# [SOLVED] i5 or i7 for laptop pc gaming



## specter51095 (Nov 25, 2009)

i am buying this laptop for minor hardcore gaming games like wow aion MW2 and crysis (crysis2 when it comes out) and i have a very tight budget i am wondering if its worth the extra 300$ for an i7 i am comparing this one and this one i want it to be future proof for about 2-3 years if not more and i know its possible to upgrade to an i7 later when the price drops but for now is the i5 on this rig going to punch most games that i want to run in the face considering its not 1080p res and it has a nice graphics card/ddr3 ram


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## Phædrus241 (Mar 28, 2009)

*Re: i5 or i7 for laptop pc gaming*

Welcome to TSF.


Personally I think the words "hardcore gaming" and "laptop" don't belong in the same sentence, for a number of reasons. Unless you absolutely _need_ some kind of mobility, I would suggest a desktop instead.

The i7 is probably not worthwhile for games. Most games are not optimized to use a quad core to begin with, and the four cores plus hyperthreading is extremely overkill for a gaming PC. Unless you're doing video editing or such I would recommend staying with the i5 platform.

Laptops are usually not upgradeable. I'm not very familiar with the new mobile i5/i7 processors so I can't comment for sure; if these laptops all use the same platform then it might be possible to upgrade the CPU. But it would be extremely expensive and likely not worthwhile.


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## -WOLF- (Jan 17, 2009)

*Re: i5 or i7 for laptop pc gaming*

As stated, laptops are not good with future-proofing.

For a laptop to play ANY game (especially Crysis) at decent frame-rates you're going to need at least a $2000 laptop.

The best thing to do is get a desktop, they are nearly 150% cheaper and for the price you get A LOT more power.

$650 Desktop, can play Crysis on Enthusiast
$2000 Laptop, can play Crysis on Intermediate.


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## Redeye3323 (Sep 20, 2009)

*Re: i5 or i7 for laptop pc gaming*



5NIPER_WOLF said:


> As stated, laptops are not good with future-proofing.
> 
> For a laptop to play ANY game (especially Crysis) at decent frame-rates you're going to need at least a $2000 laptop.
> 
> ...


My sister has a £500 lappie with an AMD Turion Ultra Dual Core [email protected], 4GB DDR2 and a HD4570 GPU. Wouldn't it be able to play Crysis at a decent frame-rate


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## Phædrus241 (Mar 28, 2009)

*Re: i5 or i7 for laptop pc gaming*

Yeah, a $1000 laptop with good graphics can probably play Crysis on medium. A $1600 laptop with a GTX260M could max it with a decent framerate.


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## -WOLF- (Jan 17, 2009)

*Re: i5 or i7 for laptop pc gaming*

Feh, who still would pay that much, it's ludicrous and you still can't upgrade anything but RAM, the HDD (sometimes) and maybe the DVD Drive.


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## specter51095 (Nov 25, 2009)

*Re: i5 or i7 for laptop pc gaming*

well i have a desktop already with core 2 quad 2.5ghz, 667mhz 4gb ddr2, nvidia geforce 8800gt with 512mb gddr3, 5400rpm 320gb hdd and i can run crysis on max settings at 720p rez so i dont see why this wouldnt run it great on this laptop i can understand some proformance loss when unpluged but unpluged i would dial down alot of things for battery life but i mainly want to know how good it would be plugged in to the wall. also i dont see why it wouldnt be as good if not better than my desktop and unable to run newer games in a year or two because of the proformance im getting on my desktop

laptop - desktop
4gb 1066mhz ddr3 ram - 4gb 667mhz ddr2 ram
nvidia geforce gts 360m 1gb gddr5 - nvidia geforce 8800gt 512mb gddr3
2.56ghz dual core - 2.5ghz quad core (most modern games dont even have full quad core support anyway)
7200rpm 500gb hdd - 5400rpm 320gb hdd
bouth have 1680x945 16:9 aspect ratio screens

what am i missing here that cuts down the proformance of the laptop compared to others out there and/or my current rig so much:4-dontkno


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## Redeye3323 (Sep 20, 2009)

*Re: i5 or i7 for laptop pc gaming*

I think they were comparing laptops to desktops.

