# Which laptop CPU?



## AndreiD (Apr 2, 2011)

I want to buy a laptop, and my CPU choices are limited to:
i3 380, i3 2310M, i5 460 and i5 2410M (all of them come with the same GPU, GT540).

the i3 380 laptop is the cheapest, the i3 2310M laptop costs ~70$ more, and the i5 460 laptop is about the same price as the sandy birdge i3. the i5 2410M costs about 120$ more than the i3 2310M (almost 200$ more than the i3 380 lappy).

My question is, which laptop should I get? All laptops have the same specs, except the fact that the sandy bridge models have USB3.


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## DanishDevil (Apr 2, 2011)

Will you ever use USB 3.0?

What are you going to be doing with it?

How important is battery life to you?


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## AndreiD (Apr 2, 2011)

Mostly photoshop work and some light gaming (team fortress 2). I don't have any USB3 devices, only an external USB2 HDD. Battery life isn't all that important because I'll mostly use it as a desktop replacement.


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## DanishDevil (Apr 2, 2011)

Sorry for the late reply, just got back from dinner.

Looks like between those CPUs, if you don't care about battery life, the i3 380 would be the faster CPU. Clock for clock, Sandy Bridge is better than the Arrandale, but you're looking at 2.1GHz vs. 2.53GHz. I think you will see better performance from the i3 380.

http://www.notebookcheck.net/Intel-Core-i3-2310M-Notebook-Processor.45318.0.html

http://www.notebookcheck.net/Intel-Core-i3-380M-Notebook-Processor.37085.0.html


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## JrRacinFan (Apr 2, 2011)

I agree with DD although go with the 2410M if you can afford the price gap from the i3 380. Has a 2.9Ghz turbo core setting involved and that would assist in your casual gaming due to being a valve game.


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## DanishDevil (Apr 2, 2011)

Do you think the game will actually benefit him playing it though? It's going to already be well over 60FPS with a GT540 (my Geforce 310m plays them at 720P pretty nicely, so I'm assuming the 540 will smash it) so I think a $200 cheaper 2.53GHz is a much better decision over 2.9GHz turbo.


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## JrRacinFan (Apr 2, 2011)

*MIGHT* give a better minimum FPS.


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## DanishDevil (Apr 2, 2011)

I still feel it's not worth the money. I think his minimum is going to be over 45 anyway, and on a laptop, that's going to be plenty for "light gaming." And $200 extra is adding quite a bit of cost to the machine.


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## JrRacinFan (Apr 2, 2011)

Yup like I said previously, i agree with the i3 380. It's not like that cpu will bottleneck the gpu installed.


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## AndreiD (Apr 2, 2011)

Thanks for the help, I'll report back in a couple of days with what I got.


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## DanishDevil (Apr 2, 2011)

You should be very happy with it. Leaps and bounds above Core 2 Duo laptops both in power and battery life


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## AndreiD (Apr 2, 2011)

I'll probably go for the i5 sandy because I want it to last a little longer, about 1-2 years or so.
Found a good price for it, 990$ (it's a "good" price for Romania, the 24% VAT is killing us).


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## DanishDevil (Apr 2, 2011)

24%, sheesh! You'll be happy with it though!


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## mrhuggles (Apr 2, 2011)

i5 460, i have an i5 480m and i chose it because it has hyperthreading and also it made me breakfast in the morning.

EDIT: by that i meant, i dont think sandy bridge i5 has hyperthreading.


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## DanishDevil (Apr 2, 2011)

All i3 and i5 chips have Hyperthreading.

i5 chips have Turbo, while i3 chips do not.


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## mrhuggles (Apr 2, 2011)

nice, i didnt know that, but i DID notice that the 2500K doesn't have hyperthreading... right?


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## AndreiD (Apr 2, 2011)

I saw that there are some differences between mobile and desktop cpus, mobile counterparts seem to be a bit neutered in order to save power. Placed the order today, hopefully, in 2-3 days I'll have it, can't wait. I'll post some benchies, I won a 3DMark11 key in a TPU contest, guess I'll finally be able to use it, haha (my desktop is just DX10  )


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## DanishDevil (Apr 3, 2011)

mrhuggles said:


> nice, i didnt know that, but i DID notice that the 2500K doesn't have hyperthreading... right?



