i7 5500U or i7 4720HQ?

Chamath Abeysinghe

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Apr 3, 2015
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I am going to buy a new laptop.
I started comparing two options.
Option 1:
i7-4720HQ cpu 1TB hybrid hard drive(with 8GB cache) 8GB ram 2GB GTX 860M VGA.(8GB ram can be upgraded to 16GB )

Option 2:
i7-5500U with 1TB HDD 16GB ram, 2GB GTX 860M VGA and upgrading it to a 256GB SSD.

The cost is almost same for both options. I am going to use this machine to play games and for studies(most are CPU intensive work like MATLAB,VMWare).
Which one is the best option?
 
For gaming your will not benefit for the I7 5500U.
I have 2 laptops like you want. First I use only for work and second for gamings. So the quad-core cpu will performe much better in games.

But the I7 5500U have its positive notes. It power consumition is lower than the I7 4720HQ.
 
i7 5500U is only dual-core proc with HT while i7 4720HQ is quad-core proc with HT. i7 5500U is weaker but should have better battery live.

It depends on what you are planing.
for example:
For me, I like to have a really strong PC for gaming, rendering, etc. and a laptop which I can carry everywhere. The laptop must have excellent battery stamina, that is it nothing else. The laptop just have to be ok not awesome in performance.
Real gaming laptops with strong GPUs tend to be heavy and have short battery live. I do not want to carry such laptop with me.
i7 5500U is the one for my need.

If you want only 1 laptop for everything, i7 4720HQ is the better choice.
Gaming is not good on both laptops tho'. i7 4720HQ is ok for gaming but GT860M does not. You would wanna look at least GTX750Ti for gaming.
 
I bought G750JM which is with 4710HQ and GT860M, possible to run GTA V at good resolution and graphic quality and draw good FPS for CSGO (~80-200)
I am a .NET developer and I find it also great for developer with good CPU and 16GB RAM.

5500U is battery-saver CPU, it's lower performance than normal CPUs.

So, your call.

Bonus: I attached a SSD into the Laptop so it's running like a monster 😀
But, I use desktop for gaming. Always!