Are 3rd Gen I5 s better than 2nd Gen i7s - Request Recommend to choose

p1tin

Member
Dec 24, 2007
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I have decided to buy a good laptop with minimum of 16GB RAM and 320GB HDD.

I request which will be best suited for the purpose defined below.


Budget cannot exceed $400 ( which is Rs.26000)

Purpose:

* Will be running VMWARE Lab environment with mutiples VM s -minimum of 7-10 VMs, Vsphere etc
* Will be running Cisco UCS simulator.
* GNS3 software ( not simultaneously though)
[For those who do not know GNS3 - it is a simulator for Cisco Routers used for doing practice labs for Cisco Networking Examination at Expert level. It gobbles cpu cycles afaik.]
* apart from this it will be used for watching movies occasionaly and MS office, Excel and browsing net, downloading stuff.

Choices:
Note that all the options are sparingly used/ refurbished laptops in excellent working condition.
Also I have Samsung Evo 250GB SSD and will install in them and install the 1TB that comes along with this laptop in the DVD drive bay by removing DVD drive.

1.
Lenovo T420 with Intel® Core™ i7 processor i7-2620M with dual-core

2.
Lenovo T420 with Intel® Core™ i5 processor i5-2520M with dual-core

3.
HP EliteBook 8440p with Intel Core i7-720QM Processor (1.60-GHz, 6MB L3 cache)* Up to 2.8 GHz with Intel Turbo Boost Technology

HP EliteBook 8440p Intel Core i7-620M Processor (2.66-GHz, 4MB L3 cache)* Up to 3.33 GHz with Intel Turbo Boost Technology

4. Dell Business class laptop with i5 3rd Gen processor.

Question:

a. Of the above options which will best suited to my need provided all these will have 1TB HDD and 16GB RAM and price approximately in my expected range ?

b. Are 3rd Gen I5 s better than 2nd Gen i7s and so should I go for the 3rd Gen i5 ?
 
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fralexandr

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Apr 26, 2007
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generally nehalem/westmere are considered 1st gen, sandybridge is 2nd gen, ivybridge is 3rd gen, haswell is 4th gen

a) your options listed are nehalem/westmere (720qm/620m) and sandybridge (2620m/2520m)
http://www.anandtech.com/show/4262/asus-k53e-testing-dualcore-sandy-bridge/3
the i5 2520m is probably the better choice, even considering the i7-720qm is a quadcore part.

The i7-720qm has rather low turbo speeds
~1.73 for 3/4 cores
~2.4 for 2 cores
~2.8 for 1 core
this is compared to the i5 2520m with 2 cores turboing at 3.0.

this puts the i5 2520m as signficantly faster than the 720qm for less threaded tasks and negligibly/marginally slower for heavily threaded tasks
http://www.cpu-world.com/Compare/18...M_(BGA)_vs_Intel_Core_i7_Mobile_i7-720QM.html
Another bonus is that sandybridge runs much cooler/lower power, which might be handy, given your listed options are laptops/notebooks.

b) the biggest improvement between 3rd (ivy) and 2nd gen (sandy) I5/I7 is integrated graphics. if the 2nd gen i7 is a quadcore (qm at the end), it's definitely better than the 3rd gen i5, otherwise it's not too big of a difference CPU wise (a small clockspeed bump and a bit more cache).
 
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mvbighead

Diamond Member
Apr 20, 2009
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If you're looking at something that 'gobbles up CPU cycles', you're going to be better off with something that can at least isolate threads. My preference would be for something that has 4 cores with hyper-threading for a total of 8 threads. At that point, you can give each VM two cores or so, and the CPU scheduler in VMWare shouldn't have too much issue.

I'd worry about 2 cores trying to run 7-10 of any kind of VM. At that point, the CPU scheduler has two real cores or 4 threads to spread workload through. That just isn't enough IMO.

EDIT: I should also add that if CPU does become intensive, a laptop typically is not a good platform of choice. They are typically designed to slow the CPU down when idle, and the cooler is generally just enough to keep the heat down if it spikes a few times. If the CPU load remains high, the fan is going to be working over time. If you have any option to move this to a desktop and access it from a notebook/chromebook or whatever, I'd recommend it. Elsewise just make sure you keep the vents clean from dust/debris so that the CPU cooler doesn't have to work too hard.
 
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