Dell Studio 15 i5 Vs i7

dellWlan

Looking at buying a new dell studio 15 and very confused about the different processors.

intelcore i5 2.4ghz tubo boost up to 2.93ghz and i7 1.6ghz turbo boost up to 2.8ghz.

what is turbo boosting? is the i5 the clear winner here? although seemingly cheaper than the i7 model.

Alanstrainor

Turbo boosting means that the processor can increase it's clock speed on a single core if it's running a processor intense app. I think the i7 would be the more efficient of the two, where as the core i5 would run faster, but also eat more power, seeing that it's idle clock speed is quite high in comparisom. I would probably go for the i5, if it was considerably cheaper.

dellWlan

Thanks. €120 in the difference which i'm sure i could find a better use for. to be honest my current latop is so old anthing would probably be a huge improvement.

leninbenjamin

To point the obvious in case it hasn't been picked up: the i5-520M is a dual core processor, the i7-720QM is a quad core processor. the i5 is the more efficient I believe as a result.

What exactly will you be using the laptop for? If it's just for daily browsing/email/multimedia consumption then the i5 would be fine. The quad core is only really necessary for people who either multi task heavily, or do very CPU heavy activities such as video editing/encoding.

dellWlan

i do a bit of video encoding alright but majority would be browsing music pics and that. like i said the leap from what i'm using now i'm probably not going to notice the difference. thanks for the help though. think the i5 will be plenty.

Voodu Child

Yeah, for the average user, the i5 would be perfect. Its going to be a decent bit better than the 'old' gen Core2Duo's for example. Thats essentially what it is replacing in Intels new line up. The cheaper i3 range is going to replace the Pentium Dual Cores that you'd have found in the €400-500 range, the i5s will replace most of the good Core2Duos, and the i7 will be reserved for the very high-performance laptops.

The mobile i5s and i3s are also newer and hence built on 32nm (whereas the i7-720M was the first mobile i-series out the door and built on 45nm). This will have a positive effect on power consumption, efficiency and heat output.

estreetb

Voodu Child wrote: »

Yeah, for the average user, the i5 would be perfect. Its going to be a decent bit better than the 'old' gen Core2Duo's for example. Thats essentially what it is replacing in Intels new line up. The cheaper i3 range is going to replace the Pentium Dual Cores that you'd have found in the €400-500 range, the i5s will replace most of the good Core2Duos, and the i7 will be reserved for the very high-performance laptops.

The mobile i5s and i3s are also newer and hence built on 32nm (whereas the i7-720M was the first mobile i-series out the door and built on 45nm). This will have a positive effect on power consumption, efficiency and heat output.

does the above mean that a core2duo is superior to the i3 processor. need to know as thinking of purchasing a laptop with i3 but theres plenty of core2duos cheaper

Voodu Child

estreetb wrote: »

does the above mean that a core2duo is superior to the i3 processor. need to know as thinking of purchasing a laptop with i3 but theres plenty of core2duos cheaper

It depends what you mean by superior. I mean, there is such a thing as a 2.9GHz Core2Duo (T9800) but it is damn expensive, consumes a lot of power and runs very hot. Now im pretty sure that will outperform the lowest 2.1GHz i3-mobile in most benchmarks, because you are comparing the fastest of the old-gen with the slowest of the new gen. But that said, the i3 will beat it in some tasks. And the i3 has the massive advantage of being cheaper and more efficient (ie it consumes less energy for the same amount of work).

So again, it comes down to what you mean by superior, and what exact models you are talking about. But in a general sense, I would always take new tech over old. i3 laptops are not just about new processors, if you have an i3 laptop it means you have a whole new platform with many architectural improvements. Plus new stuff is just cooler :pac:

estreetb

was thinking of this one. dont see too many other models with the i3

http://www.pcworld.co.uk/martprd/product/939939