Is a intel q6600/i5 3210m question

[rollinD]

Is todays i5 3210m as fast as intel q6600 desktop?
Why do they have the i5 when the i7 is much better?

 

[DJDeCiBeL]

Based on architecture alone, it's much faster, assuming the Q6600 isn't extremely highly overclocked. About the only thing the Q6600 would have a chance in is things that can make use of the extra two real cores.

And there's really not much difference between the i5m's and i7m's. 1MB more cache and higher clock speed for the i7m is about it.

Now, the i7qm is a different story. That's a true quad with HT (like the desktop parts).

 

[cats_Paw]

I have a Q6600 with 4 gb ddr2 and a GTX 560 Ti in my desktop, and a i5-2450m in my laptop. When i play starcraft2 (a CPU intensive game), the i5 destroys the Q6600 even with this last one is overclocked passed the 3 GHZ mark.
Also note that my GPU in the Desktop is faster than in the laptop.

 

[jaguarskx]

Newer CPU have newer architecture design which improves overall performance through IPC. IPC is the Instructions Per Cycle (or Clock) that the CPU can execute every 1Hz. The more instructions it can execute the faster it will be. Gone are the days of the MHz or GHz race except for overclockers.

For example, I encoded a video on my desktop with a Q9450 @ 3.0GHz and I encoded the same video using the same settings on my laptop with an i5-2410m @2.9GHz when Turbo Boost is enabled (Intel's auto overclocking feature) otherwise it would be 2.4GHz. The Q9450 to 54 minutes to encode the video while the i5-2410m was able to encode it in 38 or 39 minutes.

 

[jaguarskx]

The desktop i7 is only much better than the i5 if the programs you use can take advantage of Hyper Threading. If the vast majority of programs you use do not use HT, then there is no real point in paying an extra $90 - $100 for a feature that you will not be using. Games do not use HT.

 

[rollinD]

Best answer selected by rollind.

 

[rollinD]

Thanks again guys