CPU for gaming laptop

[SHIROI RAKUEN]

Hey guys, gonna buy a gaming laptop & will not be doing anything apart from gaming. I will not overclock bcz laptops have bad cooling system, unless there is an auto overclock option. Which one should I get :

i5 3230M dual core 2.60 3.20GHz 3MB 35W +35€

i5 3340M dual core 2.70 3.40GHz 3MB 35W +72€

i7 3630QM quad core 2.40 3.40GHz 6MB 45W +105€

Thx

PS : Not sure if this helps but... the video card(dedicated) is gonna be the radeon 7970M & the screen is gonna be 17.3 inch, 1920x1080, so Full HD & RAM is gonna be 8GB.

 

[Puppies04]

In an ideal world you get the quad however it really depends what chassis it is going in because if it isn't well ventilated the extra heat from a quad will cause the CPU to throttle under heavy gaming and one of the dual cores may end up being a better choice.

Give us a clue what games you are planning on playing and what model of laptop you are looking at. Also keep in mind that only some games can really use more than 2 cores so if you really are going to be doing nothing other than gaming on the machine you might be able to get away with a dual core anyway. That said as time goes by more games are coming out that take advantage of quad cores but you should keep in mind that laptops age far more quickly than desktops due to them starting off "behind the curve" as far as performance goes.

I am on the laptop on my sig right now and although it can kick out a crazy amount of heat when pushed hard I wouldn't give up the "proper" quad core for anything.

While we are on the subject, if you are getting a 17.3" model you should have a spare drive bay. I can highly recommend adding a SSD as your C: drive with a fresh install of windows, it removes the bloatware that seems to come with everything and makes everything so much "snappier" to use.

 

[SHIROI RAKUEN]

Thx for the great answer. I was really looking for that kind of answer, learned alot already.

Yeah it will come with a 64GB SSD for the OS, & a 500GB HDD all of this for under 1400€ )

Anyways, about the info u asked for... I am gonna be playing games like Crysis 1 & 3, hitman absolution, battlefield bad company 2, witcher 2, DEUS EX human revolution, u know... those kind of games that really push ur machine D

Anyways, from what u've said already, about the heat thing, I have already decided that I'm gonna take an i5. Now please just give me ur opinion on which of the two should I take.

Thx.

 

[Puppies04]

Ok keep in mind that the IB quads are more power efficient than the SB one I am running on so unless you are using it in a very warm room you should be fine.

As I said if it was me I would go for the quad core every time but if you have decided on a dual core (with hyperthreading) then go for the 3340M. The extra 100 mhz stock + 200 mhz boost may not seem like a lot but for CPU limited games it might be the difference between playable and unplayable. For 37 euros extra it seems like a no brainer.

P.s You mentioned you probalby won't be overclocking because of laptops limited cooling but I just thought I would mention that you probably won't be overclocking because very few laptops have the ability to overclock enabled in the bios.

 

[Puppies04]

Here is a link to a review of a laptop running a I7 3720 (slightly faster than the quad you linked but comparable) and a 7970M to give you some ideas of the sort of performance you can expect. The gaming tests are done at 1600 x 900 first then full 1080p further down the page.

Take a look at this and I will see if I can find you a review with a dual core... Edit... I am having trouble with the crappy internet connection in the hotel I am staying at. I did try and find you a review with an I5 and 7970M but wasn't having any luck, my money would still be on the proper quad to enable the GPU to really stretch its legs however.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/6343/avadirect-clevo-p170em-amds-hd-7970m-got-game

 

[krumme]

I would say go for the quad core, then you can probably play battlefield 4 on the machine The point is, you can always dial down resolution or graphics quality, you dont have the same posibility to alter the stress on the cpu. The result of a weak cpu can therefore be a game that is or borders on, unplayable. A 2 core 2.7 is on the meager side for that strong gfx, imho its not balanced.

 

[LagunaX]

A quad for the games you play, but not with hyper threading.
If it were just WOW, Starcraft, Diablo 3 - a dual would be fine, but then again you wouldn't need a 7970m.

 

[SHIROI RAKUEN]

Hhhhmmm ok, the quad seems to be the general choice, but u guys are talking about hyperthreading. How can I choose an i7 that does not have hyperthreading?

 

[Sleepingforest]

All mobile i7s have hyper-threading. It's a part of the i7 tier. You can find, however, a quad core i5 without hyperthreading.

As for your graphics card question, the answer is that core clock is more important. Memory clock doesn't matter nearly as much as the amount and type of memory you have.

Crash course:
Your CPU has RAM to use. Similarly, your GPU runs off its own built-in RAM. For gaming 2-3GB of video RAM is fine and any more than that is a ripoff (you'll still want around 8GB of normal RAM for your CPU). Most graphics cards have one of two kinds of memory: GDDR3 and GDDR5 (stands for Graphic Double Data Rate memory). GDDR3 is horribly slow compared to GDDR5, so look for that too.

I'd go with something like this rebadged Clevo P150EM. It has an i7, but that won't take away from it's power.

 

[SHIROI RAKUEN]

Thx man

 

[SHIROI RAKUEN]

Btw, does any of the 2 i5s I posted in the OP not have HT, so I can take that one?

 

[SPBHM]

Btw, does any of the 2 i5s I posted in the OP not have HT, so I can take that one?

both are dual core with HT (like a desktop i3, but with turbo)

 

[NTMBK]

There's no reason to avoid hyperthreading in a modern processor, except if you want to reduce cost- and none of the mobile quad-cores come without it. Only the desktop i5 comes in a HT-free quad core. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivy_Bridge_(microarchitecture)#Mobile_processors

Go for the i7 3630QM, if it's not too expensive an upgrade.

 

[Torn Mind]

Hyperthreading can always be disabled in BIOS if it isn't doing you any good anyway. But it's great to have even for basic web browsing. More "containers" for spillover for the Windows task scheduler to utilize.

 

[SHIROI RAKUEN]

There's no reason to avoid hyperthreading in a modern processor, except if you want to reduce cost- and none of the mobile quad-cores come without it. Only the desktop i5 comes in a HT-free quad core. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivy_Bridge_(microarchitecture)#Mobile_processors

Go for the i7 3630QM, if it's not too expensive an upgrade.

Yeah I'll go with that, thx.