Help with laptop CPUs?! (i3 i5 i7)

[cooper69]

Hey all, so I've always understood that this scheme/pattern applies in desktop processors:

i3 - 2 cores/4 threads hyperthreading
i5 - 4 cores/4 threads
i7 - 4 cores/8 threads hyperthreading

While the desktop CPUs seem pretty straightforward, the laptop ones aren't so much. I've been searching for a new laptop lately, but to my disdain, I find that most of the mainstream i3, i5 and i7s seem to be 2 cores/4 threads hyperthreaded. They all seem the same to me and I'm not sure what to make of benchmark numbers. Can the benchmark scores be compared apples-to-apples with desktop CPUs? What are the primary differences between the different "tiers" of laptop CPUs?

On the same topic, how can I tell if I can replace a CPU in an old laptop with another one? For desktops, it'd be easy to find the motherboard model and chipset and determine compatibility, but I can't for the life of me, find the compatibility list for my laptop. Or even the name of my laptop motherboard.

TLDR; what's the difference between i3, i5, and i7 in laptop cpus? How to compare them to desktop CPUs? How can you determine CPU compatibility in different laptops?

 

[hemedans]

pre skylake

i3- 2 core and 4 thread without turbo boost
i5- 2 core and 4 thread with turbo boost
i7- 2 core and 4 thread with turbo boost and high clock speed.

Also there are i7 quads with hyperthreading.

skylake cpu
Skylake H series for laptop will be like desktop series 4c/4t for i5, 2c/4t for i3 and 4c/8t for i7

If you want to replace your laptop cpu look for

TDP- make sure both cpu have same TDP, ie 35 watts TDP or 15 watts TDP
GENERATION- make sure they are of same generation, you will know by looking at first number of cpu
i5 4300m is 4th generation(haswell)
i5 5300u is 5th generation(broadwell)
SOCKETED- make sure your cpu is not soldered in motherboard, it should be socketed so that you can remove it

Use this site to know cpu upgrade path
http://www.cpu-upgrade.com/index.html

 

[StrangerGuy]

I'll have been out of the loop with laptop CPUs but from what I can tell, you really want to wait for the Skylake 4C/4T i5.

 

[zir_blazer]

Use the Wikipedia lists (Sandy Bridge, Ivy Bridge, Haswell, Broadwell, Skylake).

 

[maddogmcgee]

It depends on the laptop brand. I had an old dell Vostro that I upgraded from a celeron to the fastest CPU the mobo supported for about 50 bucks used on ebay. Made a massive difference. You would need to spend some time finding out what your laptop motherboard/bios supports though and work out the limits of the power supply/cooling.

In terms of a new one, grab something 4 core with an SSD.

 

[Essence_of_War]

TLDR; what's the difference between i3, i5, and i7 in laptop cpus? How to compare them to desktop CPUs? How can you determine CPU compatibility in different laptops?

It depends on what tier of chip they are.

Broadly:

For "ULV" chips:
i3 2C/4T
i5 2C/4T + Turbo Boost
i7 2C/4T + Turbo Boost and better boosts.

Skylake also adds a 2C/4T Pentium 4405U, with lower clocks than the i3.

For "Mobile" Chips
i3 2C/4T
i5 2C/4T + Turbo Boost
i7 some 2C/4T but there are higher end 4C/8T, both have Turbo Boost and better boosts.

In either case, modern laptop CPUs will be soldered down, and you won't be able to replace the CPU.

 

[cooper69]

Thank you all for the replies. I am looking for a laptop that performs similarly to a lower end desktop; think something like Core 2 Quad, 4gb ram, SSD. Any suggestions (CPU wise) viable for light use, such as word documents, internet browsing/youtube and watching movies?

And are there any places that can compare laptop CPUs to desktop CPUs? For example, what would be the desktop equivalent of a Sandy Bridge Pentium 987?

 

[dark zero]

Wait for Skylake. It will come with i5 Quads on H Tier.

PS: The socketed laptop chips died with Haswell. Sorry guys.

 

[JonFX01]

Wait for Skylake.

When?

 

[Burpo]

I am looking for a laptop that performs similarly to a lower end desktop; think something like Core 2 Quad, 4gb ram, SSD. Any suggestions (CPU wise) viable for light use, such as word documents, internet browsing/youtube and watching movies?

