I7-620m Intel HD

Hi All

I've been doing a fair amount of reading of the i7-620m vs i7-720/820qm threads around the internet.

It seems most people are a bit put off by the heat issues, thats fine I think I can live with that.

What I'm not sure of is, can I live with losing the Intel® HD Graphics upgrades that come with the i7-620m chip? does it actually make that much difference to say watching a movie in Full HD (External or on the laptop screen) etc

Help much appreciated as Im a bit stumped on this one and haven't found too much in terms of pros and cons

 

what are you going to use it for?

 

You lose the Intel HD graphics, but the laptop will likely have a dedicated video processor from nVidia or ATi.

You will likely be able to play a full HD video on any Intel PC released this year, besides Atom.

 

Chances are, with the i7's you'd get a discrete GPU much stronger than the Intel HD cards.

 

hi thanks for this the laptop I'm looking at is the Dell Studio XPS 16 it comes new with i7-620m but looking at resellers they're only selling 720 or 820's

I'm happy to get a slightly older chip, I was just comparing the three and noticed that the 620 has a lot of HD boosting benefits via integrated features:

Graphics Specifications
Integrated Graphics Yes
Intel® HD Graphics Yes
Intel® HD Graphics with Dynamic Frequency Yes
Graphics Base Frequency 500 MHz
Graphics Max Dynamic Frequency 766 MHz
Intel® Flexible Display Interface (Intel® FDI) Yes
Intel® Clear Video Technology Yes
Intel® Clear Video HD Technology Yes
Dual Display Capable Yes
Macrovision* License Required No

The 720 and 820 has none of these so I'm worried about losing any form of picture quality...im not a big gamer anymore although I'd like to get back into some hence the laptop spec.

Just not sure what to sacrifice at the moment

the cooler, quieter less enegery draining and better HD solutions 620
or the faster but hotter and bigger battery consuming 720/820 (also and older chip)

PS All the laptops i've seen have come with the ATI 4670 which afaik is pretty naff anyway?

 

What video card does the laptop come with? (look for something like radeon or geforce) The integrated graphics probably will not be activated at all.

 

The ones I am looking at come with the ATI Radeon 4670 1GB card

 

Then the Intel GPU will not be touched. As far as I know, that XPS doesn't have switchable graphics, but the Radeon supports all the stuff that the Intel GPU supports anyways.

 

um ya...the radeon/geforce cards that come with 720/820 lappies are SIGNIFICANTLY better than intel integrated graphics

 

ok so the stuff it talks about on this page

Intel® Core? i7-620M Processor (4M Cache, 2.66 GHz) with SPEC Code(s) SLBPD, SLBPE, SLBTQ

is only when you are using an intel graphics card, ie it doesn't have any benefit/influence when using a 3rd party graphics card like the ATI.

 

Yes. The 3rd party graphics card will be used instead.

 

ok great thanks for all your help its very much appreciated.

 

Are you going to be playing computer games? If so, which titles?

If not, then a laptop with Intel graphics is fine. Typically will have better battery life, but look at the reviews for the laptops to confirm.

 

I'm not overly sure at the moment what games, but I will likely be playing some.

for now it will primarily be internet, movies, and some photo shop work.

The laptop only comes with the ATI Radeon 4670 anyway, at the moment I'm trying to fathom what chip to go for.

I've now found a deal with a T9600 chip which has a few other upgrade hardware components, and I may swap the T9600 for an i7 at some point if I don't like it.

 

You can't upgrade a Core 2 Duo CPU with an i7 CPU. You can only swap a C2D CPU with another C2D CPU that uses the same CPU socket.

 

I should have realised that, thanks for the warning you just saved me buying the wrong laptop.

I'll go the other way and get the i7-820 the only thing with that system is its missing blu ray so will buy a new slot drive and possibly upgrade to 7 pro from home.

If push comes to shove and I dont like the 820qm would I be able to swap it out with the 620m?

thanks again

 

You're probably not missing anything there.

Not if those two CPUs use different sockets.

 

very true actually ur 99% more likely to get a discrete GPU..

ok , its good that u have decided to get 820qm but make sure u get a 130W adapter... the XPS1645 does come with 90W one and ur CPU might throttle etc...

 

your machine will either be running on the nvidia/ati OR intel graphics at any given time. You use one or the other, they don't work together.