Where I work we do R&D work that involves 3d modeling; computationally heavy simulations, and the most system intensive of them all; Outlook. Recently while refreshing out fleet of laptops I had quotes for Intel i5 based laptops; and Intel i7 based laptops. My understanding was that i5 = dual core. i7 = quad core. Right?? I assumed i3 was low end something or other.
So I ended up with the following CPU's: Intel Dual Core vPro i5-540M, 2.53GHz, 1066MHz 3M L2 Cache, Latitude E6410 Intel Dual Core vPro i7-620M, 2.66GHz, 1066MHz 4M L2 Cache, Latitude E6410 There was ~$250 difference in the machines (slight changes between them)... Come to find out.. the I5 and I7 series -M CPU's in the 500/600 family are BOTH DUAL CORE. These two CPU's are both dual core, and the i7 is roughly 5-7% faster due to cache and memory bandwidth [1]. You don't get quad core until you hit the 7xx and higher series CPU's. There are no low power quad core I5's, so if you need a mobile quad core you need the I7. $250 is hardly worth a 5-7% speed boost; especially when you are assuming a 10-40% speed boost (quad core). I feel flogged by the Intel marketing machine. Remain vigilant when purchasing your modern CPU -- and clearly do your independent research. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_Core_i5 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_Core_i7 Stan [1]: http://www.notebookcheck.net/Intel-Core-i7-620M-Notebook-Processor.23043.0.html