You, sir are correct. My logic doesn't apply to that chip I guess. They decided to go with a native quad rather than a dual core w/HT (a la i5 650).

Maybe this will be a little more concrete.

i3 CPUs have 4 logical cores (dual core w/HT or native quad).

i5 CPUs add Turbo.

i7 CPUs have 8 or 12 logical cores (quad or hex w/HT).



AndreiD said:


> I saw that there are some differences between mobile and desktop cpus, mobile counterparts seem to be a bit neutered in order to save power. Placed the order today, hopefully, in 2-3 days I'll have it, can't wait. I'll post some benchies, I won a 3DMark11 key in a TPU contest, guess I'll finally be able to use it, haha (my desktop is just DX10  )



Mobile CPUs will always be neutered compared to desktop variants because people care about battery life. The Core i# series blows Core 2 Duo out of the water on all fronts, though. It's about damn time.


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## AndreiD (Apr 5, 2011)

Just got it, hehe!
Some laptop pics:

















Performance:


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## DanishDevil (Apr 6, 2011)

Looks really nice! Only think that would bug me would be the small arrow keys. I prefer having those full sized since I have to work with excel a decent amount, and it's much faster for formulas to use the arrow keys than to click on individual cells.


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## AndreiD (Apr 6, 2011)

The keys are really quit and you'll get used to the small arrow keys pretty easily, they're not all that hard to press, even with my porky fingers.       
The only thing that annoys me is that nvidia doesn't even have any WHQL drivers for the GT540, just the beta verde drivers.


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## BinaryMage (Apr 6, 2011)

Hmm, that looks good except the GT540M should have a way better score on Windows graphics, see here and scroll down. Did you make sure to disable Optimus?


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## AndreiD (Apr 6, 2011)

BinaryMage said:


> Hmm, that looks good except the GT540M should have a way better score on Windows graphics, see here and scroll down. Did you make sure to disable Optimus?



I didn't disable optimus, the windows score is probably the IGP, which is quite okay for every day tasks. 
Temperature wise, the max I've gotten it to with cpu & gpu intensive gaming is almost 80 celsius for the CPU & GPU, but at that temp the fan stars to speed up, becoming just a bit noticeable.

Also, the nice thing is that the power brick is a Delta one, and it doesn't get all that hot, which means it's quite efficient (probably around 80+%).


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## Over_Lord (Apr 6, 2011)

AndreiD said:


> I want to buy a laptop, and my CPU choices are limited to:
> i3 380, i3 2310M, i5 460 and i5 2410M (all of them come with the same GPU, GT540).
> 
> the i3 380 laptop is the cheapest, the i3 2310M laptop costs ~70$ more, and the i5 460 laptop is about the same price as the sandy birdge i3. the i5 2410M costs about 120$ more than the i3 2310M (almost 200$ more than the i3 380 lappy).
> ...



if you are gonna game, honestly just stick to the cheapest, i3 380, all are 32nm tech and not big power guzzlers anyways..


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## DanishDevil (Apr 6, 2011)

He's already got the laptop; He went with the i5 2410M.


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## aelkamel (May 4, 2011)

Hi all,
Same issue again
Have 2 options
1) i3 380 - 6GB Ram (2 dimm) - 500 (7200rpm) HD
2) i5 2410M - 4GB Ram (single channel, but 1333) - 500 (5400 rpm) HD

Option 2 is $70 more.  I don't game a lot.  Which one should I go for?

Many thanks


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## BinaryMage (May 5, 2011)

aelkamel said:


> Hi all,
> Same issue again
> Have 2 options
> 1) i3 380 - 6GB Ram (2 dimm) - 500 (7200rpm) HD
> ...



Well, if you play graphics-heavy games at all, you might want to get a laptop with a discrete graphics card, but if not, integrated graphics will serve you fine. I would personally go for the i5, it's much faster and has slightly better integrated graphics, but if that's not worth it for the extra $70, the first will probably be sufficient as well.


