Choosing between two laptops

[matiasdavyt2]

Hello, I'm looking for a laptop to buy, and finally i've found two from MSI, and I don't know which one to choose.
One of them is a MSI GX660, and the other one a GX680.
They both have 4 GB ram DDR3, 500GB HD, two HD speakers with subwoofer.
One of the differences is the CPU. The GX660 has an i5 460M, while the other one's got an i5 2410M(second generation).
Also, the GX680 has got a Blu-ray read-only drive (as well as DVDRW) and FULL HD 1920x1080 display.
Up until now, the best one is the GX680, but the GX660 has a Ati Mobility Radeon 5870, which is better than the GX680's GeForce GT 555M.
What I don't know is whether the Ati 5870 is significantly better than the GT 555m, so that it would compensate the lack of blu-ray, the less-resolution display (1366x768) and the less powerful CPU (I don't know what difference there is between first gen and second gen i5)
Thank you in advance, I hope you can help me.

 

[hpfreak]

If you are a gamer, you will get better performance from the ATI 5870, if your going to use the laptop for a blend of other things, I think the newer version would be better.

May I ask what your budget is?

 

[matiasdavyt2]

I'm going to use the laptop for gaming, but also for other things. Gaming will not be my primary use, but I want to be able to run all new games in high quality (not necessarily highest 1920x1080, but high)
My budget is around US$ 1500. The GX660 costs US$ 1380 and the GX680 is around US$ 1480 (I'm from Uruguay, so prices here are pretty high).
Here are the links for both laptops:
MSI GX660
MSI GX680
What I actually would like to know is what difference is there between the i5 460M and the 2410M. I know the latter is 2nd generation, but I'm not sure how much powerful it is.
The US$ 100 difference is not very much, I just can't make a decision on which of the two will give me the best performance.
Thanks for your reply,
Matías

 

[RetiredChief]

Of coarse the I5-2410M is a much better CPU than the I5 460M, but you know that.
One big diff is that when not gaming the I5-2410 will use the IGP (HD3000) and only use the GPU for 3d apps such as gaming whereas the 460 will be using the GPU all the time - affect battery on time.

Just bought a laptop (Samsung RF711-S01), spent considerable time look, but limited my search to the SB processors.

With the exception of gaming the SB is by far a better choice.

Not a gamer, so you can read and determine the trade offs.
555m: http://www.notebookcheck.net/NVIDIA-GeForce-GT-555M.41933.0.html
5870M: http://www.notebookcheck.net/ATI-Mobility-Radeon-HD-5870.23073.0.html

 

[WR2]

Hello matiasdavyt2;

The i5 460M (2.53Ghz) and i5 2410M (2.3Ghz) are quite close in performance. Close enough that it really doesn't matter which you choose. In the 'big list' of CPU performance you'll find the i5 2410M @ #35 and i5 460M @ #43.

Likewise the HD 5870 and GT 555M are pretty close in performance, with the 5870 having an edge.
Mobility Radeon HD 5870 @ #38 and GT 555M @ #62.

The HD 5870 / 1366x768 resolution combo will let you run higher graphics quality settings in more games than the GT 555M / 1920x1080 resolution notebook. The higher resolution will make the GT 555M seem to perform at much lower level than the HD 5870 using the native resolutions.
You could boost the performance of the GT 555M by gaming at 1366x768 / 1280×800 / 1280×720 resolutions.

 

[matiasdavyt2]

Best answer selected by matiasdavyt2.