Looking for quick feedback on purchase i5 vs i7

I have finally amassed the funds to buy a M11x R3, and great timing too as they have already refreshed the i7 processor to i7 2637.

Question is, having a choice with the newer i5 2467 as well, what should I be choosing if I will be using the laptop both for gaming and work in equal amounts?

Games I play are Skyrim, SCII, and maybe Diablo III when it comes out. I will probably try some FPS games soon but not really my cup of tea. I played CS during college days but that's about it.

Again I am asking this as even if money is of no concern at the moment in my case, I might be able to set aside the extra money on the CPU upgrade for something else if the performance is negligible as in the case of the earlier i7 2617 cores.

(Also concerning the RAM, I guess 8 GB is too much and would probably need only 4 even for the most intensive gaming apps?)

Thanks all.

 

go with the i5, the i7 isnt worth the 200 bucks they are charging for it for only a few hundred mhz. also, yes 4 gb ram would be plenty.

 

If you want the absolute best, no matter the price, go for i7.

If the ratio price/performance does matter, go for i5. You probably wont notice the difference since the main bottle-neck is the GT540m not the CPU.

Edit: Personally I would invest the said difference plus some more in a SSD. For example in my G53, the 120GB SSD is enough since I also have the 500GB HDD inside. But for M11 I got my eyes on a Samsung 830 256GB SSD

 

They are both dual-cores, so go for the i5 if you want to save some money. Then use that money to buy some RAM after you receive the machine. Most likely, purchasing the RAM aftermarket will be immensely cheaper.

 

I went with an i7 and I am very happy with it. I disagree that the GT540m is the bottleneck. As I have noticed improved performance in games above what people reported with the i5's (specifically big differences in Star Wars The Old Republic, I get smooth gameplay at higher resolutions with more complex graphics options than the i5's). Also when I placed my order the only way to get things like the 2gb of video ram, better network card, and larger hard drive by default was to start with the higher end base model.

I have already run into games which perform better because I have 2gb of video ram (specifically the Witcher 2) instead of just 1gb.

Also 8gb of ram seems to be the upper limit for affordability purposes. Yes the M11x will support up to 16gb, but the cost is prohibitively expensive for 2 - 8gb cards at this time. You could practically buy another brand new alienware for the price difference between 8 and 16gb! And really you won't need any more than 8 for a longish time I suspect. There are games that will push a unit with only 4gb however. So I believe 8gb is the way to go.

But I consider the slightly higher end unit to be a good trade off for the improvements it brings along. So I suggest the i7.

 

Just curious, what country do you live in? I am in the USA and they still only offer the i7 2617M as the highest model M11x

 

Thanks for all your feedback.

Well of course price/performance ratio is what I have in mind, but in saying that I think I'm planning to buy this laptop and keep it for a long time.

Like, I'm buying this to replace an old Acer Aspire 6920G that has served me for 4 long years. Managed to squeeze the remaining life out of it last year with ThrottleStop and OCing but sadly it stutters through Skyrim at Medium settings.

Also that thing is darned hard to carry (I had that in my backpack since day 1 and I bring a backpack everyday -_-) so I feel my back will get a much deserved rest with the M11x.

I live in Hong Kong by the way; but not a local. I was about to get a 2617 about 3 weeks ago and was bummed when they only had the i5 config on the site. Yesterday I checked; and there it is. M11X R3.5. via i7 2637.

As I said since I'm planning this as a long term purchase for both work and gaming in equal parts, then I will have to make a hard decision between i5/i7.

I thought that if the performance/price ratio was negligible I can spend the extra 200 USD value on maybe a Momentus XT or even a SSD (but I think current SSDs are too small for my usage purposes and long term).

Oh well, will let you guys know what I decide. The rep I talked to is offering me a free TactX mouse if I order with him today.

By the way guys I am given an option to make a personalized plate. What is the general consensus on this? Of course I realize when you have your name on it, the resale value goes down but is anyone forgoing having their name on their AW just because of that?

 

Mine just says 'ZEN' on it. I doubt that will affect resale value as it is fairly generic. But really I wouldn't stress over the nameplate, put anything you want on yours, they can be easily replaced through alienware anytime.

