Which CPU should I choose for new notebook?

[Danstek]

Hey guys, okay so I've been looking at 2 similar notebooks from Best Buy. The spec's are pretty much identical other than the cpu. One has an Ivy Core i5-3210m and the other has a Trinity A10-4600m. I can't decide between which to go for. This laptop is mainly going to be used for web browsing, Office-type work, music editing and I'm hoping to get a little gaming on a few old titles like the Assassin's Creed series, Batman series, etc. Obviously the AMD A10 would be better on the graphics and the cpu should be enough for everything I plan on doing but the thing is I can get the i5-3210m laptop for $500 with a coupon compared to the AMD at $600. The massive jump in cpu power going for the i5 is very compelling especial when it costs less but I'm not sure about the graphics performance. Most reviews say the HD 4000 is roughly Llano performance which would make the Intel a pretty good buy for the value but the problem is that the reviews used a Core i7 which is 45w TDP, GPU turbo of 1.25ghz, and 6mb L3 cache. The i5 is 35w with GPU turbo of 1.1 ghz and only 3mb L3. That means performance will be slightly different and I dont know how it compares to Llano. Would it still be able to play the titles I mentioned at 720p and medium details?

Here's the hardware spec's for both laptops:
15.6" 1366x768
6gb DDR3(AMD) 8gb DDR3(Intel)
640gb(AMD) 750gb(Intel) 5400rpm

 

[sm625]

A10 + SSD is the way to go. Unfortunately notebook vendors still will not put down the crack pipe and stop charging 300 frickin dollars for a 128GB SSD. A crucial M4 is only a $80 addition to a $500 notebook, but they keep puffin and puffin and charging $300...

I would not buy a notebook in 2012 without an SSD.

 

[hans007]

i dont think the i5 is going to be that much faster than a a10 honestly. so i'd get the a10 all else being equal in this case. i mean unless you are video encoding on this machine, its not going to matter much in the lifespan of a laptop, but the gpu probably you'll notice more.

just rip out the hard drive, put it in an external case and buy a ssd. if anything i wish laptop vendors would start at least putting dvd drives in removeable caddies so you could replace them with something like an ultrabay sata drive like thinkpads have. i mean, then you could have your ssd and hard drive without an external case.

 

[Danstek]

Yeah, I was planning for an SSD upgrade afterwards, after using one I can never go back to a slow HDD lol. Anyways, I should go for the A10, even though its $100 more? From what I've managed to search on my own, reviews are saying the A10 is only ~%20 graphics improvement over Llano while also saying that the HD 4000 is about the same as Llano and unanimously saying that Ivy completely dominates in CPU. I figured if that's true then wouldn't the i5 be the better buy since it's about %80 of Trinity's graphics while having far superior CPU performance and costing less? It's just that those reviews used an i7 which has higher turbo and more cache so I'm wondering how much of an impact that has compared to the i5.

 

[frozentundra123456]

Yeah, I was planning for an SSD upgrade afterwards, after using one I can never go back to a slow HDD lol. Anyways, I should go for the A10, even though its $100 more? From what I've managed to search on my own, reviews are saying the A10 is only ~%20 graphics improvement over Llano while also saying that the HD 4000 is about the same as Llano and unanimously saying that Ivy completely dominates in CPU. I figured if that's true then wouldn't the i5 be the better buy since it's about %80 of Trinity's graphics while having far superior CPU performance and costing less? It's just that those reviews used an i7 which has higher turbo and more cache so I'm wondering how much of an impact that has compared to the i5.

Well, this is one of the few places I would recommend AMD. If you are interested in gaming at all, I would not go Intel, even the HD4000, without a discrete card. Even the A10 is marginal for gaming IMO. So out of these two choices, I probably would go with the A10.

However, I do think the price is too high at 600.00. If you dont need the laptop right away, I would try to wait for a sale and get the A10 cheaper, or find an Ivy or close out SB laptop with a discrete card for not that much more than the A10. I know that Microcenter has a quad ivy with a GT630 for only 799.00. Unfortunately that is a rebadged GT540M, but still would be better for gaming than the A10 and have much better CPU preformance than either the A10 or the i5.

 

[soccerballtux]

probably a good 30% faster on the Intel.
I usually go Intel for mobile. At the lower frequencies of mobiles the extra IPC of Intel's chips pays off. However, if you really want the better gaming, the AMD is going to probably be what you want.

 

[Danstek]

probably a good 30% faster on the Intel.
I usually go Intel for mobile. At the lower frequencies of mobiles the extra IPC of Intel's chips pays off. However, if you really want the better gaming, the AMD is going to probably be what you want.

That's about what I was thinking. I'm not too serious about the gaming aspects hence why I'm okay with an IGP instead of choosing a discrete card. I was curious more in if the IGP differences between the i5 vs the i7 in reviews would show significant or minimal changes in performance. If the differences are minimal then that means it should handle the few 2-3 year old titles I plan on playing.

 

[soccerballtux]

what games?
edit: woops I didn't read.

I don't think those are going to run very well on the IGP.
edit: hm, Intel's on die graphics have come a long way.
I'm pulling this out of a hat (~15% lower boost, half the cache) , but I would guess it's going to be 20% slower than the i7 GPU Anand reviewed.

 

[soccerballtux]

hm, did you by chance see:
http://www.anandtech.com/show/5865/laptop-graphics-face-off-diablo-iii-performance/3
only manages 35fps on low settings with Diablo.
however,
http://www.anandtech.com/show/5831/amd-trinity-review-a10-4600m-a-new-hope/6
does very well in some games there, particularly Batman.
seems to be hit or miss. Wasn't there some special driver optimizations Intel does now to offload things that the CPU would be really good at, to the CPU instead of the GPU?

This is hard to come to a conclusion on.

 

[Danstek]

hm, did you by chance see:
http://www.anandtech.com/show/5865/laptop-graphics-face-off-diablo-iii-performance/3
only manages 35fps on low settings with Diablo.
however,
http://www.anandtech.com/show/5831/amd-trinity-review-a10-4600m-a-new-hope/6
does very well in some games there, particularly Batman.
seems to be hit or miss. Wasn't there some special driver optimizations Intel does now to offload things that the CPU would be really good at, to the CPU instead of the GPU?

This is hard to come to a conclusion on.

Lol yeah, its a bit of a tricky choice. That's why I was asking for opinions. AMD would have been a clear choice if it didn't cost so much.

 

[soccerballtux]

Let us know what you choose.

 

[Danstek]

I decided to go with the AMD A10. I figured I may as well just go for the better graphics since that's what I'll be stuck with after buying a laptop. Anyways, big thanks for all the replies!