Would you choose an i5-2520m or an i3-5005u

[gorion]

A friend is about to buy a cheap craptop with the i3 for about 379€.

Searching a bit I can find off-lease i5-2520m notebook for around 250€. I believe that the older chip would be much better (the notebook will be used mostly at home, so the extra power consumption shouldn't be a problem).

Is the i5-2520m missing any significant feature which is in the i3 for basic usage (web, office, media playback?)

 

[NTMBK]

The i5 has a terrible GPU, much worse media decode features, significantly worse battery life (especially after several years of use), and is out of warranty. I would probably go with the i3, but I don't know enough about the rest of the laptops. Does either one have an SSD? What are the screens like? How are the keyboards and trackpads? How heavy are they? What's the build quality like?

 

[gorion]

The one he's about to get is this:
http://shop.lenovo.com/us/en/laptops/lenovo/b-series/b50-80/#tab-features

With i3, 4gb ram, 768p screen, 500gb 5400rpm hdd

I still have to pinpoint the right off-lease model, but I was thinking about something like this which is basically on par except USB 3.0 and got a faster HDD
http://www.olivercomputer.it/vendit...tebook/DELL-LATITUDE-E6420-i5-USATO-GARANTITO


With the money saved I was planning to fit an SSD in.

The battery life shouldn't be a problem, as it will be used mostly as desktop replacement.
Is the GPU that much worse for basic usage?

The notebook comes with 1 year warranty from the reseller.

 

[NTMBK]

If it's not going to be used unplugged much, then probably the i5 with the SSD would be the better choice, but I'm not too keen on anything with a 768p screen. A similar Dell but with an upgraded screen would be my choice.

 

[gorion]

I just found an HP EliteBook 8470p with Core i5-3320M and 900p screen.
This could be the right one.

HD 4000 would be a bit more modern.

 

[NTMBK]

I just found an HP EliteBook 8470p with Core i5-3320M and 900p screen.
This could be the right one.

HD 4000 would be a bit more modern.

Sounds like a winner!

 

[Rngwn]

Just so you know that the sandy bridge CPUs does not have native USB3.0 support. Unless the said laptop uses the 3rd party USB3.0 controller, your friend is going to stuck with USB2.0. That's going to be a bit more problematic than the i3's lower performance in the basic usage scenario.

 

[gorion]

The 8470p has indeed 2 USB 3.0 ports.

 

[frozentundra123456]

I think the i5 would be a better processor, but not sure I would want to buy a used laptop, since they are more failure prone than desktops and are much more difficult to repair.

 

[PG]

Skip the i5-2520m. The gpu is not DX11, and Intel has no drivers for Windows 10.
I just ran into this issue recently with a laptop I have. It has that same cpu so I know.
You can get the latest drivers for Win7 or 8.1, then upgrade to win 10 and basic things seem to work fine, but the gpu is weak and unsupported. It could be a limitation for certain things.

 

[coercitiv]

but not sure I would want to buy a used laptop

I second that, as long as we don't include OEM refurbished units (essentially unused) in the same equation: some of my best purchases in the last decade were refurbished top of the line business laptops sold for the price of a budget new unit.

 

[AtenRa]

If he is not going to use the Laptop as a laptop and he is going to use it as a desktop replacement why not buy a used OEM SFF Desktop ??

 

[gorion]

I second that, as long as we don't include OEM refurbished units (essentially unused) in the same equation: some of my best purchases in the last decade were refurbished top of the line business laptops sold for the price of a budget new unit.

I'll try to find some.. but here in Italy refurbished notebooks aren't common.

If he is not going to use the Laptop as a laptop and he is going to use it as a desktop replacement why not buy a used OEM SFF Desktop ??

Already tried that route. He claims that he doesn't have enough space and occasionally (4-5 times each year) he wants to carry the laptop with him.

 

[cbn]

I just found an HP EliteBook 8470p with Core i5-3320M and 900p screen.
This could be the right one.

HD 4000 would be a bit more modern.

I have the HP Elite Book 8460p with Core i5 2520M. (bought it used in Grade A condition for $120 shipped, I got pretty lucky on the sale)

Basically the Sandy Bridge version of that laptop.

It is very nice.