That is cool that you can get the newer i7 =) I wish they were offered in my region. The M11x is a lot easier to move around than even the M14x, so it will defintely give your backpack a rest. For longevity hmm.. All I can say is I am Very happy I picked the i7 instead of the i5. As I mentioned I have noticed better performance in games when comparing results with others around the forums here.

SSD hard drives are nice, but honestly I am very happy with the speeds I get from my normal HD drive. My system boots up very speedily and shuts down nice and fast. Around 40 seconds or so boot up time, and 30 seconds to shut down. That is plenty fast enough for me! And with games your framerate is not at all dependent upon your hard drive. The only thing SSD's do for games is speed up level load times. So you could expect to spend less time looking at loading screens, but during actual gameplay there will be no difference.

If you intend on moving your M11x around while it is turned on, then you might want to consider an SSD because they are pretty much immune to vibration being solid state. But you defintely will sacrifice a bit when it comes to storage space.

I was coming from an old Pentium 4, So for me, this new computer is plenty fast enough with a traditional hard drive. 40'ish seconds to load windows? I think I can bear to wait that long for the extra space I get out of it

 

Oh yes, and one other thing; If you decide to get a standard hard drive now, you can always upgrade to an SSD in a year or two if you want and their prices will be significantly lower by then. Also you can always keep your old hard drive by getting an External Drive case and use your current internal hard drive as External USB storage.

As an example I have only had my M11x for a month or so, and already I am nearly up to 300gb of stuff loaded on there. Just a few games, some movies, and my collection of mp3's was enough to put it past the point any semi-affordable SSD could have given me in terms of storage. And I still have well over 400gbfree space left to fill! I am very glad I went with the standard hard drive.

 

@Zenstrata
I do think that your noticeable performance improvements is biased and it comes mostly from altering the in-game settings or from what playable means for different people (fe: skyrim is playable for you and you put this on the i7 when actually you maybe have a higher tolerance to low framerates - just an example - don't shoot me )

Try to run 3d Mark 11 and report the P score and the link to the 3dMark site. That will guarantee that you run the very same thing like everyone else and with the exact same settings and would also offer an idea about frame-rate difference between the i5/i7 M11x R3.


@BlazerMFT
the differences between CPU's are:
i5-2467m: 1.6 / 2.0 / 2.3 GHz (fully loaded / 2 cores / 1 core)
i7-2617m: 1.5 / 2.3 / 2.6 GHz (fully loaded / 2 cores / 1 core)
i7-2637m: 1.7 / 2.5 / 2.8 GHz (fully loaded / 2 cores / 1 core)

Now, considering that gaming performance comes from gpu mostly (at least 50%) i'd guestimate that i7 would yield like 5-10% more FPS at best than the i5 counterpart.

Edit: actually there is no guestimate is fact:
my i5 oc score vs i7 oc score. The ingame FPS difference is like 5% (2fps difference at 40fps).
Now don' tell me that 42 vs 40 fps is noticeable.

 

3d mark is a useful benchmarking tool. But the 3d marks score alone does not tell the full story, and it is not game specific, just 3d marks specific.

Take a look at the CPU scores on the pages you linked. The i5 rated at 2410, the i7 is at 2833. Yes that is only 423 points, but that means that the i7 is nearly 18% more powerful than the i5 in terms of raw cpu power. (17.55% specifically, I rounded up according to standard math rules.)

So when you play a game, or run an application that needs that extra power it will make a big difference.

For example, take a look at froogles video for SWTOR performance he posted during the beta. I played the same beta, and although I was not looking at hard frame rate numbers during my playthrough, I can tell by looking at his video that I was able to make significant improvements in my graphics and obtain the same (or even better results) than he did in terms of general frame rate even with my much higher base settings.

I even have a thread on these forums where I posted very specific information in this regard, stating exactly what I had my settings at and what type of performance I obtained. (here is a link to that thread to make it easier to find: SWTOR Performance on the M11x)

Also consider that it is not Just the CPU differences we are talking about here. The higher model i7 M11x gets boosts in other areas as well. Games which take advantage of those boosts will see much better performance than those which do not. Having 2gb of dedicated video ram for example give me access to much better graphical choices in The Witcher 2 than those who only have 1gb of Video ram get.

