i3 6100 vs i7 720QM

[Shaina11]

Recently acquired a desktop, a Dell Inspiron 3650. (Yes, a Dell not Adele.) It has a Intel Core i7 6100 Dual Core hyper-threaded running at 3.7 GHz, 6 GB DDR3L SDRAM, and integrated graphics.

I currently use an 8 year old ASUS ROG G73JH with a Intel Core i7 720QM Quad Core hyper-threaded running at 1.7 GHz, 8 GB DDR3 RAM, with an ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5870 with 1 GB VRAM.

How does this desktop's 6th gen i3 CPU compare to my laptop's 1st gen i7 CPU? I know it Should be considerably faster, but, what about the lack of quad-core? Would that be noticeable much, or would the extra speed make up for that? (In gaming or otherwise, encoding, emulators, etc.)

The reason I ask is because I'm thinking about potentially getting a Nvidia GTX 1050 Ti Mini eventually to put in the desktop to potentially replace my laptop with it, however, I wonder if I could get away with sticking with the i3 for a while until I could upgrade it to an i7 6700 potentially.

Until then, how do you think the newer desktop i3 compares to the older mobile i7?

Thank you for your time, I appreciate it~

 

[guanyu210379]

1. if you are looking for a good upgrade or a good laptop, always try to reach at least I5 (with at least 4 real cores) level, especially if you are playing to game on it.
2. It is best to ignore everything lower than Intel Coffee Lake and AMD Ryzen 2xxx series.

I see you have already that pre-built Dell Inspiron.
1. The problem with pre-built PCs is the PSU, if it comes with an iGPU, the PSU is enough only for that iGPU, the PSU should not be strong enough for 1050Ti or any decent gaming graphic card.
2. I3 6100 should be a lot faster than I7 720QM. However, I3 6100 is not exactly an upgrade for todays gaming standard.

 

[Shaina11]

Yeah I know it's not up to today's standards, but I don't have the money to build a "modern" PC, I just need one that can decently run new things on low-medium settings, and I've already done research on this particular model, and people have successfully upgraded it to an i7 6700 with a 1050 Ti Mini without having to replace the PSU, and I have to specifically use a mini or SFF GPU because of the case size, but it has been done, I just wanted to know how the current CPU compares to my laptop. And to note, with that configuration, including the GPU, 110 watts is still left over for the hard drive, fans, motherboard, etc.

Right now, I'm not looking for top of the line, but almost Anything is better than my nearly decade-old lappy. Eventually I'll build my dream PC, but for now, I could just work with this one, and it could last me a few years, so that's what I'd like to do. It was my late grandpa's desktop, wanting to give it a new purpose.

EDIT: So, would the lack of quad-core be noticeable much on the i3 compared to my laptop's i7? Or not really?

 

[guanyu210379]

I3 6100 desktop s really faster than I7 720QM from the single core performance point of view.
The lack of having real 4 cores should be noticeable too on some games and some activities.

BTW, really be careful with adding a new GPU on pre-built systems, most-likely you will have to replace the PSU too.
Even if the PSU works for now, your PSU should work very near to limit with 1050Ti, this is not a very good idea for long term usage.

 

[Shaina11]

Understandable, if I do this I may upgrade the PSU at some point, might have to get an adapter and use it externally though, but could make it work. And the i3 is likely temporary, would probably upgrade to an i7 at some point when I have the ability to, but the GPU would be the first thing I imagine, just to make it a semi-worthwhile replacement for my lappy.