i7 (4MB cache) vs i5 (only 3MB) laptop.. when will you see difference?!

[omega3]

I could buy a Dell XPS 13 laptop with either an i7-6560U (4MB cache) or i5-6200U (3MB cache).
My son wants to buy an Asus laptop with either i7-6500U (4MB cache) or i5-6200U (3MB cache).

Now, in which situations will you see a difference between the i7 and i5 where the biggest difference seems to be the 4 vs 3MB cache?

For example, if i regularly have 20 tabs open in Chrome (which uses lots of memory), will the 4MB cache help?!

Will this also make a difference when playing back youtube videos at high youtube resolutions or does that only depend on the video card.

And what if you video editing (myself) or music production (my son)?

Finally, will the i5 cpu's mentioned above run much cooler then the i7 cpu's maybe giving quieter fan noise in those small laptops? All are Skylake U processors.

Thanks for all good advice!

 

[daxzy]

Solely from the L3 cache, I think the difference is small. The main reason the 6560/6500u is faster than the 6200u is the healthy clock speed advantage the former has (300MHz turbo, 200MHz stock). The 6560u is a little different mainly because it has an extra 64GB L4 cache for the Iris graphics. It's actually 100 MHz behind in stock speeds, but its 400 MHz ahead on turbo.

If you want a comparison of all 3 procs on a XPS 13 9350, look no farther than this review below. You just have to sort through all the numbers. But TLDR, cpu wise, the 6560u is about 5-15% from the 6200u. GPU wise, it's probably double or more. Battery wise, looks like it loses some on low workloads (near idle) and is about even to gaining some battery life when surfing or watching videos.

http://www.notebookcheck.net/Dell-XPS-13-9350-2016-FHD-i7-6560U-Notebook-Review.168175.0.html

That said, I'd still wait for Kaby Lake (7xxx series), unless you're getting a Skylake for a steal or absolutely need it.

 

[omega3]

Solely from the L3 cache, I think the difference is small. The main reason the 6560/6500u is faster than the 6200u is the healthy clock speed advantage the former has (300MHz turbo, 200MHz stock). The 6560u is a little different mainly because it has an extra 64GB L4 cache for the Iris graphics. It's actually 100 MHz behind in stock speeds, but its 400 MHz ahead on turbo.

Thanks for the info. Another thing often not mentioned is HEAT (temperature) and more fan noise as a result trying to cool it down. Given that certainly the Dell XPS is very small, will the i7 heat up more then the i5 even when just watching youtube videos?

 

[DTN107]

I'm coming from the Dell Latitudes and at my previous company, I didn't noticed any heat difference between the i5 and i7 5th gen cpus.

It took a while to convince the IT dept to switch to i5 laptops and spend the savings on SSDs.

 

[omega3]

I'm coming from the Dell Latitudes and at my previous company, I didn't noticed any heat difference between the i5 and i7 5th gen cpus.

It took a while to convince the IT dept to switch to i5 laptops and spend the savings on SSDs.

Isn't it so that i7 generates more heat then the i5, starting with the base clockspeed being higher? I'm still not sure about that.

I have a 2015 Dell XP 13 with an i7 that makes quite alot of fan noise. Updated the bios etc but didn't help.

What do you mean by the way you convinced your IT dept to switch to i5? You mean the i5 is just as good as the i7 and getting SSDs obviously gives a performance increase?

 

[sm625]

1MB of extra cache is roughly equivalent to a 100 MHz clock bump. Or to put it more succinctly, each 10% increase in L3 cache size is roughly equivalent to a 1% clock speed bump. I believe a single VID bin would be more valuable than this extra 1MB of cache, since the lower voltage would allow for a higher sustained turbo in a 15W package.

 

[nerp]

i5 with SSD is better than i7 with HD. And to the OP's question, the difference is not really noticeable, especially when doing normal web browsing etc.

 

[Dannar26]

i5 with SSD is better than i7 with HD. And to the OP's question, the difference is not really noticeable, especially when doing normal web browsing etc.

Try telling management that.

It's likely that the IT department would be behind you for going to an i5 with SSD, but it's hard to change the minds of stodgy folk in charge of purchasing. Unless you're doing super workloads, even the i5 may be a bit over the top for most office typed applications....

 

[daxzy]

Isn't it so that i7 generates more heat then the i5, starting with the base clockspeed being higher? I'm still not sure about that.

I have a 2015 Dell XP 13 with an i7 that makes quite alot of fan noise. Updated the bios etc but didn't help.

What do you mean by the way you convinced your IT dept to switch to i5? You mean the i5 is just as good as the i7 and getting SSDs obviously gives a performance increase?

If your Dell XPS is still under warranty (or even out of it), I would complain to Dell. XPS defaults to Premium support so they actually listen to you pretty well. I got a whiny power connection on the motherboard repaired in 2 business days. If you don't know anyone that will do a quick check for free, next up, I'd go to a Microsoft store and make an appointment (should be free) and let them take a look.

Every XPS 13-9343 review I've seen has indicated that the fan should not spin up unless you're doing something taxing on the system. Browsing the internet and watching youtube is not considered taxing these days.

I think he's saying that with the money saved going from i7 to i5, he could upgrade the spinning disks to SSD's. Which would have far more impact on user productivity.

 

[HexiumVII]

I went from a 3317 i5 1.7GHz - 2.6GHz to i7 2.0Ghz - 3.1Ghz Lenovo Yoga after using the i5 for over 2 years. Noticed barely a difference.

 

[krumme]

Never
Speed in office is dependant on ssd speed if any.