Then there are other bonuses to the i7 such as a better wireless card, a bigger hard drive, things like that. It is the total package, not just the cpu performance (which as I noted is 18% higher than its i5 counterpart) which make the i7 a good choice.

As an example, My better wireless card enabled me to get access to my college network while at school while other students with laptops in the class often found it difficult to connect or were unable to even get access. The larger storage space has enabled me to load plenty of games, applications, music, and movies than I would have been able to with a smaller drive. There are Lots of bonuses which to buy seperately would cost me much more than it did to purchase the better model to begin with.

 

Oh, yes indeed you are right. the i7 is faster than i5 there is no argument regarding this, especially for i5-2467m and i7-2637m.

My point is the gaming performance doesn't rely on CPU exclusively but mostly on GPU. So the 18% difference in CPU power ends up as 5% difference in FPS.
And for a game FPS is what matters (unless you play Chess ).
As I said 42 vs 40 FPS - 5% difference roughly. Hardly noticeable.

@Zen I would really love to see an 3DMark 11 P score from your i7 M11x R3. Pleaaase

 

You are correct that gaming performance is mostly very heavily reliant upon the graphics processor, but some games really love that extra cpu power. It can vary quite a bit depending on the game in question.

I am in the end of my final exam week for this semester right now and so am trying not to get terribly distracted.

I had that 3d mark stuff installed and ran it right after I received my pc a month or so ago; as I recall I was very close to the same overall score for the i7 link you had in your previous post.

I was not terribly concerned with keeping the 3dmark software around though, I just wanted to make sure my system was performing up to par with the rest of the i7 m11x r3 crowd to insure that I hadn't gotten a lemon from the factory. Once I checked it that first time, I uninstalled the software and did not bother to save the link.

It is funny you should mention chess, because I do tend to play that quite a bit

(Edit: ahh! you said 3dmark 11, yeah I ran that one too. pretty much nearly exactly the same results as other i7 M11x's, and once again I didn't bother to keep it around because I figured there were plenty of other scores out there, why bother to keep mine? It didn't feel useful to keep any 3dmark software installed. I just wanted to check it that one time for comparison sake.)

 

Very interesting posts guys. As you can see I'm very new here and I like a good read and discussion without the childishness and arguments found on other forums. Just to let you know I broke down and got an i7, with 8 GB RAM, they won't allow me to change to 4 so I said what the heck.

Either way I'm convinced through what I've read that there is a difference, although not really very noticeable unless running benchmarks or certain apps.

I guess, welcome to the club it is for me then.

Just want to ask also, probably the next step is optimizing the machine via a clean install and all that? Are there any bloatware on Alienwares? This happens to be my first one as said. Soooo excited!

 

Alienware pc's have practically zero bloat. They do have a few alienware specific apps which you can uninstall if you wish. But they do things like control the various colored led's on your system. Give you regular backup and restore points, and can help diagnose and fix possible issues.

You will not find anything like free virus upgrade offers, or useless toolbars, or anything else pre-installed. Alienware does tend to take system optimization somewhat seriously so you should not need to make changes for good performance. What I would suggest is do not change anything when it comes to drivers unless you have some specific reason to do so.

One motto that has been good for me over the years is 'If it is not broke, do not fix it!'. Basically if your pc is working fine, then leave it alone. If however you have issues where you are trying to do something and it is not working the way you want it to, then consider updating drivers and such as needed.

I Do suggest you install some sort of antivirus software. A good free antivirus is AVG Free. During installation they will try to talk you into the upgraded version for that, I suggest you do not get the one which costs money. Honestly the free one works just fine and should offer good protection against viruses.

Two fun pieces of software which you may enjoy are the Intel Turbo Boost Monitor, and a Temperature monitor software called HWmonitor. Both of these programs are freeware and very easy and simple to install. They can be set to only run when you want them, so you can easily turn them on or off and they will not eat up system resources.

You will also notice that the first time you game your M11x fan will suddenly get loud. This is the one small failing with the M11x r3's, That being there is not a slow graduated speed increase, it goes from fairly quiet, to quite audible very suddenly and can be quite surprising the first time you hear the change.

