Any real advantage between p8600 & p8700

Ok, so is there any real differences between these two chips. I have seen alot of controversy over the p8700. Some people stating it is not built on a 64 bit architecture, which makes no sense. It seems to outperform some more expensive chips in one review. So is there that much difference between the two chips. Also, Is moving into the t9550 (35w so more power drain) or p9600 worth the extra money? Will you really see that much more performance in games or applications?

 

Basically, the P8700 is a higher clocked P8600. No architectural differences (another way of thinking about it is that the P8700 is a P9500 with only half the cache memory enabled) (and I'm running Windows Vista Business 64-bit just fine).

Conclusion is, if you have to pay more than, I'd say, $20 over the price of a P8600, it's not worth the tiny bit of extra speed. But, if you can get it for only a minor price difference, go for it. The only reason I opted for the P8700 on my Thinkpad is that Lenovo messed up and set the P8700 to be the same price as the P8600.

And for most applications, it won't be worth it paying for anything more than a P8600, but if you continuously use 100% CPU (video encoding, etc) then it may be worth it. Also, if you have a very powerful GPU that places a large load on the CPU (to catch up, in a sense), it may be worth it investing in a more powerful CPU.

 

Agreed. In most scenarios, I think the two processor would feel identical.

 

So, what kind of performance difference would you see between these chips in a Sager 5797 with the 280m GTX and the Sager 8662 with the 260m GTX?

 

CPU would make no difference.

 

Usually if the series of chipset is close to the one you already have it doesn't really have much of a difference, Not only by its product name but also of its performance.