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Lenovo-Thin...ro-Warranty-/291540831110?hash=item43e1300b86

 

[Essence_of_War]

Thank you all for the replies. I am looking for a laptop that performs similarly to a lower end desktop; think something like Core 2 Quad, 4gb ram, SSD. Any suggestions (CPU wise) viable for light use, such as word documents, internet browsing/youtube and watching movies?

And are there any places that can compare laptop CPUs to desktop CPUs? For example, what would be the desktop equivalent of a Sandy Bridge Pentium 987?

What is your budget?

None of the uses you describe require a quad-core CPU, only enough RAM, and an SSD is always nice.

The fanless Core-M 5Y10 in Asus' Zenbook UX305 will outperform the Pentium 987, and it comes with a 256 GB SSD, 8 GB of RAM, a 1920x1080 IPS panel, in a 2.6lb body. Note that while the 5Y10's base clock is only 800 MHz, the max turbo is 2 GHz, and Anandtech has shown that under load, the 5Y10 hits between 1.3-1.8 GHz, and is 15-20% faster than Sandy Bridge clock-for-clock.

 

[cooper69]

Wait for Skylake. It will come with i5 Quads on H Tier.

PS: The socketed laptop chips died with Haswell. Sorry guys.

I've had many suggestions to wait for Skylake and I've read many good things about Skylake for laptop processirs. Is there any reason as to why, besides i5 quads?

What is your budget?

None of the uses you describe require a quad-core CPU, only enough RAM, and an SSD is always nice.

The fanless Core-M 5Y10 in Asus' Zenbook UX305 will outperform the Pentium 987, and it comes with a 256 GB SSD, 8 GB of RAM, a 1920x1080 IPS panel, in a 2.6lb body. Note that while the 5Y10's base clock is only 800 MHz, the max turbo is 2 GHz, and Anandtech has shown that under load, the 5Y10 hits between 1.3-1.8 GHz, and is 15-20% faster than Sandy Bridge clock-for-clock.

Around 750-1000. Im looking for something around 13.3 inches. While the 5Y10 does outperform the Pentium 987, what is it comparable to? Desktop i3? Desktop C2D? Mobile i3?

 

[dark zero]

Skylake i5 Quads are the only reason I waited for Intel Skylake. Since Quads are the new mainstream gaming processor and also since are REAL cores and not logical ones (compared to U tier and Core i3 and below), it maintains strong advantage.
To make it better, I feel that the i5 Skylake quads can literally trash any HT chip without no problem.

 

[Denithor]

It looks like Dell is still pushing Broadwell chips as the "latest generation" from Intel. Any idea when the Skylake SKUs will start showing up in the OEM lineups? Or am I just looking in the wrong place?

 

[LTC8K6]

Skylake i5 Quads are the only reason I waited for Intel Skylake. Since Quads are the new mainstream gaming processor and also since are REAL cores and not logical ones (compared to U tier and Core i3 and below), it maintains strong advantage.
To make it better, I feel that the i5 Skylake quads can literally trash any HT chip without no problem.

Well, the 4C/4T i5 chips could always beat the 2C/4T HT chips overall.

I don't think that's new.

They in turn get beaten by the 4C/8T HT chips overall.

 

[Essence_of_War]

Around 750-1000. Im looking for something around 13.3 inches.

The UX305 is 13.3'' and retails for $699 normally, but you can often find it for $599 from microsoft if you're willing to wait and watch for it.

While the 5Y10 does outperform the Pentium 987, what is it comparable to? Desktop i3? Desktop C2D? Mobile i3?

This is a hard question to answer, mostly because we are coming in on the 6th generation of the core-i series, chips. So which generation of i3 are you comparing it with?

If you compare with desktop Haswell i3's in cinebench:

UX305:
Single-Threaded - 82.14
Multi-Threaded Benchmark - 210.66

i3-4330:
Single Threaded - 138
Multi-Threaded - 341
So the desktop chip is about 68% faster in ST, and 62% faster in MT.

Compared with C2D/Q, Broadwell is about 50% faster clock-for-clock over core2, so the 5Y10 will be about 25% faster than the Q6600 in single threaded workloads where it can aggressively turbo up. The Q6600 will be faster in workloads that scale out to 4 cores, but not by a whole lot.

 

[TeknoBug]

Having used a lot of different laptops I don't see a significant difference between the i5 and i7 2C/4T CPU's, the price of i7 laptops jumps significantly and I never thought it was worth bothering with- that extra turbo speed only kicks in for a short period of time anyways.