? You still haven't told us what GPU.

ohh, i am a complete noob in electronics so never knew the GPU config was important here! ill mention the other configs!
The other configs are:-

1) ATI MOBILITY RADEON 5830 OR 4670
2) 4 GB DDR3 RAM 1066
3) 320/500GB 7200RPM HARD DRIVE

i5 @ 3.06GHz will only happen when a temps allow, same as the i7 @ 2.8GHZ.

i7 720QM 4 Cores + HT
i5 540M 2 Cores + HT

Have heard people say that the Core i5 750 is the best bang for your buck chip to go for.

@ das_stig - i5 750 is not available in laptops, so that is out of contention! and what do you mean by "when a temps allow"?

With gaming, the graphics card is usually more important that the CPU.



If the temperature of the CPU gets too high, Turbo Boost will not turn on and you will be left with a stock processor.

As far as gaming performance goes, it's going to depend on the titles you play. Some games cannot take advantage of more than one or two processor cores. If that is the case, then the higher clocked dual core will perform better. However, if the game can take advantage of all four cores on the i7-720, then it will be the better chip.

Also note that the i5 will be better on battery life than the i7 will since the i5 uses less power and is built on a smaller manufacturing process.

http://www.intel.com/technology/turboboost/

http://www.intel.com/technology/product/demos/turboboos...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_Turbo_Boost


Basicly, what das_stig is saying is as long as the temps of the cpu are under a set temperature, you will go into turbo boost.

Hope those links helps.

So that means:-

1) with i7 720qm if only 2 cores are active it will run at a max clock speed of 2.398 GHz, while in i5 540m when 2 cores are active its running at 2.53 GHz  

2) with i7 fully turboboosted and hyperthreaded at 4 cores, it is running at a max of 2.8 GHz, while a similar full automation of i5 540m gives it a clock speed of 3.06 GHz.  

3) Also the i5 is cheaper than i7  

4) battery life is better in i5!    

4) only thing is i7 is 4 cores which can mimick 8 (in laymans terms) while an i5 is a dual core which can be hyperthreaded to seem like a quad core   .....but in the next few years to come with the i5 released simultaneous with the i7, theres hardly any chance of some game which will run only on i7 and not on i5   .... performance wise in terms of GAMING, at least as of now i5 540m will perform better than i7 720qm   ...only thing is in future if there is some game like "crysis 4" or "left for dead 10" which will use more than a quad core, then i7 will perform better than i5     ....AM I RIGHT GUYS? if i am i dont understand why gamers would run after an underclocked i7 over a better clocked i5?   in fact theres a thread here in tomsharedware comparing the i5 540m with i7 720qm where the best answer chosen was "BEG BORROW OR STEAL, BUT GET AN i7"!    
                                   

still waiting for he best answer!!!

thanks enzo....that was of immense help....just 2 more questions.....

1) if the mobile 5830 is not good enough...do u suggest any better alternative in terms of GPU for laptop which should keep me futureproofed for longer...i dont want my gpu to be bottlenecked too soon????

2) and i5 540m is the way to go at the moment...better than the T9600, core2quad and the i7 720QM??? of course the i8 would hv been better but it costs too high for my liking and budget!

http://www.notebookcheck.net/Mobile-Graphics-Cards-Benc...

The 5830 is the 32nd one down. Looks like I overestimated its capabilities.

ohh ***....looks like i overestimated it too...im going to buy something else...atleast not the 32nd ranked card! i hope though that this rating is authentic...coz i dont see any benchmarking figures...i guess wait and watch it would be!!!

So why is it you are limited to a laptop instead of a desktop for gaming anyway?

well, i do have a gaming rig...but most of the time im out ... to different places, so was thinking of a suitable mobile alternative!!!

Best answer selected by Necessary Evil.

n
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nI am also about to buy a laptop, and thinking of the asus G73JH-A1, was kind of curious which computer you got?

The one thing not being pointed out is the cache , and why it's important to factor in here.

If you really want to get to the bottom of this war between less cores , with higher clock rates , and vice versa . Heres how to look at it , without having to go into too much technical details here .

Cache - for every megabyte of cache that one CPU has over another , as long as there technologies are similar - add about 100-125MHz in processing speed.

example.. a 2.6ghz 2core CPU 3Mb cache vs a 1.6ghz 4core CPU 8Mb cache . The 1.6 has 5mb extra cache , so 5x100 = 500mhz , making the 1.6 run around 2.1

2.6 x 2 cores = 5.2ghz processing power
2.1 x 4 cores = 8.4ghz processing power

- a quick way to explain this is .... the cache handles the info needing to be processed by the CPU , so the more cache , the more simultaneous processing can happen - this translates to a speed increase at lower ghz.

The biggest thing to keep in mind here is that most applications are still using a single core - and only 15-20% of games on the market can utilize multiple cores. So this entire conversation comes down to which exact software your going to be using most. For a majority of people the Corei5 will be a much better choice for 85% of all computing . But if your wanting to run the 15% of appz out there that use multiple cores - like some video editing software , photo editing software , or those few choice high end games - go for the i7.

Hope this helps  

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BorderLineProductions

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