Core i5 vs core i7 - I need help making a decision!

[rizzo183]

I'm currently running core i5 2400 3.1 GHz on my desktop.

I was wondering if the core i7 4900 2.4 GHz will be an upgrade or a downgrade, or just simply not worth it, cause it'll just be the same? Which one will run games better?

This question may be very silly considering it's 2nd generation vs 4th generation, but i'm confused about the difference between the clock speeds.

 

[bsod1]

erm not worth it. does that i7 even exist?

what's your current rig like?

 

[slyu9213]

Downgrade, at least from the information you gave. An i5 and i7 is pretty much equal when it comes to gaming. Not sure a 2.4GHz i7 will perform better than a 3.1GHz i5 even with architecture improvements. Not sure if HT will help that much either.

 

[rizzo183]

erm not worth it. does that i7 even exist?

what's your current rig like?

My current rig:
core i5 2400 (3.1 GHz)
8 gig RAM
MSI Geforce GTX 760 2GB DDR5

and i'm planning to sell this and buy a used Alienware 14 cause i'm moving abroad soon and i can't take my desktop with me.
And the Alienware config is core i7 4900 2.4 GHz, Geforce GTX 765 2GB DDR5, 8 gigs RAM.

 

[rizzo183]

Downgrade, at least from the information you gave. An i5 and i7 is pretty much equal when it comes to gaming. Not sure a 2.4GHz i7 will perform better than a 3.1GHz i5 even with architecture improvements. Not sure if HT will help that much either.

Is there any more information that would help? Cause i'm actually a noob when it comes to processors.

The core i5 processor is 2 years old. I bought it in 2012. It's currently running on my desktop with 2GB DDR5 GTX 760.
The core i7 is on an Alienware 14 laptop i'm planning to buy. It's got 2GB DDR5 geforce GTX 765.

 

[AdmiralDonut]

That GTX 760m GPU in the laptop is nowhere near as powerful as your desktop GPU, it is the laptop equivalent to a GTX 560Ti. More modern games, or demanding ones, such as Tomb Raider, Far Cry 3 or Metro: Last Light will run at high settings at about 30FPS at 1366x768, so don't expect anything amazing.

As to the CPU, due to it's lower clock speeds you will likely see a drop in gaming performance, especially given the weaker GPU. It all depends on what you plan to use the laptop for in all honesty. If you are going to be doing web browsing, light gaming and watching movies then the laptop will do just fine. If you want to do any heavy gaming or processor heavy tasks like video rendering etc then the laptop will be about as much use as a rice paper tea pot.

 

[rizzo183]

=1923&cmp[]=793]https://www.cpubenchmark.net/compare.php?cmp[]=1923&cmp[]=793

CPU benchmarks show this result. Is this good to go on?

 

[AdmiralDonut]

https://www.cpubenchmark.net/compare.php?cmp[]=1923&cmp[]=793

CPU benchmarks show this result. Is this good to go on?

That link does not work my friend.

 

[slyu9213]

Okay so the i7 4900MQ/HQ is a Laptop CPU and I think the base speed is higher than 2.4GHz if you told us the right name for the Lapop CPU model.

i5 2500(k) - 3.1GHz boost up to 3.7GHz
i7 4900MQ/HQ - 2.8GHz boost up to 3.8GHz

In this case the i7 is only 400MHz slower at stock speeds. Then the i7 can probably boost up to 3.5GHz on all 4 Cores (i5 boost up to 3.4 GHz for 4 cores.) That would mean the i7 can potentially be faster with speed when you do something CPU intensive. Additionally the Haswell architecture is better than Sandy Bridge, the i7 has HT (4 extra Threads). The i7 has 2MB of more cache (8 vs 6). The i7's chip is smaller 22nm vs 32nm and it uses less power (47w vs 95w). The i7 can also have a higher max memory bandwidth as the Haswell supports up to 32gb of DD3 1600MHz while Sandy Bridge 32GB of DDR3 1333MHz. The IGP of the i7 is also better than the i5 (HD 4600 vs HD 2000?).

The only issue here is that a mobile GTX 765M cannot compete with a desktop GTX 760. A GTX 760 equivalent would be something between a GTX 770M and GTX 780M. A good desktop comparison of a GTX 765M would be GTX 650 Ti. Both have 768 Cuda Cores, same amount of VRAM. But even the 650 Ti beats the 765M because it has a faster memory bus and higher clocks.