Difference between i5-560m and i7-620m?

[BlueWeasel]

What exactly is the primary difference between these two mobile processors? Both are dual-core and run at the same base clock speed. Granted, the i7 has more cache and maxes out slightly higher in turbo mode.

i5-560m:
2.66Ghz (3.2Ghz Turbo)
3MB cache

i7-620m:
2.66Ghz (3.33 Turbo)
4MB cache

I'm thinking of getting a new Lenovo laptop and I can get the i7-620m with a 128mb SSD for only $100 more than the i5-560m with a 250GB 5400RPM spindle drive.

Battery life is important to me, though. Does the i7-620m suck much more juice than the i5 option?

 

[IntelUser2000]

That seems worth it. $100 for SSD and the 620M. The power usage difference between the two is negligible.

Core i5 560M:
Base clock: 2.66GHz
2 core Turbo: 2.93GHz
1 core Turbo: 3.20GHz

Core i7 620M
Base clock: 2.66GHz
2 core Turbo: 3.06GHz
1 core Turbo: 3.33GHz

Graphics are clocked the same. So you are getting 133MHz faster Turbo speeds and 1MB more cache.

 

[BlueWeasel]

That seems worth it. $100 for SSD and the 620M. The power usage difference between the two is negligible.

Core i5 560M:
Base clock: 2.66GHz
2 core Turbo: 2.93GHz
1 core Turbo: 3.20GHz

Core i7 620M
Base clock: 2.66GHz
2 core Turbo: 3.06GHz
1 core Turbo: 3.33GHz

Graphics are clocked the same. So you are getting 133MHz faster Turbo speeds and 1MB more cache.

Thanks for the info. I guess when I saw i7, I immediately thought of a power-hungry quad. If the power consumption is insignificant, then the i7 + SSD is definately the way to go. For comparison, the upgrade from the i5 to i7 on the lower end T410 laptops is $200.

 

[Mopetar]

Graphics are clocked the same. So you are getting 133MHz faster Turbo speeds and 1MB more cache.

They are the previous generation graphics thought and generally abysmal. They were bad enough that Apple kept a few of their notebooks on C2D chips just so they could use Nvidia chipsets.

If you want to do any gaming at all make sure you have a discrete graphics card. Make sure it's an Nvidia Optimus card which will allow you to switch off the discrete graphics if you don't need them.

 

[BlueWeasel]

They are the previous generation graphics thought and generally abysmal. They were bad enough that Apple kept a few of their notebooks on C2D chips just so they could use Nvidia chipsets.

If you want to do any gaming at all make sure you have a discrete graphics card. Make sure it's an Nvidia Optimus card which will allow you to switch off the discrete graphics if you don't need them.

The one I've got my eye on does have a 3100m Nvidia Optimus configuration. I won't be gaming on this laptop but need graphical power infrequently for work. The IGP will be used 90% of the time.

Is there any difference between the i5-560m and i7-620m when it comes to onboard graphics? Mainly interested in power/battery consumption.

 

[Mopetar]

As far as I know they're the same and according to the data on Wikipedia they have the same clock rate for the GPU component, so it's likely that there's no difference.