Thursday, August 19, 2010

Intel's iSeries Mobile Processors i3, i5, i7 What's the difference?

Aren't the processors in the laptops the same as the desktops?

No. The processors in the laptops have been designed to be more power efficient and give off less heat making it more portable. This means you don't have the as much power as you have in the desktop. In this blog post I hope to explain the differences between the Mobile i3, i5, i7 and their desktop counterparts. In most current laptops the current processors are the mobile chips from AMD, The dual Pentium, The Core2 Duo, i3, i5 and i7. As stated before the laptop chips are meant to be mobile so if you were to take a desktop i7 using the Socket 1156 or the 1366 socket you would have a 8" high laptop. So we give up clock speed, and for the most part the number of cores on the processor. *To be fair I am putting a disclaimer. This is my best educated guess as to the processors that Apple has selected and may actually differ from the actual processor being used in the laptop. Apple doesn't release the chip spec it has selected for it's laptops. Based on the information available this is my best guess for the actual processors inside the Macbook / Macbook Pro. If apple or anyone would like to provide the actual Macbook for disassembling, I would be happy to confirm my guess.

Below you will find a lot of technical information about the mobile CPU's and GPU's but for those of you who aren't as technically interested I'll just sum up everything here. Your best Value for a high end laptop processors would be something with the i5 540, the i7 720QM or a desktop Phenom X4. The i7 720QM is a 4 core processor and has hyper-threading. It is pretty much as good as your going to get for an i7 without completely draining the bank. If you can manage to get a Phenom X4 it's a desktop processor so your getting desktop power just remember to watch the temperature of the CPU and battery life. The i5 540 is a dual core with hyper threading and the i7 620M doesn't offer much more performance over the i5. So if I were to buy a Mac Laptop I would go with the i5 540. It's $200 cheaper, granted the GT 330M that comes with the 15" i5 only has 256MB dedicated video but for most of the Mac and windows laptop games available it should be good enough. It will play starcraft 2 really good.

As for overall value I would say if you can find a laptop with any of the following mobile processors and one of the dedicated mobile video cards, you will probably get a good deal.

Mobile Processors:

i7 720QM, i5 540, i5 450, Core2 P8600, P8700, P8800, T9000 Series. AMD Phenom Quad Core.

Mobile Graphics Cards:

ATI Cards: 5430, 5450, 5470, 5650, 5730, 5750

NVIDIA Cards: GeForce 310M, 320M, 330M, 220M, 230M, 240M, 260M

 

Apple Intel Processors

High End MacBook Pros

Apple has selected the i7 620M and the i5 540. Both are dual core processors and both have the Intel HD Integrated Graphics Chips in the processor. The i7 has the faster clock speed and more smart cache.

Intel® Core™ i7-620M Processor (4M Cache, 2.66 GHz)

Intel® Core™ i5-540M Processor (3M Cache, 2.53 GHz)

Mid-Range

For the midrange Apple more the likely slected the i5 520M because it doesn't support ECC memory. With that exception the two processors are virtually identical.

Intel® Core™ i5-520M Processor (3M Cache, 2.40 GHz) or Intel® Core™ i5-520E Processor (3M Cache, 2.40 GHz)

Entry Level / Low End

The entry level MacBook and MacBook Pro are 2.4 GHz Core2 processors and more then likely is the P8600 due to the front side bus being 1066 MHz and the Intel Trusted Execution Technology.

Intel® Core™2 Duo Processor T8300

or

Intel® Core™2 Duo Processor P8600

 

Other more common laptop processors.

Intel® Core™ i7-720QM Processor

Intel® Core™ i7-620M Processor

Intel® Core™ i5-540M Processor

Intel® Core™ i5-520M Processor

Intel® Core™ i5-430M Processor

Intel® Core™ i3-350M Processor

Intel® Core™2 Duo Processor P9600

Intel® Core™2 Duo Processor T9550

Intel® Core™2 Duo Processor P8800

Intel® Core™2 Processor P8700

Intel® Core™2 Quad Processor Q9000

Below you will find a comparison of the listed CPUs.

Comparison of Mobile Processors (CPU Benchmarks)

This table is sorted by the approximate speed of the (laptop) CPU.

Note, that there are also some desktop processors in the list (because some laptops are equiped with desktop CPUs and for comparison).