 

[Yuriman]

I'd like to point out that laptop i5's are not quad cores. A modern i3 is likely faster than an older i5.

 

[gorion]

desktop class i3?
Because i5-3xxxM is much faster than any i3-5xxxU as far as I know.

Unfortunately desktop isn't an option.

 

[gorion]

I have the HP Elite Book 8460p with Core i5 2520M. (bought it used in Grade A condition for $120 shipped, I got pretty lucky on the sale)

Basically the Sandy Bridge version of that laptop.

It is very nice.

Great price!

 

[sm625]

i5-2520m is roughly 20% faster than i3-5005u. But the gpu is slower. I wouldnt buy an older i5 notebook unless it comes with a nvidia Quadro NVS 5200M (820M equivalent, 28nm, 600 million transistors), minimum, which is reasonably close to a broadwell level gpu. There are alot of Quadro NVS 4200M machines out there but that gpu isnt any better than HD4000. The problem with shopping for off lease notebooks is that you can rarely find a site that will let you actually search by gpu type.

 

[TeknoBug]

I miss my i5 4200M laptop, still better than most of the -U laptops you find today, however the -M's had crappy GPU's which is where the -U's pick up on.

 

[gorion]

So you would favour the more modern i3-5005u for its GPU if you can't find any older model with a good enough GPU? Is the HD 4000 enough?

 

[MrTeal]

So you would favour the more modern i3-5005u for its GPU if you can't find any older model with a good enough GPU? Is the HD 4000 enough?

Unless you really plan to game on it, no. For the price the off-lease refurbs are really tough to beat. I'm not sure what it's like in Italy, but in the US you can pick up an E6430S with an i5-3320M, single 4GB DIMM and 128GB SSD for $250 shipped and taxes in (to California). It'd be faster than an i3-5005U, but the build quality on those Latitude laptops is going to be better than what you would find in a new $300-$500 laptop.

 

[SPBHM]

Skip the i5-2520m. The gpu is not DX11, and Intel has no drivers for Windows 10.
I just ran into this issue recently with a laptop I have. It has that same cpu so I know.
You can get the latest drivers for Win7 or 8.1, then upgrade to win 10 and basic things seem to work fine, but the gpu is weak and unsupported. It could be a limitation for certain things.

desktop sandy bridge has drivers, I used my HD 2000 with 10 recently without any problems...
edit: also I installed 10 on a Celeron b820 laptop (sandy bridge with HD Graphics) and it worked fine with drivers and all.

it's just that... yes Sandy Bridge video is pretty bad, the HD5500 from the i3 is a lot better, I was using a 5005U recently and even played a bit of F1 2014 (medium 720P I think) and PES 2015 (low 720P I think) demo with it and it was very playable, like 60FPS for PES and around 30 for the F1 game, something that would not be possible with the HD3000.

also quicksync on sandy bridge is a lot worse I think

 

[MarkizSchnitzel]

Well, i5 is certainly get on my nerves for it's gonna be louder and hotter and you have to deal with cables all the time. Not to mention that it's probably gonna come in a older heavier body with probably worse screen (tech has advanced, I hope).

I don't think ~30% better performance in some benchmarks or even real world scenarios is worth all the fuss. I get by with an Atom most of the time and don't have to use my desktop.

 

[MarkizSchnitzel]

Unless you really plan to game on it, no. For the price the off-lease refurbs are really tough to beat. I'm not sure what it's like in Italy, but in the US you can pick up an E6430S with an i5-3320M, single 4GB DIMM and 128GB SSD for $250 shipped and taxes in (to California). It'd be faster than an i3-5005U, but the build quality on those Latitude laptops is going to be better than what you would find in a new $300-$500 laptop.

Not sure about italy, but refurb is pretty much non-existent (or not advertised) in rest of the Europe.

 

[PG]

desktop sandy bridge has drivers, I used my HD 2000 with 10 recently without any problems...

Not according to Intel's documentation. Desktop vs laptop doesn't matter.

http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/support/graphics-drivers/000005526.html

Older drivers basically work, but it's not a supported OS for Sandy. I would bet that not all features work. Maybe some will try to use those features and run into problems, but others won't.

Lots of discussions everywhere. Lots of unhappy people around, like here: https://communities.intel.com/thread/61432?tstart=0