How is laptop performance? (mobile i7's and such)

[Granville]

I guess i've become somewhat of a pest lately, sorry about that. I'm kind of on the edge again about what sort of computer i should get. If i go with a desktop, i intend to build my own. But now i'm considering a laptop as my life has taken a mobile style.

Either way, my goal is to stay under $1000, in the low to mid $900 range. I know what i want in a desktop and have my build figured out. What i'm not sure is whether i should just get a laptop. From what i've heard, they're quite powerful nowadays. I can get an i7 laptop @1.6ghz that turbo boosts up to apparently 2.8ghz (i think) or so for around the same price as a desktop with an i5 (which i can overclock to around 3.8ghz or so i guess). GPU will probably be either a Geforce 330 GT or Radeon 5730 depending on the laptop i choose. Don't know what's really better, i'll have to check up on some specs.

I don't know much about laptops nowadays. I have a rather slow Athlon II Toshiba right now which is pathetic with running Dolphin. I'd appreciate any advice (and specific links to newegg or something if possible) about good i7 laptops around the $900-$950 range. As long as they'll work well with Dolphin and other such powerful games.

Got a few examples of my own finds-
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.as...6834220696
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.as...6834115789
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.as...6834146777

I'd appreciate comments from people who have laptops like this and how well games tend to run for you. Mario Galaxy is a good example since it's rather demanding on the CPU. I'd like to run games at higher than standard resolution but i know these GPU's are intended for lower tier gaming, so i can stand resolutions lower than 1080p (720p is fine).

Thanks in advance. I have a very good use for getting a laptop due to the mobility. I'm hoping to head to college sometime soon as well, so having a laptop will be nice. It'll be my ultimate gaming and work machine if so.

[NaturalViolence]

All three of those are sufficient to run MOST games fullspeed @ 1920 x 1080. Although if I were you I would get a desktop unless you NEED mobility since desktops are far superior to laptops in every area except one, mobility. I personally can't stand using laptops for gaming, but if you need one for mobility reasons then that's fine too. I would list the things you should be looking for in a laptop of that price range but quite frankly all three of those have everything that I would list.... Only problem I see is that all three have a resolution of 1366 x 768, other than that they are perfect for what you need. But if your fine with that resolution then any of them would make a fine choice. And since you can't get a laptop for under $1,000 that has a higher resolution yet still has 4GB of ram, an i7/i5, and a decent gpu those are the best choices you can get for that price range. The main advantage you would get by spending more is a larger screen/higher resolution.

[Granville]

The resolution isn't that big of a deal actually. Nor is a larger screen. Recent changes to my lifestyle and future changes are making mobility a huge factor in my decisions. Put into perspective, we just sold our house and we're traveling around and shall continue to do so even after getting a new house. My desktop has been in storage (the one in my sig) and i've been stuck with a laptop that chokes even on non-demanding PC games at lowest resolutions. I haven't gamed much lately at all unless it's older games from pre-2008 or so. I can't lug around a desktop and i may not be able to build a new one so soon anyways. Mobility is very important.

Even now though, i would imagine the inherently superior architecture of the Core i7 would actually stomp all over even my desktop PC and its weak GPU. I have trouble getting some games to run on it. From what i've heard, i7's are vastly superior to other CPU's even with far lower clock speed. Maybe not at the 1.6ghz range (right?) but probably when you factor in turbo boost. A 2.8ghz i7 should easily far outperform an Athlon II with 3ghz right?

[NaturalViolence]

I haven't gamed much lately at all unless it's older games from pre-2008 or so

I think you need to change your definition of older games. If that's old then the games I usually play must be ancient (recently did a second play through of kotor after all these years for example).

we just sold our house and we're traveling around and shall continue to do so even after getting a new house.

Who is we? Are you married (it's ok, you can admit it here )?

Mobility is very important.

Well then don't let my personal hatred of laptops get in the way (maybe it's because I have to fix so many of them on a daily basis that they piss me off).

inherently superior architecture of the Core i7 would actually stomp all over even my desktop PC and its weak GPU.

Depends on the application. The gpu in the laptops you linked are miles better than a 4350 that's for sure but as for the cpu, it depends on the application, I would say in most applications the cpu would be on par, but then again most applications don't utilize or need any of the improvements made in recent architectures.

From what i've heard, i7's are vastly superior to other CPU's even with far lower clock speed.

Although that is true do not underestimate the importance of clock rates in modern x86 cpus.

*waits for naoan to swoop in and tell me I'm wrong*

Maybe not at the 1.6ghz range (right?)

Depends on what type of application and what cpu you are comparing it to.

A 2.8ghz i7 should easily far outperform an Athlon II with 3ghz right?

Yes but do realize that turbo sets a different max clock rate depending on how many cores are active. An i7 720m can only reach 2.8GHz when only 1 core is active. Even then your not guaranteed to reach that clock rate since your temps also need to be low enough (they rarely are unless the laptop is brand new and has not had time to build up dust yet).

