I7? Or i5?

Im looking at the msi gx640 and was wondering if there will be a huge difference in the jump from a i5 540 to a i7 720? Thanks guys

 

Depends on what you want to do with it. Gaming? Not much. programs that actually make use of the quad core? Of course.

 

What are some programs that use a quad core?

 

I've posted my thoughts on this question before, as have others, so you can probably find that information easily if you search.

But here is a summary:

i5 Pros:

• Less cost
• Less heat
• Less power consumption (better battery life)
• Higher clock speed (better for many games and applications)

i7 Pros:

• More cores (better for multithreaded applications and multitasking)
• Can utilize higher speed RAM
• More "futureproof", as more applications are becoming multithreaded
• Bragging rights

 

The stock i5-430M or i5-450M is plenty sufficient for gaming. Unless you can upgrade to, say, an i7-620M for ~$100, I'd say it isn't really worth it.

 

I can upgrade to an i7 620 for 79 more dollars. Should i do it?

 

540 to a 620 is not worth much..

I wouldn't do it, as the TDP increases, resulting in higher temps.

540 is currently the fastest i5, and that is more than enough for games.

 

The question is, why is this GX640 coming with an i5-540M in the first place? I'd say it's either the i5-450M s/he meant, or the i5-540M s/he's getting is already an upgrade, in which case s/he should go back down to a lower CPU.

 

OP where are you ordering it from, and what's the config you got and for what price?

 

Personaly I would go for a i7-620m, battery life be damned.
While performance might not jump through the roof getting the faster CPU will make it more future proof for the next wave of demanding games.
And yes I know there is no such thing as future proofing maybe I should have said extend it's usefulness, the way I look at it you can never have to much power.

 

i enjoy my 820qm =D, it just seems like if you're going to upgrade the CPU go for the gusto

I still get a lil over 2 hours of battery life on 70% brightness and balanced

 

After the 520M/540M, the gains in terms of price jumps are very small. You certainly could "future proof", but with 4 threads, a pseudo quad core is already future proof in itself.

 

540m then, you say?

 

It depends on the specific pricing wherever you're buying it from. If you want a definitive answer to the question, you'd have to list the costs of each individual CPU.

The i5-540M is typically ~$50+ more than the i5-520M, which I can't say is worth it for a boost of 133MHz over the i5-520M. Since the i5-430M and i5-450M are OEM CPUs, it's hard to put prices on them, but I'd say it isn't worth it to pay much to upgrade from those, either.

 

hey guys sorry i didnt reply earlier i was busy today.
so heres my config from xoticpc.
with the i5-540 processor and 4 gigs of ram my total is 1457.16
the upgrade from an i5-540 to an i7-720 is 60 dollars.
with the i7 my total is 1515.33

i plan on doing mild gaming but i want flight simulator to look good on high settings.
i also wanna play call of duty and some strategy games. (no starcraft, more like c&c)

if you need more info let me know!

 

alright now im going crazy. i was just looking and i saw the msi gx740 for around a hundred dollars cheaper with way better hardware! please help me decide!

 

If you want the GX640, stick with the i5-430M.

Considering the stock config comes with an i5-430M, XoticPC's upgrade prices of $259 for i5-520M, $299 for i5-540M, $359 for the i7-720QM and $379 for the i7-620M are simply not worthwhile.

 

yea as of now the cost of having a reseller doing the upgrades doesnt really merit the slight increase in performance. I say get the stock CPU and in a year or so when things are a lot cheaper get a new quad on the cheap and resell your stock CPU.

 

those upgrade opotins are sucha rip off, all they do is charge you for an extra CPU and they don't even give you the non upgrade

which is why I built my own

 

If size is not a problem
get the GX740 it is much bigger I mean more powerful.

 

alright ive decided. thanks guys! one more question. does anybody know exactly what wireless card the gx740 has? all it says on xotic is Intel® Ultimate N 802.11 a/g/n. is it 6200 or 6300?

 

Prolly 6200, cuz people have actually upgraded themselves to a 6300.

 

Intel 5100 HMC is the stock card in the GX640 & GX740.

 

Wrong Post.

 

6300 is Ultimate. 6200 is Advanced.

 

Didn´t want to make a new thread, and didn´t want to write in the GX740 thread as this is technically not about it.

I´ve been trying to figure out how big a difference it is to have a i5 430m or i7 720m in the GX740 specifically? I mean how much FPS or more specifically raw system power will I loose?

As u might know the GX740 comes with the i5 430m atleast here in Northen EU (and all other EU countries according to MSI´s homepage...Before anyone tells me I should just buy from say the States, I´ll just answer u right away, it doesn`t come with the scandinavian keysetup.

Thanks for the answer!

 

The i7-720QM has around 37% more raw power than the i5-430M. In an application that makes really good use of quad-cores like video encoding, you won't see all of this raw power translate into performance, though, and the advantage will drop to around 20%, maybe 25%.

In most games performance will be very similar between the two CPUs, mostly because GPU limitations will dominate. In games that only use two cores but are demanding on the CPU, the i7-720QM should be very close (but slightly behind) the i5-430M in performance, as long as it gets to use its full dual-core Turbo. When it comes to games that are demanding on the CPU and optimized for four cores, you might see a 10-20% advantage for the i7.

 

Lack of cheese definately has it right, although i'm a major fan of quads, im running everything flawlessly on a q9000 at the moment, and both the i5 and i7 have enough power for either single core, dual threaded or quad threaded (Even oct for the HT extention) so you wont have a problem.

I'd take the i7 because programs slowly shift over to multicore processing, but along with that, if you apserlutely want to hammer your machine with apps, a quad has much more space (In a sense) to use then a dual.

But again, i5/i7 whatever you choose, none of them will be slack (100% garanteed)