EPTor
Intel® Core™2 Duo P8700 / 2.53 GHz
If you want to compare the 2 different laptops they are
G72GX-RBBX05 and G73JH-RBBX05
My main concern is the speed of the i7. will it be able to handle SC2 even though it has 1.60GHz?
Which CPU is better for SC2?
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Cryptics
42 Posts
or Intel® Core™2 Duo P8700 / 2.53 GHz If you want to compare the 2 different laptops they are G72GX-RBBX05 and G73JH-RBBX05 My main concern is the speed of the i7. will it be able to handle SC2 even though it has 1.60GHz? | ||
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Dugrok
Canada377 Posts
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disco
Netherlands1667 Posts
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Cryptics
42 Posts
On August 23 2010 23:34 disco wrote: Doesn't the i7 have like a turbo frequency of 2.8 Ghz? yes but i want to know if its still fine to run it without overclocking | ||
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Jiiks
Finland487 Posts
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NukeTheBunnys
United States1004 Posts
Also SC2 only uses 2 cores, so you won't see much performance boost by adding more cores on | ||
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Jiiks
Finland487 Posts
On August 23 2010 23:42 NukeTheBunnys wrote: I don't know a lot about those processors in particular so I cant say much about them, but in general its a bad idea to overclock laptop processors. Heat management is already an issue, pushing your luck with over clocking is asking for a big expensive paper weight Also SC2 only uses 2 cores, so you won't see much performance boost by adding more cores on Turbo core is not the same as overclocking he'll get 1core2thread 2.8ghz performance with that i7. No heating up really since it's 45wtdp Who told you sc2 only uses 2 cores? My version uses all my 6 cores evenly. | ||
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Cryptics
42 Posts
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Corvi
Germany1406 Posts
source: http://www.pcgameshardware.de/aid,766089/Technik-Test-Starcraft-2-mit-14-CPUs-Intel-in-Front-vier-Kerne-nutzlos-einige-Ueberraschungen/Strategiespiel/Test/ its in german, but you can see in the benchmark that the e8400 (slightly worse than e8700) comes right behind the ultra expensive high end cpus. | ||
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jimminy_kriket
Canada5522 Posts
On August 23 2010 23:47 Jiiks wrote: Turbo core is not the same as overclocking he'll get 1core1thread 2.8ghz performance with that 17. No heating up really since it's 45wtdp Who told you sc2 only uses 2 cores? My version uses all my 6 cores evenly. I thought it was common knowledge that SC2 uses only 2 cores? Or at least that's what I've seen a couple different people say. Curious as to why sc2 uses all 6 cores evenly if this is the case though. | ||
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gerundium
Netherlands786 Posts
i Have an HP Elitebook 8540w with the i7 720QM, FX 880m GPU (1GB dedicated RAM.), and 4 Gb DDR3 memory (soon to be 8Gb though because i get in the situation where the processor runs at 30-40% of max and my memory runs out.) It runs the game Fine on High settings but starts to drop FPS on ultra at high food counts (this is 1v1 btw and when i still played zerg). | ||
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Jiiks
Finland487 Posts
On August 24 2010 00:03 jimminy_kriket wrote: I thought it was common knowledge that SC2 uses only 2 cores? Or at least that's what I've seen a couple different people say. Curious as to why sc2 uses all 6 cores evenly if this is the case though. Well for me atleast my cpu usage before starting sc2 is around 8% on core #2 others are 0-2% when i start sc2 core #0 is 25% while others are around 15% This is with no other software running. | ||
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xmShake
United States1100 Posts
New people tend to just look at how many cores and the speed, but there's more to a processor then GHz. You have to factor things in like processor architecture, cache, etc. In this case it doesn't really matter so just get the cheaper one. | ||
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Jiiks
Finland487 Posts
On August 24 2010 00:43 xmShake wrote: Take the cheaper of the two, unless you use the computer for heavy encoding or some similar activity which takes a lot of cpu power, then you should go for the i7. New people tend to just look at how many cores and the speed, but there's more to a processor then GHz. You have to factor things in like processor architecture, cache, etc. In this case it doesn't really matter so just get the cheaper one. Well he's buying a i7 laptop so i don't think money is an issue? i7 has double the cache, almost double transistors, 6 more threads, higher clock speed for 2 threads and most likely a lot better chipset. In this case the i7 is superior to that dual core in any application. | ||
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FragKrag
United States11554 Posts
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Corvi
Germany1406 Posts
On August 24 2010 01:34 FragKrag wrote: When the i7 recognizes it is handling a dual core load, it shuts off two cores and automatically increases the speed of the two other cores to 2.8GHz. This, combined with the fact that i7 already have a instructions/clock advantage makes it the logical choice. source? i cant speak for the i7 mobile, but for the desktop i7 this is not true, at least not that extreme. edit: well, googlet it up myself and this is partly true. 1 core can be overclocked to 2,8. two cores to 2,4 ghz. this should do just fine with sc2 with a mediocre (or better) graphics card, still a bit worse than the e8700 though. however, when you have the money and also regarding you probably want to do more than just sc2 with that thing, you should go with the i7. | ||
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Klapdout
United States282 Posts
On August 23 2010 23:47 Jiiks wrote: Turbo core is not the same as overclocking he'll get 1core2thread 2.8ghz performance with that i7. No heating up really since it's 45wtdp Who told you sc2 only uses 2 cores? My version uses all my 6 cores evenly. I'm assuming you are using an AMD since intel hexacores are very expensive. AMD's turbo core works by increasing clock speed on one to three cores if the remaining cores are at/near idle. It then decreases the clock speed on the remaining cores to the Cool 'n' Quiet minimum of 800 MHz. Basically this means SC2 only uses two cores, and the remaining 4 cores are running so slow that even a slight load shows quite a bit of utilization in task manager. I could be wrong and your game is using all 6 cores, but that would be pretty amazing since everyone else seems to be using 2 (slightly uses the third) http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/cpus/2010/08/18/how-many-cpu-cores-does-starcraft-2-use/2 | ||
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Klapdout
United States282 Posts
For the OP, the i7 would be the better choice no doubt. | ||
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skindzer
Chile5114 Posts
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Jiiks
Finland487 Posts
On August 24 2010 02:01 Klapdout wrote: I'm assuming you are using an AMD since intel hexacores are very expensive. AMD's turbo core works by increasing clock speed on one to three cores if the remaining cores are at/near idle. It then decreases the clock speed on the remaining cores to the Cool 'n' Quiet minimum of 800 MHz. Basically this means SC2 only uses two cores, and the remaining 4 cores are running so slow that even a slight load shows quite a bit of utilization in task manager. I could be wrong and your game is using all 6 cores, but that would be pretty amazing since everyone else seems to be using 2 (slightly uses the third) http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/cpus/2010/08/18/how-many-cpu-cores-does-starcraft-2-use/2 I have turbo core disabled and it is using all cores. On August 24 2010 02:04 skindzer wrote: No game will take advantage of the i7. The 2nd option. Explain how it doesn't take advantage and how the 2nd option is better? If the i7 can run 2 threads @ 2.8 and 4 threads @ 2.4 while the P8700 runs 2 threads @ 2.53. Ofcourse 2 physical cores is better than 2 threads. You could probably oc that P8700 to 2.8ghz with fsb and luck, since it's 25w it wouldn't heat too bad. | ||
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