i5-540M with 7200 rpm drive or i7-620M with 5400 rpm drive?

I am looking to customise a Sony Vaio s series and am unsure whether to get the faster processor, faster hard drive, or neither (if neither are worth the extra price). Can anybody offer some advice on this?

On researching this topic I have come across many people saying that the difference between the two processors is negligible, others saying that the two processors are simply a marketing ploy by Intel, while others say there is a marked improvement with the i7. Benchmarks also seem to show conflicting results.

The same conflicting opinions exist for the hard drives. Some say the 7200 rpm drive is noisier/runs hotter/is not faster, while others say there are no heat or noise issues/there is a noticeable speed increase.

I'm not sure if there is a difference between different hard drive brands (Seagate, Hitachi etc) and I can't seem to find out what the Sony Vaio s series is stocked with.

I am a computer science student and will be using the 13" laptop for development work etc and will need it to last a few years. I hope some people can shed some light on these issues! I welcome any advice.

 

I know this isn't the most helpful post, but the differences between both of them are extremely small. If you want to save the money, then save it.(Vice versa) Either choice will not result in a huge gain or huge loss.

This is usually a "Ask ten people, get ten different answers" type of thing.

 

i5-540M with 7200RPM
No the hard drive is not loud and definitely faster than the 5400RPM. I could tell the difference.

You can even use the i5-520M. I am a computer science student as well.

 

Thanks for your reply! In your opinion are there any other comparable laptops with this spec or do you think Sony has the edge?

My other issue is also screen size, I am worried that a 13" screen will be too small to do programming work on. What are your thoughts on this?

 

This.

The differences tend to be marginal at best. Synthetic benchmarks rarely reflect real world experience. If you can afford to spend the money, the CPU tends to be the most practical upgrade, since upgrading this component tends to require the most effort and can jeopardize your warranty. However, a small clock increase of 133MHz simply will not have a realizable effect, even with the extra 1MB, except in CPU limited scenarios where the extra horsepower can be utilized.

Still, even if it's faster, the question is whether that improvement is meaningful to you. For example, I ran into a situation this year involving some very computationally intensive optimization code for an aircraft I was designing. Having that extra power would have been a blessing, especially since I was very time limited, and each test case (out of 20-100) required nearly 30 seconds to achieve convergence. Even if I only saved 10% in time, and since I do not have two computers, this would have freed up the resources I needed to perform other tasks. If you see yourself in such a position in the future, perhaps the upgrade in CPU could be worthwhile. Otherwise, stick with the i5-520m/i5-540m.

For the hard drive, the performance differences between the 5400 RPM flavor and 7200 RPM flavor have become increasingly narrow. It really depends on how much of a price premium we are talking about. The latter drive will offer some noticeable advantages in speed, without much of a penalty in power consumption, but you would get far more mileage from an SSD. My personal recommendation would be to save the money and wait for the next generation of SSDs, though if we are talking a difference of say $20-$40, then I say what the hell (if you can afford it).

Like AboutThreeFitty said, you're going to get a different answer from every person you ask here, so I have tried to be as impartial as possible, but it still remains my humble opinion.

Best of luck with your decision,
Jake

 

there is certainly a difference and visible one at that. However, having said that, the difference is not MUCH.

i would say give preference to proccy selection,at this point. that can be guaged by your work. gaming and the likes, go for 620, else for general use and multi tasking, go for i7

 

If you aren't stressing the CPU, you will see NO difference since all CPUs will undervolt/underclock to similar speeds.

 

Get the cheapest one from Sony and do the upgrade to 7200rpm or SSD yourself.

 

... and yet the 620 is an i7...


Back on topic: like above said: if you plan to use it and strain it to the maximum (be it computational simulations, video/audio editing, etc.) go for the 620, otherwise the cheapest should suffice.

 

I say put the money to the processor. The hard drive is the easiest thing to upgrade later (well maybe other than RAM). Maybe that little bit of difference will matter one day and you can just by a cheap 7200 rpm drive later or just save for an ssd.

 

Thank you everyone for your replies! Would the i7 not cause heat/noise issues in a small 13" laptop?

 

my bad, i meant a quad core!

post edited.

 

oh, most certainly it will.

In fact, a lot depends on how the GPU is placed and cooled. if they have common cooling (passive), it might get hot.

But regardless, the i7 proccy runs QUITE hot when compared to others.

We are looking at 50 during idling.

 

Thanks. I think then it may be better to get the 15-540M, which is pretty similar performance wise...

 

Another consideration was the 16" quad core but I think I may get sick of its size and not being able to carry it around

 

If you are really looking for portability, the 16'' is not a good option. Like many people will argue 'it is not too heavy', my appreciation is that in the long run it is not comfortable to carry such weight.

 

I'm not 100% sure. I have never had a truly portable laptop and think it may come in handy while I'm at university. But at the same time I am worried that it will be difficult to work on a 13.3" screen

 

I'm in university and find that a 15" works just fine for portability. The majority of the time you'll be in sitting in a library or at home to study in long stretches. That's where a larger screen really helps. A little less battery and a little more weight is no problem.

That being said it all depends on the person and how noticeable they find that little bit of extra weight to be or if you can't be bothered to carry around your AC adapter.

 

The trouble is Sony don't do a decent 15". The only one I've found is a Dell Studio 15 and I have heard bad things about Dell

 

IMO Sony is overpriced. What is your budget?

 

Actually, after researching various brands, a customised Sony is not bad for the spec, around the same price as Dell. My budget is £1200 (around $1700)

 

True Sony can be priced quite high but recently released E-models (14, 15 and 17") are competing at lower prices.

 

I really like the Studio 15. It is a to work on the hardware if you are into that, but otherwise has a very solid high quality build.

Also I'm not really a fan of 2.5" 7200rpm drives. I've never tried one, but I have good reason for not wanting to. I have a number of 3.5" drives, including some that are far and away much faster than any 2.5" mechanical drive, and I really don't notice the difference in every day usage between them and the 5400rpm drive in my laptop. As shown by benchmarks, these desktop drives are 20-30% than the 2.5" 7200rpm ones, which are in turn 20-30% faster than 2.5" 5400rpm drives. I bet I could tell the difference in a blind side-by-side comparison, but in using my laptop and desktop both on a near daily basis for much the same tasks, I would be lying if I said there was definitely a perceptible difference attributable to hard drive performance differences. The one thing I could really tell though was when I had my gaming laptop, I could definitely tell maps took longer to load on the laptop. I also guess there are other scenarios I could envision where hard drive performance means something for home users, but for regular office and internet use, there is no way I would ever pay a premium for a 7200rpm laptop drive. I'm pretty sure a preponderance of people who yell "7200rpm" on here are just feeling a placebo effect.

I second Phil's suggestion and get the laptop with the least options possible and then upgrade it yourself later. But before you upgrade just see if it is good enough as it is before throwing your money at it.