Max clock rates for the 720 based on number of cores being used is as follows:

1 core: 2.8GHz
2 Cores: 2.4GHz
3/4 Cores: 1.73GHz
Stock: 1.6GHz

It can of course go lower than that if at 1.6GHz if it sits idle for awhile (to save power) or if temps are to high (to prevent overheating). Of course the stupid thing about turbo boost is it does not lower the voltage when it lowers the clock rate, it could be much more efficient if it did (sandy bridge is being released next year and is going to use a second generation turbo boost that also adjusts voltage so apparently intel knew this was problematic but for some reason were not able to implement the necessary changes just yet).

[Granville]

We means myself and my mother actually. I'm not married yet. Not had much of a dating opportunity lately.

I don't mind laptops actually. Depends on the brand i guess. Had bad luck with some Dells in the past (Latitudes from 2001, flimsy crappers). My current Toshiba is not very fast but it's served me well so far. Older games i guess would be from the 2004 era. Right in the middle of last gen consoles. Older than that and it plays anything, but even some games like Psychonauts and early Lego games can choke on high resolutions.

I do wish to be able to play most games at full or near fullspeed. I don't mind coming down in resolution if necessary. I didn't know about the technicalities with the amount of cores being used either. And the heat buildup would have an impact. Dolphin only uses 2 cores at least. It's all up in the air for now anyways. I may just end up going ahead and building a new desktop.

[NaturalViolence]

CPU wise the i7 720m will still beat your athlon II X2 running at 3.0GHz in dolphin. It won't be a whole new world of performance but it will be about 20-33% faster running in dual core mode at between 2.2-2.4GHz (depending on heat). Overall I would say intels newest generation of chips is a small/modest improvement over the previous generation of desktop chips but a huge improvement over the previous generation of laptop chips. This is because the dynamic clock rate (turbo boost) and newest generation of c-state really help reduce the performance hit of the weak points of laptops (very limited thermal dissapation and power consumption). You see intel and amd follow opposite stategies. AMD designs and creates chips for servers and scales them down to produce desktop and laptop chips. Intel designs laptop chips and scales them up to create desktop and server chips. Ultimately I think intels tactic works better. Creating a chip focused entirely on efficiency and scaling it up tends to work better than creating a chip aimed at being powerful and scaling it down (you tend to actually end up with a more powerful chip by doing the first). Of course in recent years intel is now doing both. For example gulftown/bloomfield is clearly designed for servers and scaled down for desktops while clarkdale/lyynfield are clearly designed for laptops and scaled up. You could also argue that lyynfield is a desktop chip scaled down for laptops (arrandale), I would accept that too. The cool thing about being on the desktop platform is that you usually have all of the chips availible, the chips designed for servers and laptops, your in the middle.

Not had much of a dating opportunity lately.

Same. Not sure what it is about technology that seems to instantly turn most girls off.

[Granville]

I'm now considering raising my budget a little if it would help in the speed department. $1300 is my absolute limit though. I'd consider an i5 mobile as well. Anything in the Core i series that gets the best speed. Any suggestions or advice would be appreciated. As cheap as it can get would be great.

[Ocean]

Can't really go wrong with this, a friend has this model and it plays *everything* at full speed (well, the ever persistent mario galaxy at about 51fps in some areas), though he paid over $1,6k for it.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.as...6834157278

Newegg has it on sale at slightly under your budget ($1) it would definitely be a nice replacement even for a desktop PC.
According to notebookcheck it's card, radeon 5850M also runs all current-gen games at high fps (even crysis at high settings @1920x1080 at over 35fps),
only metro2033 plays on medium. (note that this laptop's screen is 1600x900)

The i5 with it's turbo boost is a nice feature too (not all i5 have it but this does), as well as the 6GB of DDR3 memory and a bluray drive.

[NaturalViolence]

I'm now considering raising my budget a little if it would help in the speed department. $1300 is my absolute limit though. I'd consider an i5 mobile as well. Anything in the Core i series that gets the best speed. Any suggestions or advice would be appreciated. As cheap as it can get would be great.

You honestly can't get much faster than what you linked. Spending more money would only get you a larger/higher resolution screen, bigger HDD, a built in blu-ray drive, more ram (which you don't need), you get the idea. The laptop ocean linked should run high-end pc games much better than the ones you linked due to the better gpu but dolphin should run slightly (very slightly) worse due to the cpu.

[nosmurfinway]

Hello! I recently purchased the Lenovo y560 on black friday with 1.7 ghz i7 and a 1 GB ATI Mobility Radeon 5730.

I've tried numerous different builds of Dolphin and can't seem to get 60 fps while playing brawl. Am I expecting too much from this computer? It'd be really cool to render it at 1366x768 which is about 41 fps but I can't; I've tried so many different settings. If I render it at 800 by 480 i get 51 fps which is playable but definitely not awesome.

Any help would be appreciated. Thanks!