This is a problem as a Desktop is going to cost less and have a better performance any day. The reason for this is that you can build a Desktop but you cannot a Laptop, this save on costs. The other main reason is that a Laptop's internal hardware is compacted together unlike a Desktop which means it is specially made and sometimes worse then it's Desktop equivalent. This also means Laptops heat up quite a bit and airflow isn't good, which can lead to throttling back of the CPU/GPU which leads to more performance drawbacks (this mainly comes into play after you've had the laptop a little while).

Hope this clears up a few things


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## specter51095 (Nov 25, 2009)

*Re: i5 or i7 for laptop pc gaming*

I knew that however I have seen people running higher end games like dirt2 max settings on this laptop but what I want to know is what's better for gaming now and later I can upgrade the prossesser to the i7 in the future when the price drops but ide rather not I know that it's a posible upgrade and I know where to buy one but my main question is i5 or i7 I have and can upgrade My desktop but I want the portability of a laptop with the bang to play games a year or 2 from now on Mid-high/max settings and I am willing to get the i7 but I want to know if the i5 is better because not only do I have a tight budget but from my learnings on my core 2 quad a 2.5 ghz quad on today's games without full quad support is roughly equal to a 2.8ish dual I also know the main advantage of the i7 is hyperthreading and that's not very helpful in games but the turbo boost clock is what makes me wonder what's better under turbo boost does the i7 become a let's say with a max clock of 2.8ghz because it turns off unused cores it can be a 1.6ghz quad a 2.2 dual or a 2.8 single or does it become a 2.8 ghz quad same goes to the i5 under tb does it become a 3.06ghz dual or single if I know that I can mark this thread solved because that was my question in the 1st place I just didn't have a good way to word it then and people got confused


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## -WOLF- (Jan 17, 2009)

*Re: i5 or i7 for laptop pc gaming*

But you can't really upgrade a laptop without buying a new one. Sure that laptop can run many things at the moment, but it's still never better than a desktop.


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## Elvenleader3 (Jan 1, 2010)

*Re: i5 or i7 for laptop pc gaming*

Everyone seems to be right. A laptop just isn't upgradeable and when newer games come out your going to wish you didn't spend 1500$ on a laptop. I'm not trying to advertise, but I actually got my computer really cheap from a guy who builds gaming desktops. Anyway, you would probably spend less upgrading your desktop to the laptops features anyway. Unless you travel alot, a laptop just isn't worth it.


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## Phædrus241 (Mar 28, 2009)

*Re: i5 or i7 for laptop pc gaming*

If you want a laptop, get a laptop.

However, in my opinion an i7 is not worth it for gaming.


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## specter51095 (Nov 25, 2009)

*Re: i5 or i7 for laptop pc gaming*

I don't mean to argue in this at all but i am getting a laptop because mobility is a must have here and I am getting the idea that the i7 isn't that worth it for gaming but just one thing I don't know is how this turbo boost thing works like I said in a previous post
is it either 
i7 is 1.6quad no turbo with turbo turns into 2.8 quad or
1.6 quad when not all cores being used turns off one two or three (acording to intel turbo boost turns off cores to overclock ones that are on) and then becomes a 2.2ish dual core / 2.8 ghz single that's all I need to know right now


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## Phædrus241 (Mar 28, 2009)

*Re: i5 or i7 for laptop pc gaming*

The second one pretty much. The numbers vary, but that's the general idea.


Standard operation:
1.6/1.6/1.6/1.6

Dual threaded application:
2.2/2.2/1.4/1.4

Single threaded application:
2.8/1.2/1.2.1.2


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## specter51095 (Nov 25, 2009)

*Re: i5 or i7 for laptop pc gaming*



Phædrus2401 said:


> The second one pretty much. The numbers vary, but that's the general idea.
> 
> 
> Standard operation:
> ...


well if thats the case then im going with the i5 thanks for the help :smile:


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