Do not be alarmed when this happens. The noise is really not that bad and you will not run into this with normal operation. Just when you are making the unit work by playing a cpu or gpu intensive game.

As you monitor your temperatures most people are around 40-50 degrees Centigrade (40c-50c) during standard operation (web browsing, movie watching, etc) But when you game it will go as high as 70c-75c. Your fan will kick into high at 70c and should keep it from going much higher.

If your unit gets into the high 80's during gaming, I would consider calling alienware support and having a chat with them about it to insure it is within safety limits and if not - what can be done to fix it. They will send a technician out to re-apply your thermal paste if that occurs.

Most users however do not run into this as most of the time, the M11x's are usually just fine from the factory. And it is very likely yours will be just fine too.

You may also want to get some sort of a screen protector. I have had good success with mine. After application it is very difficult to even tell it has anything over the screen. And it has already saved my screen from at least one scratch over the last month.

This is a review for the matte version of the screen protector I picked up. It is very much like the default matte antiglare protector that Dell offers for sale through their site. So you can watch this video and get a good idea of what to expect. Screen Protector Shootout - Part 5A - YouTube (It should be noted that the screen protector which this specific review covers is made in Japan. This means you should have it readily available in your region of the world, or something very close to it.)

While I am thinking about it, that review does not properly apply the protector, that is why he got stuck with little bubbles. Follow this video for proper installation instructions. Installing ClearCal Anti-Glare Film for Glossy Displays - YouTube If you get a clear protector the application process will be the same as the matte version.

Being in asia you will probably want to order the default screen protector/antiglare protector that is offered for alienware systems directly from Dell. I have heard many good reports from people related to those protectors.

On the whole you should be very happy with your new computer purchase. The M11x R3's are really great little computers, highly mobile and quite powerful. Having the i7 you will never have to wonder if you should have gotten the more powerful version at the time of purchase, and it should help a bit with product longevity.

 

Zen, I appreciate your patience in showing me the ropes. The Intel gadget looks awesome. I saw a gadget also in a notebook showroom on an Asus G53 that lets you change from a high performance profile to energy saver extreme with the push of a button. It looks like a battery icon I recall.

AVG is a given. I have that on my old soldier as well hehe.

Say, have you ever tried OCing the GPU? Doing my research, I know the CPU's basically a no touch. I see MSI Afterburner always as the choice software.

Getting ahead of myself here, haven't even got my machine!!!

By the way, I was tempted to go Nebula Red but got Stealth Black because it's gonna stick out like a sore thumb during meetings. I can still change it though, having just placed the order a couple of hours ago.

 

I am unfamiliar with the power switching option you mention but I believe it is possible and probably other users have it set up on the forums. Perhaps one will chime in here, or if not, you can use the search option and perhaps locate something which can give you more information about that.

Your M11x will have a few options unlocked in the Bios which you can use to overclock it. However...

I do not suggest overclocking and here is why: Overclocking puts your unit at needless risk. I say 'needless' because your performance gains from overclocking are going to be minimal compared to your base performance. In my opinion the risks are not worth the gain in that area. Overclocking can shorten the lifespan of your machine and possibly cause needless damage that may not be covered by the warranty. The machine will impress you with its power and portability - right out of the box.

Also remember my motto from the previous post in regards to overclocking. Wait until you start running into things that you are having problems with before you start tinkering with it. Years from now, when your M11x is struggling with the latest games or software, and when you are thinking you might need to replace it, then consider overclocking.

Your primary performance vs battery power gains will come from properly adjusting when your M11x uses the GPU and when it uses the integrated video that is on your i7. Of course you can also adjust how your machine runs using the performance options available in windows 7, I set mine to run at high performance when plugged in, and a more balanced performance scheme when on battery power.

The M11x has something called Optimus technology which allows the system to basically turn off the GPU when it is not needed. This is done through a process commonly called White-listing.

When you get your machine you will see an 'nvidia settings' icon in your toolbar icon list on the bottom right side. If you click on that icon you will fnd a place where you can specify which programs use integrated graphics or the more powerful NVIDIA gpu graphics.

