Differences in i5 and i7 Processors

The Friendly Newcomer

I am getting a new laptop and I have found the laptop I want but you can get one with an i5 processor for €650 or one with an i7 processor for €800.
Is the i7 worth the extra €150.

Any advice would be much appreciated.

Thanks

BopNiblets

i5s are mainstream, i7s are high end and run faster overall but are more expensive.
If you are playing really high end games or doing CPU intensive tasks like video editing then an i7 would be better but not absolutely necessary, i5 is still good for games, for simple tasks like web browsing and listening to music, word processing even a lower end i3 would do.

The Friendly Newcomer

BopNiblets wrote: »

i5s are mainstream, i7s are high end and run faster overall but are more expensive.
If you are playing really high end games or doing CPU intensive tasks like video editing then an i7 would be better but not absolutely necessary, i5 is still good for games, for simple tasks like web browsing and listening to music, word processing even a lower end i3 would do.

I am going to be doing a lot of coding, HTML, photoshop in my course next year and I would also be surfing the web (facebook etc) along with wanting to watch movies/tv shows etc.

Baked.noodle

On desktops i5 processors are quad core and i7 are quad core Hyperthreaded (can do two threads on each core for a total of 8 threads). However, in the laptop market it is different. Some i5's are dual core, and so are some i7's. Have a read through this article and goggle the processor model before you buy.

Hollister11

Is this a good laptop for tasks which require high CPU usage ?

http://www.harveynorman.ie/computing/laptops/lenovo-15.6-laptop-59426482.html

Baked.noodle

As we can see below the laptop has a i7-4510U.
http://www.harveynorman.ie/computing/laptops/lenovo-15.6-laptop-59426482.html

Lenovo 15.6" Laptop | 59426482
The Lenovo Z5070 i7-4510U Laptop has a 15.6" display that delivers images and videos with great clarity. With a memory capacity of 8GB and a 1TB hard drive, this laptop is perfectly meets your home computing needs. This laptop in silver looks sleek and stylish

The intel page for this processor is here: http://ark.intel.com/products/81015/Intel-Core-i7-4510U-Processor-4M-Cache-up-to-3_10-GHz

Status Launched
Launch Date Q2'14
DMI2 5 GT/s
Processor Number i7-4510U
# of Cores 2
# of Threads 4
Clock Speed 2 GHz
Max Turbo Frequency 3.1 GHz
Intel® Smart Cache 4 MB
Instruction Set 64-bit
Instruction Set Extensions SSE 4.1/4.2, AVX 2.0
Embedded Options Available
No
Lithography 22 nm
Max TDP 15 W
Recommended Customer Price TRAY: $393.00

It would appear to me that it would not be a particularly powerful CPU, but it may be adequate for your needs. If you are going to be video editing or other processor hungry tasks you may be better off getting another model.

Here is a page containing all the i7 mobile processors available on the current socket platform.http://ark.intel.com/products/family/75023/4th-Generation-Intel-Core-i7-Processors#@Mobile
And the i5 mobile processors: http://ark.intel.com/products/family/75024/4th-Generation-Intel-Core-i5-Processors#@Mobile

I'm not up to speed on mobile computing to be honest, but maybe somebody else here would be able to recommend you a laptop. You should ask here.

CruelCoin

It depends on how you are going to use your machine.

Most applications/games only use 1 core. So a i7 with extra threads will largely be useless unless you know for a fact that your apps will make use of multiple cores.

For the average user, a 3.6ghz i5 will outperform a 3.4ghz i7, precisely due to the above reason.

What you have said you're going to use the computer for isn't really taxing, so you'd be best off looking at the processor with the greatest speeds and forget about the number of cores/threads.

On average, you would see a 5-10% performance increase with an i7, but is this worth a 23% prices increase? I'd say no, and spend the saving on where you would see a bigger benefit (screen, graphics).

colm_c

If you are doing web development and photoshop, memory will be more of an issue, max out the RAM if you can and make sure the OS can support all of it.

An SSD would also be a good idea.