depends on which camp u re looking at...

Intel, Core i7 600M or Core i5 500M are much better than the quad due to the clock...

AMD - Phenom II x4 or Phenom II x3... highly clocked quad/tri core compared to Intel...

yeah, i3 will pwn them in terms of performance...

Intel officially launched the new ULV CPU...

Core i7-600UM – 32nm Arrandale, dual core with HTT, 1.33GHz, 4MB L3 cache, 2500MHz DMI, Turbo @ 2.40GHz, GPU @ 500MHz, 18W TDP
Core i5-500UM - 32nm Arrandale, dual core with HTT, 1.20GHz, 3MB L3 cache, 2500MHz DMI, Turbo @ 2.20GHz, GPU @ 500MHz, 18W TDP
Core i5-400UM - 32nm Arrandale, dual core with HTT, 1.20GHz, 3MB L3 cache, 2500MHz DMI, Turbo @ 1.73GHz, GPU @ 500MHz, 18W TDP
Core i3-300UM - 32nm Arrandale, dual core with HTT, 1.20GHz, 3MB L3 cache, 2500MHz DMI, GPU @ 500MHz, 18W TDP
Pentium U5000 - 32nm Arrandale, dual core, 1.20GHz, 3MB L3 cache, 2500MHz DMI, GPU @ 500MHz, 18W TDP
Celeron U3000 - 32nm Arrandale, dual core, 1.06GHz, 2MB L3 cache, 2500MHz DMI, GPU @ 500MHz, 18W TDP

replacing:

Core 2 Duo SU9000 – 45nm Penryn DC, dual core, 1.20-1.60GHz, 3MB L2 cache, 800MHz FSB, 10W TDP
Core 2 Duo SU7000 – 45nm Penryn DC, dual core, 1.30GHz, 3MB L2 cache, 800MHz FSB, 10W TDP
Pentium SU4000 – 45nm Penryn DC, dual core, 1.30GHz, 2MB L2 cache, 800MHz FSB, 10W TDP
Celeron SU2000 – 45nm Penryn DC, dual core, 1.20GHz, 1MB L2 cache, 800MHz FSB, 10W TDP

not much actually... though Pentium P6000 may give u a wee bit more performance... but i doubt u'll notice it anyway...

however wat AMD excels in is integrated graphic... Radeon HD4250 is miles better than GMA HD...

clock for clock Core i3 is better... but AMD platform is better when comes to integrated graphic...

actually, not necessarily...

ATi has sth called SidePort memory, allowing the integrated graphic to have it's own VRAM to use without borrowing...

it's present in Acer Aspire One 521, 384MB to be exact...

so it's better to check thoroughly when comes to AMD laptops... for all that u know, it may ve SidePort...

This post has been edited by astria: Jul 9 2010, 11:26 PM

i3 is better...

HTT is gonna help a lot when comes to Photoshop...

P320 cooler, but T4500 better performance...

games nowadays are either dual core optimized (pure PC titles, think RTS games like Starcraft 2) or tri core optimized (console ported titles)... so quad core is basically a waste since u only use 2 or 3 of the cores when playing games... and since dual core CPU runs at a higher clock speed compared to quad core CPU for the same power consumption, generally dual core gives better performance over quad core CPU...

only in rare cases where a quad core performs better than dual core in games, eg GTA4, as the game was poorly ported for PC and thus quad core is preferred...

so for gaming, the sweet spot is actually tri core (Phenom II x3), followed by high clocked dual cores (Core i7-600M, Core i5-500M, Phenom II x2), followed by quad core (Core 2 Quad, Phenom II x4)...

Core i7 quad core is not a really good CPU for gaming, biggest reason is the low clock speed... at only 1.6GHz, it's not really that good for gaming needs... the CPU is designed more for tasks like Photoshop, video rendering, etc...

more core = more heat = more power consumed

higher clock = more heat = more power consumed

i believe u re referring to AW m11x...

personally i would pick 330UM...640UM is bloody expensive, but is still at the same clock speed as 330UM, while 520UM has lower clock speed than 330UM...

Turbo Boost is pretty pointless nowadays since most programs are multi-core optimized...

refer back to my posts, games nowadays are dual/tri core optimized...

Turbo Boost works by shutting down 1 of the 2 cores in the CPU and overclock the other one so that single threaded programs can be processed faster...

so essentially, Turbo Boost is useless in games... might as well save the money for some other stuff (a Razer Orochi how abt that??? )

hmm, driver installation perhaps???

honestly, i ve never seen IDA (Intel Dynamic Acceleration, the predecessor of Turbo Boost, found in Core 2) kick in for other stuff besides drivers...


refer back to my posts...

games now are dual or tri core optimized, so when u re using a quad core, u re only using 2 or 3 cores out of the CPU...

further more, a i7 quad has very low clock speed (1.6GHz/1.8GHz compared to 2.4GHz-2.66GHz on the dual cores), so imagine when u re running a game, say dual core optimized, on a i7 quad, u re running only 2 cores on 1.6GHz (factor in Turbo Boost, u ve 2GHz maybe?), but on a dual core, u re getting no less than 2GHz depending on the model... so which one is better?

yes, i7 quad does have a lot of raw power, but whether u can utilize all the power depends on the programs that u sue...

as a matter of fact, i7-620M (2.66GHz) pwns the ass of i7-720QM (1.6GHz) hard in games benchmarks...

yup, 620M is a dual core...

actually, words like "i7", "i5" are purely branding... basically, i7 = hardcore, i5 = performance, i3 = mainstream, Pentium/Celeron = enrty...

the difference lies in the numbers and the suffix... u can see the difference in the list of CPU on the very first post of this thread...

assuming that no other programs will take up too much of the other CPU resources, yes, Turbo Boost will kick in and shut down 2 of the cores and overclock the other 2... however, the clock speed probably match that of a 400M or 300M CPU only...

of course it is...

besides, the architecture of Nehalem is basically the same as Core, main this is ditching FSB and moving the memory controller closer to the CPU, thus increasing memory performance... raw processing performance wise, there's not much difference between the 2...

even i3 or Pentium is enuf...

well, depending on the lvl of HTT optimization of the programs, u'll get up to 30% performance improvement with 540M...

so the qn here now is, is the 30% performance increase worth the extra investment?

yup, but key word here is "up to"

it may be 30%, 20%, 10%, or may ve no improvements at all...

well, moving on to 520M from T9550, it's not really an upgrade imho...

if u re really so concerned abt performance with these programs, i suggest more cores instead, such as Phenom II x3 or Core i7 quad

can elaborate further??? such as wat re the sections...