i5 450M vs i3 370M

Gilbretto · 21 Dec 2010 at 16:52

Hi all...

I have £600 to spend at the purple store and the laptops within this price range seem to be i5 450m and i3 370m models. (the 370m being £50 cheaper).

After doing a spot of research i noticed that these chips are more or less identicle. The only difference being the i5 has the speed boost option pushing it up to 2.66 if needed.

Now, does the speed boost technology affect battery life? What would you guys go for out of the 2 options?

Hope you can help.

Thanks,

Gil.

Culinia · 21 Dec 2010 at 21:27

I'd say keep the £50 and wait a extra minute or two.

The speed boost will probably affect the battery if you are planning on doing some intensive stuff but why would you do that stuff on battery anyway?

If you are not planning to do any rendering or heavy stuff then there is no real need to spend more that you have to on that one. If you are then will the time saved be worth the extra money e.g. which would probably not a lot - haven't looked at any.

Gilbretto · 22 Dec 2010 at 10:31

Thanks for the reply.

I would be doing a fair bit of video editing, so rendering times would be an issue. Although for £600 i guess i can't allow it to be too much of an issue!

This brings me on to my next issue.

In video editing terms, would the mid range 'dedicated' gfx such as the NVIDIA GeForce GT 330M or the ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5470 make my life easier. Or would integrated intel gfx be sufficient?

Thanks again,

Gil.

olivier renault · 22 Dec 2010 at 10:48

GT330M > HD 5470 > i3 IGP.

the i3 IGP can deal with pretty much everything you need from a basic laptop, except gaming. the HD5470 is equivalent to a GT320M, and for low-med settings games, the GT330M is substantially more powerful and for mid-high to high settings gaming.

If you don't need gaming, the i3 IGP will do fine.

In terms of 3D performance, The factor between the three graphics GPU is roughly x2. GT330M = 2x HD5470 = 4x GMA graphics.

For video editing I'd get a dedicated graphics card, especially if the software makes use of CUDA or ATI Stream technology for encoding and decoding videos.

Gilbretto · 22 Dec 2010 at 12:22

Thanks for the reply, very much appreciated.

i've narrowed my choices down to a few models now.

SAMSUNG Q430

i3-330M 2.13 GHz
4GB DDR3
NVIDIA GeForce GT 330M
1366 x 766
320GB SATA

£549.98

SONY VAIO VPCEB3L0E/BQ.CEK

i3-370M (2.4 GHz)
4GB DDR3
ATI Radeon HD 5470 512MB
1366 x 768
500GB SATA

£649.99

DELL Inspiron N5010

i5-450M (2.4 GHz)
4GB DDR3
ATi Radeon HD 5470 1 GB
1366 x 768
500GB SATA

£599.99

ACER Aspire 5742G

i5-460M (2.53 GHz)
4GB DDR3
NVIDIA GT 420M 1GB
1366 x 768
500GB SATA

£649.99

What do you guys think?

Thanks,

Gil.

cyber69 · 22 Dec 2010 at 12:48

Dell XPS 15 from Dell direct:=

Intel® Core™ i3-370M (2.4Ghz, 4Threads, 3M cache)
Genuine Windows® 7 Home Premium, 64bit, English
15.6 High Definition WLED TL (1366x768) 720p
1GB NVIDIA® GeForce® GT 420M Graphics Card(Wireless N1000 Card Only)
3072MB 1333MHz Dual Channel DDR3 SDRAM [1x2048 + 1x1024]
320GB (7,200rpm) Serial ATA Hard Drive
8x DVD+/-RW Optical Drive

£599 or £649 with 4GB ram

Gilbretto · 22 Dec 2010 at 12:55

cyber69 said:
Dell XPS 15 from Dell direct:=

Intel® Core™ i3-370M (2.4Ghz, 4Threads, 3M cache)
Genuine Windows® 7 Home Premium, 64bit, English
15.6 High Definition WLED TL (1366x768) 720p
1GB NVIDIA® GeForce® GT 420M Graphics Card(Wireless N1000 Card Only)
3072MB 1333MHz Dual Channel DDR3 SDRAM [1x2048 + 1x1024]
320GB (7,200rpm) Serial ATA Hard Drive
8x DVD+/-RW Optical Drive

£599 or £649 with 4GB ram

Thanks for the suggestion. Sadly as it's an insurance replacement, i'm restricted to buying from the purple store.

DragonQ · 22 Dec 2010 at 13:36

I chose an i5-430M with no separate GPU over an i3-330M with a separate GPU. The reason being, I knew I'd be using it for programming and computational tasks (where Turbo Boost running all 4 threads at 2.5 GHz helps a lot) but wouldn't be using it for any modern games. The IGP can handle older games just fine.

olivier renault · 22 Dec 2010 at 13:55

The Q430 has a GT310M, not a GT330M (unfortunately). Maybe they got their facts wrong, but I'm pretty sure I'm correct.

