Mobile sandy bridge versus Core 2 Duo?

Solution
The i7 is 45 watts compared to the core 2 being only 25 watts so the i7 uses more power. As far as the 50 to 100% more gain it will depend on the use. The core 2 has 2 cores but the i7 has 4 cores and 8 threads. So if your using processor intensive programs and/or running multiple apps then you will definitely see a huge difference in performance. So basically YES!

As far as speed goes that's a no brainer since you listed the speed of each - which number is bigger?

Don't know if it's me or what but your links went to Intel's logo and page not found.

suteck

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The i7 is 45 watts compared to the core 2 being only 25 watts so the i7 uses more power. As far as the 50 to 100% more gain it will depend on the use. The core 2 has 2 cores but the i7 has 4 cores and 8 threads. So if your using processor intensive programs and/or running multiple apps then you will definitely see a huge difference in performance. So basically YES!

As far as speed goes that's a no brainer since you listed the speed of each - which number is bigger?

Don't know if it's me or what but your links went to Intel's logo and page not found.
 
Solution
The difference is monumental. Enormous. Gigantic. Stupendous. Etc.

Seriously, the 2720qm is so much faster that it's hard to express. Sandy Bridge mobile is a phenomenal leap in mobile performance.

That having been said, yes, the sandy bridge uses more power. At idle, they're actually pretty close, and the same is true in browsing or videos, but if you start putting a real load on the Sandy, it'll drain the battery pretty quick.
 

HankB99

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Here's how I have been comparing processors:

Intel Core2 Duo P7450 (2 cores, 2 threads) @ 2.13GHz PassMark => 1572 , passmark/thread => 786
Intel Core i7-2620M @ 2.70GHz (4 cores, 8 threads) PassMark => 3415 => 854

On tasks that can use all cores, the i7 will provide a bit more than double throughput. For single threaded tasks, it will be less than 10% faster. Hyperthreading will provide some additional performance boost when there are more than 4 tasks competing for CPU cores.

The 2720qm was not listed at cpubenchmark. It has a higher clock rate and can use faster RAM, but I don't know how much either will contribute to raw performance.

This analysis also ignores any benefit you might gain from overclocking.

I'm curious to know if this is a reasonable way to compare two CPUs. I see some reviews that compare multiple benchmarks and ranking is rarely the same across all processors tested. However, if both processors are not included in the same test, I'm not sure results from different tests (under different conditions) can be compared.

(PassMark from http://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu_list.php)
 

This is also ignoring the fact that when running two cores alone (or one core), the clockspeed will be significantly higher than it will be when running all eight threads (because of turbo). I would expect significantly more than a 10% gain on single threaded apps because of this.
 

HankB99

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Yes - thanks! I had forgotten about that. In fact, I realized that was a benefit of the present 6 core AMD CPUs vs. their 4 core counterparts. They'll also get a speed boost when fewer cores are running.