Pos Manufacturer Series Model Codename FSB L2+L3 Cache MHz TDP (Watt) Manufacture Process Cores/Threads 64 Bit SuperPI 1M* SuperPI 2M* SuperPI 32M* 3DMark06 CPU Cinebench R10 Rendering Single Cinebench R10 Rendering Multi wPrime 32 wPrime 1024
1 Core i7 920XM Clarksfield 2500 1MB + 8MB 2000-3200 55 45 4/8 Yes 13 31 719 3816 4322 11916 24 791
2* Core i7 620M Arrandale 2500 512KB + 4MB 2660-3333 35 32 2/4 Yes 13 33 781 3052 3432 7521 23 786
3 Core i7 720QM Clarksfield 2500 1MB + 6MB 1600-2800 45 45 4/8 Yes 16 35 808 3086 3157 8870 28 937
4 Core i5 540M Arrandale 2500 512KB + 3MB 2530-3066 35 32 2/4 Yes 15 36 850 2835 3132 6983 26 834
5* Phenom II X2 X620 BE   3600 2MB 3100 45 45 2 Yes                
6 Core 2 Duo T9600 Penryn 1066 6MB 2800 35 45 2 Yes 16 39 1051 2524 3204 5936 28 900
7 Core i5 520M Arrandale 2500 512KB + 3MB 2400-2933 35 32 2/4 Yes 17 38 901 2727 3024 6645 27 830
8 Core i5 450M Arrandale 2500 512KB + 3MB 2400-2933 35 32 2/4 Yes 17 41   2796 2930 6800 19 596
9 Core 2 Duo T9550 Penryn 1066 6MB 2660 35 45 2 Yes 17 41 1104 2384 2958 5530 29 922
10* Core i3 370M Arrandale 2500 512KB + 3MB 2400 35 32 2/4 Yes                
11 Core i5 430M Arrandale 2500 512KB + 3MB 2260-2533 35 32 2/4 Yes 17 41 969 2566 2734 6300 23 735
12* Phenom II X2 N620 Champlain 3600 2MB 2800 35 45 2 Yes 27     2282 2524 4907 26  
13 Core 2 Duo T9400 Penryn 1066 6MB 2530 35 45 2 Yes 18 43 1150 2262 2848 5341 38 1641
14 Core 2 Duo P8800 Penryn 1066 3MB 2660 25 45 2 Yes 19 46 1048 2355 2890 5357 31 993
15 Core 2 Duo P8700 Penryn 1066 3MB 2530 25 45 2 Yes 22 54 1227 2231 2826 5273 31 1020
16* Core i3 350M Arrandale 2500 512KB + 3MB 2260 35 32 2/4 Yes 19 45 1048 2357 2384 5781 31 977
17 Core 2 Duo P8600 Penryn 1066 3MB 2400 25 45 2 Yes 20 50 1160 2135 2588 4857 33 1099
18* Core i3 330M Arrandale 2500 512KB + 3MB 2130 35 32 2/4 Yes 21 49 1117 2206 2301 5518 27 868
19* Phenom II X4 X920 BE Chaplain 3600 2MB 2300 45 45 4 Yes                
20 Core 2 Quad Q9000 Penryn 1066 6MB 2000 45 45 4 Yes 23 55 1342 2841 2405 8059 36 1147
21 Core 2 Duo T7600 Merom 667 4MB 2330 34 65 2 Yes 22 55 1455 1997        
22* Core 2 Duo T6770 Penryn 800 2MB 2300 35 45 2 Yes                
23 Core 2 Duo T7500 Merom 800 4MB 2200 35 65 2 Yes 23 55 1344 1879 2304 4284 37  
24* Turion II Ultra M660 Caspian 3600 2MB 2700 35 45 2 Yes         2278 4403    
25* Turion II N530 Champlain 3600 2MB 2500 35 45 2 Yes                
26* Turion II Ultra M640 Caspian 3600 2MB 2600 35 45 2 Yes                
27 Core 2 Duo T7400 Merom 667 4MB 2160 34 65 2 Yes 24 59 1531 1817        
28* Core 2 Duo T6600 Penryn 800 2MB 2200 35 45 2 Yes 23 59 1334 1942 2391 4525 63 2014
29* Turion II Ultra M620 Caspian 3600 2MB 2500 35 45 2 Yes                
30* Turion II Ultra M600 Caspian 3600 2MB 2400 35 45 2 No 32 75   1905
 2120 4100    

The table below is a list of all currently common video graphic cards in laptops / notebooks including benchmarks and specs. The list is ranked by the aproximate speed of the GPU (may differ with some 3DMark values).

Pos Manufacturer Model Codename Pixel Shaders Vertex Shaders Core Speed Shader Speed Memory Speed Memory Bus Direct X Process (nm) 3DMark05 3DMark06 3DMark Vantage P 3DM Vant. P GPU Cinebench R10 OpenGL Crysis XGA low Crysis XGA high
1 ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5870 Broadway-XT 800 700 700 1000 128 11 40 17932 12711 7860 7584 5836   48
2* NVIDIA GeForce GTX 460M GF106 192 675 1350 1250   11 40              
3 ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4870 M98-XT 800 550 550 888 256 10.1 55 16349 10655 6631 6139 5190   43
4 NVIDIA GeForce GTX 280M N10E-GTX 128 585 1463 950 256 10 55 18414 12569 6328 5243 5846 105 45
5 NVIDIA GeForce GTX 260M N10E-GT 112 550 1375 950 256 10 55 14773 10167 4953 4316 3966 120 35
6* NVIDIA GeForce GTS 260M N10E-GS 96 550 1375 1800 128 10.1 40              
7* ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5750 Madison-XT 400 550 550 1600 128 11 40              
8* ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5730 Madison 400 650 650 800 128 11 40 14020 7258 3812 3

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