White-listing things is actually not too hard to do. Very new games or older titles you will probably have to whitelist. But really it is quite simple. Just find out which folder your game is sitting in, add every .exe (or application file) to the list that are in that folder, and you should be fine. =)

I put everything in the list just to be safe, but I have found that many things do default correctly to the proper processor. Also some simple games (like chess or minesweeper and such) you may want to run on the integrated graphics. For example, when I am in-between classes and have nothing to do, I like to play something simple without sucking my battery down.

I have also had things running on the nvidia chip often when they did not need to and I did not want them to. Simple little programs like my logitech mouse added two apps to my nvidia gpu. Those were Toaster.exe and Lcore.exe. I had to track them down in the computer and add them to the list and purposefully tell them to use integrated. I don't know why they were defaulting to the nvidia chip, they just were.

You should notice an icon that says 'nvidia GPU activity' in your icon list. I set that to always remain visible on my taskbar. It will change color when some program is using the nvidia gpu, then you can hover your mouse over it and it will tell you which files are using the nvidia chip.

I found this very handy for spotting sneaky programs using the chip when they were not supposed to, and for checking that the ones which Should be using the chip, really were using it. I have noticed that if the nvidia chip was running at all, even when I didn't want or need it to on a simple little program, it would really shorten my battery life. So it is important to keep an eye on it to prevent that from happening.

I think you made a wise choice with the soft-touch black. The black systems tend to have higher resale values later and always look classy no matter where you take them. While it may look like the red is more noticable, most people I have heard who get red usually regret they had not chosen black instead.

 

BlazerMFT, Congrats on your new M11x R3.

Regarding the AV, i'm using the Microsoft Security Essentials.
First of all - It's Free and also it does its job nicely and with minimal impact on the system.

Regarding the OC, i use Nvidia Inspector and i jumped, albeit only for testing purposes, directly to 800 clocks. Did like 3-5 runs and reverted to regular stock clocks.
You can see the results in my sig for both OC and regular clock. Almost 20% more FPS only from OC the gpu is pretty nice i must say.

Edit: the gadget you saw on G53 is made by Asus and is really nice on my G53, no idea if it can be installed on M11x... I should try since i have both

 

some games are rather cpu heavy, sc2 is really cpu heavy. try it with a su7300, itll barely handle medium, and you need it set to low to keep a steady framerate in 2v2s and 3v3s

 

Hello everyone. I have a few decisions to make before gettin my m11x. I already posted a thread, but it got moved n there haven't been any replies. I luckily found this thread with the same discussion goin on here. Most of my doubts have been cleared. Thanx guys.
But i still do have doubts.
The i5-2537m n the i5-2467m r both listed. One on the site n the other on the brochure. So I'd like to know the difference btwn each n also if it's any better than or nearly the same as i7-2617m.
I'd also like to know if 1 gb of graphics memory is enuf if i go for 8 gb ram.
Pls do help me out guys. Thanx in advance.

 

dhilsiva

Follow the links, Read and learn =)
i5-2537m
i5-2467m
i7-2617m

i7-2617m Processor Benchmark Comparisons

These links are very easy to find. just google the processor names as you typed them into your message and follow the very first link that google gives you. Easy!

I also kind of answered your questions already in my previous posts in this thread

 

the 2537 has slightly higher clock speeds, roughly equivalent to the old i7 that used to be used. also, the 1gb graphics memory is just fine, the 2gb is a scam, the 540m doesn't have enough power to make use of the 2gb. and as for the ram, 8 gb is MORE than enough (in fact 4gb would be plenty) but if you can help it get the least amount possible during configuration and then buy aftermarket ram rather than from dell, it will be much cheaper.

 

dhilsiva, if I were to have an option to build my M11x R3 from ground up and not from two base configurations, the core configuration would look like this, based on what I have learned from this thread:

i7 2637M
GT 540M 1 GB
2 GB RAM (will upgrade with after-market RAM to at least 4)
320 GB 7200 RPM HDD (or I would go for the lowest as I will upgrade to a 128 GB SATA III SSD)

This is without touching on i5 vs i7 because this can get pretty subjective. I decided on an i7 in the end with the help of information I learned here.

In your case I would go with i5 2467 for the slightly higher base clock speed 1.6 vs 1.4 on the 2537 unless I'm understanding the information wrong.

God Dell should also sell something called "Patience" on their site. I've placed my order and the wait is just killing me.