I'd choose the Samsung if you need mobility, or a i5 / medium GFX if you need power (video encoding certainly will make use of the i5). Basically, the Acer, which is the most powerful.

arknor · 22 Dec 2010 at 14:27

Gilbretto said:
Thanks for the suggestion. Sadly as it's an insurance replacement, i'm restricted to buying from the purple store.

well that sucks because you can get much better specs for £100+ cheaper if you buy from sony/dell

got my son an i3-370 ,4gb memory and an ATI 5650 1gb for 550...

your looking at 650 for onboard in highstreet shops

Toughnoodle · 22 Dec 2010 at 14:38

I doubt the speed boost feature will affect battery life by much. But, you can expect half the battery life with a discrete graphics card. I wonder if they'd let you demo a few to see how well they run the video editing software? Either way, you're forgetting the most important part - a SSD!

olivier renault · 22 Dec 2010 at 15:06

If you want battery life and mobility, the Sony, and quite possibly the Acer and Inspiron won't be your cup of tea.

The Samsung is designed to be used on the go, but it's less powerful overall. I think it's a well rounded notebook.

See if you could get a Samsung QX410 at PC World. For me the coolest notebook to come out recently.

Gilbretto · 22 Dec 2010 at 15:10

thanks for all the replies guys.

It does seem they made an error regarding the gpu in the Q430

Is the GT310M much worse than the GT330M?

And yeah, its a pain that i have to buy from a 'certain' store when i could find things cheaper else where.

And finally, regarding the acer. Do acer laptops still suffer from poor build quality issues? I would need this to last me a while. (up to 2 years).

Thanks,

Gil

Cheetah Designs · 31 Dec 2010 at 11:27

Gilbretto said:
thanks for all the replies guys.

It does seem they made an error regarding the gpu in the Q430 Is the GT310M much worse than the GT330M?

And yeah, its a pain that i have to buy from a 'certain' store when i could find things cheaper else where.

And finally, regarding the acer. Do acer laptops still suffer from poor build quality issues? I would need this to last me a while. (up to 2 years).

Thanks,

Gil

Hmm, I was about to order the Q430 and read this? You sure they have made an error? How do you know....I would ring and ask but they would just read off the spec sheet.

I have seen at least one other store selling the same spec (not part of DSG Retail Limited) and all others seem to sell a completely different spec.

batfink · 31 Dec 2010 at 15:38

Cheetah Designs said:
Hmm, I was about to order the Q430 and read this? You sure they have made an error? How do you know....I would ring and ask but they would just read off the spec sheet.

I have seen at least one other store selling the same spec (not part of DSG Retail Limited) and all others seem to sell a completely different spec.

I've just been to my local purple store and looked at them myself. Spec sheet says i3-330 and 330m GPU, the guy in the store checked on the machine and it's definitely i3-350 and 310m GPU. 4Gb Ram is correct, as is 320Gb HD. Still a good price for the spec but the only one he had in stock was the display model so I didn't buy it.

olivier renault · 31 Dec 2010 at 16:19

Yes, the GT330M is an error. It's the 310M, about 1/2 the power.

oweneades · 1 Jan 2011 at 20:32

Gilbretto said:
Thanks for the reply, very much appreciated.

i've narrowed my choices down to a few models now.

SAMSUNG Q430

i3-330M 2.13 GHz

4GB DDR3

NVIDIA GeForce GT 330M

1366 x 766

320GB SATA

£549.98

SONY VAIO VPCEB3L0E/BQ.CEK

i3-370M (2.4 GHz)

4GB DDR3

ATI Radeon HD 5470 512MB

1366 x 768

500GB SATA

£649.99

DELL Inspiron N5010

i5-450M (2.4 GHz)

4GB DDR3

ATi Radeon HD 5470 1 GB

1366 x 768

500GB SATA

£599.99

ACER Aspire 5742G

i5-460M (2.53 GHz)

4GB DDR3

NVIDIA GT 420M 1GB

1366 x 768

500GB SATA

£649.99

What do you guys think?

Thanks,

Gil.

Out of those options the Acer is the most balanced laptop and CPU wise the best for your "budget".

From the spec sheet it looks like a newer version of my wife's laptop. Build quality is pretty good (about par for the price). The specs in this case will make up for slightly inferior build quality.

Cheetah Designs · 2 Jan 2011 at 14:28

olivier renault said:
Yes, the GT330M is an error. It's the 310M, about 1/2 the power.

Hmm, thats are very annoying, it's made me reconsider now.

It seems to be the only laptop that fits the bill size/weight/battery wise. I want at least 4 hours real-life use and the laptop to weigh around 2Kg....

....is there any other laptop sub-£600 that does this?

I currently have a Dell 13z but I would like more umph.

franco_22 · 2 Jan 2011 at 14:43

I'm also wondering about the Intel i3 vs i5 debate on laptops since they are bought dual cores, is there much difference? Then again, it's only £50.

I find it really poor how PC World get away with this rubbish thou, surely by now someone would have notified head office and all they have to do is amend the ticket, this is false advertising and I would have been furious to get home and find this, I wonder how hard it would be to get them to put it right after you buy it as well.

franco_22 · 2 Jan 2011 at 14:44

Cheetah Designs said:
Hmm, thats are very annoying, it's made me reconsider now.

It seems to be the only laptop that fits the bill size/weight/battery wise. I want at least 4 hours real-life use and the laptop to weigh around 2Kg....

....is there any other laptop sub-£600 that does this?

I currently have a Dell 13z but I would like more umph.

You could buy it and legally they are obliged to give you a GT330. Obviously with PC world you would probably have to raise your blood pressure a bit before they do it.