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## crazyeyesreaper (May 5, 2011)

laptop #1 will be better more ram its dual channel has a faster hardrive all those laptops have 540m nvidia gpus so the i3 380 system is the better deal.


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## BinaryMage (May 5, 2011)

crazyeyesreaper said:


> laptop #1 will be better more ram its dual channel has a faster hardrive all those laptops have 540m nvidia gpus so the i3 380 system is the better deal.



I don't think he's talking about the same models mentioned earlier in the thread.


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## crazyeyesreaper (May 5, 2011)

BinaryMage said:


> I don't think he's talking about the same models mentioned earlier in the thread.



1) i3 380 - 6GB Ram (2 dimm) - 500 (7200rpm) HD
2) i5 2410M - 4GB Ram (single channel, but 1333) - 500 (5400 rpm) HD

thats what he mentioned for the 2 machines

obvious 6gb of ram in dual channel will be faster then 4gb single channgel

7200rpm hdd vs 5400rpm 


#2 has a slighly better cpu but is worse off on all other fronts.

its really a no brainer faster ram more ram faster hardrive, newer cpu that will do what he needs it to and both have the same gpu not to mention the better overall machine is cheaper. its not rocket science  or maybe it is.


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## aelkamel (May 5, 2011)

Thanks a lot guys.  I think I will go with i3 380 because of the better RAM and HD.  It is a bit cheaper too. Hope to last for a couple of years.
Wish I would have had the better RAM and HD with the i5 for the lower price 

Life is full of compromises


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## BinaryMage (May 5, 2011)

crazyeyesreaper said:


> 1) i3 380 - 6GB Ram (2 dimm) - 500 (7200rpm) HD
> 2) i5 2410M - 4GB Ram (single channel, but 1333) - 500 (5400 rpm) HD
> 
> thats what he mentioned for the 2 machines
> ...



Yeah, you're right, I thought there was more of a difference between the 2410M and the 380M than there actually is.  (And BTW, he didn't say both the laptops had GT540Ms, so unless you're psychic, I don't know what you're talking about)


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## crazyeyesreaper (May 5, 2011)

uh last i checked both had Nvidia GTS 540m gpus which are far better then Intels integrated shit, basically the major performance difference comes down to HDD, RAM which the cheaper machine has better for less. thats all thatreally matters,


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## BinaryMage (May 5, 2011)

crazyeyesreaper said:


> uh last i checked both had Nvidia GTS 540m gpus which are far better then Intels integrated shit, basically the major performance difference comes down to HDD, RAM which the cheaper machine has better for less. thats all thatreally matters,



See edited post.


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## crazyeyesreaper (May 5, 2011)

lol yea first post man, he mentions all the laptops he was looking at had GTS 540m 



AndreiD said:


> I want to buy a laptop, and my CPU choices are limited to:
> i3 380, i3 2310M, i5 460 and i5 2410M (all of them come with the same GPU, GT540).
> 
> the i3 380 laptop is the cheapest, the i3 2310M laptop costs ~70$ more, and the i5 460 laptop is about the same price as the sandy birdge i3. the i5 2410M costs about 120$ more than the i3 2310M (almost 200$ more than the i3 380 lappy).
> ...


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## BinaryMage (May 5, 2011)

crazyeyesreaper said:


> lol yea first post man, he mentions all the laptops he was looking at had GTS 540m



It's a different user. (aelkamel, not AndreiD) And I inferred that he wasn't talking about the same laptops because the price differences were different.


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## crazyeyesreaper (May 5, 2011)

well eitherway dosent matter. long as they get what they want at the best price


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## BinaryMage (May 5, 2011)

crazyeyesreaper said:


> well eitherway dosent matter. long as they get what they want at the best price



Agreed. Just clarifying.


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## crazyeyesreaper (May 5, 2011)

this can serve as a good example why people shouldnt THREAD JACK someone else.


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## aelkamel (May 5, 2011)

I did not "THREAD JACK" someone else's.  I noticed it was almost the same topic/question.
You thought that AndreiD and I are the same user.
Anyway, thanks for your advice crayeyes. No hard feelings


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