I5 with switchable grafics or i7 without switchable grafics?

maldo76

May 10, 2010 3:47:04 PM

Hello,
I'm buying a laptop this week, I have the one I want already but can't decide which configuration is better. There is the i5 430M with ATI 5730 1gb with swatchable grafics and a 500gb 5200rpm drive, or for a $100 more an i7 720qm with same video card but no switchable grafics and hard drive s faster at 7200rpms.

Question, one will give me 3hrs battery life and one with switchable grafics and grafics off will give me 4 hours. Also the faster 7200rpm hard drive for the i7. Wjich is a better buy for the future.

I hardly do any games but do video editing for fun, and also my wife uses ingeneering programs that use a lot of cpu power.

Please give me your thoughts

More about : switchable grafics switchable grafics

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Pro Llama

CPUs Expert

May 10, 2010 4:01:40 PM

maldo76 said:

Hello,
I'm buying a laptop this week, I have the one I want already but can't decide which configuration is better. There is the i5 430M with ATI 5730 1gb with swatchable grafics and a 500gb 5200rpm drive, or for a $100 more an i7 720qm with same video card but no switchable grafics and hard drive s faster at 7200rpms.

Question, one will give me 3hrs battery life and one with switchable grafics and grafics off will give me 4 hours. Also the faster 7200rpm hard drive for the i7. Wjich is a better buy for the future.

I hardly do any games but do video editing for fun, and also my wife uses ingeneering programs that use a lot of cpu power.

Please give me your thoughts

If you need the extra battery life go with the i5 if not you would be better off with the i7 because its extra power will show when you are using the cpu heavily.

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maldo76

May 10, 2010 9:18:54 PM

Pro Llama said:

If you need the extra battery life go with the i5 if not you would be better off with the i7 because its extra power will show when you are using the cpu heavily.

Good question. I don't know if 4 hrs vs 3 hrs is enough a diffence to go for the i5 and 5200rpm vs the i7 4 cores and 7200rpm hard drive with no switchable grafics?

Is switchable grafics important to get now? Or better specs? I mean for the long run!

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Pro Llama

CPUs Expert

May 11, 2010 2:56:48 PM

maldo76 said:

Good question. I don't know if 4 hrs vs 3 hrs is enough a diffence to go for the i5 and 5200rpm vs the i7 4 cores and 7200rpm hard drive with no switchable grafics?

Is switchable grafics important to get now? Or better specs? I mean for the long run!

If you are going to be plugged in most of the time I don’t think this will make much of a difference at all. Personally I would go with the i7 because it will be faster and a large majority of the time I will have an outlet near me that I can use if need be.

Switchable graphics is a nice feature but if you are giving up performance to gain something you may or may not need then I believe it is unimportant. In the long run I think more performance will make the laptop last a little longer.

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