Ok, annoying rant about the Core i7 mobile processors:
Been experimenting with my i7-720qm and figured out some interesting things about the non-Extreme mobile i7's:
Performance is actually WORSE than my Core i5-520m that was in my Asus G60JX when running games that aren't heavily multithreaded, due to the idiotic way Intel has set up the (non-tweakable) TDP 45w max throttling on these processors.
Basically what happens is that as more and more cores are loaded (physical or not), the CPU keeps throttling down and down. The turbo boost numbers Intel publishes are a lie: they say the 720m hits boost at 2.8 Ghz; it doesn't. That's 2.8 Ghz if only ONE core is loaded and no other cores are active at all, which is impossible since at least one other core is always active, tending background processes in Windows. So really, the max you're gonna get with one core loaded is 2.5 Ghz or less.
Keeping that in mind, this means that unless you change the core affinity for games that don't need quad-core for maximum performance, Windows will be scaling the CPU load across all 4 physical (and hyperthreaded) cores, which means your Turbo Boost is effectively disabled when using more than 4 cores, which sticks you at stock clocks (1.6 Ghz for the 720m). Using just 4 cores gives you a very small turbo boost, about 400-500 mhz.Let me tell you, at 1.6 Ghz Core i7's are slow. My i5 never had this problem, even before I tweaked it with ThrottleStop and overclocked it.
So for the vast majority of people, using a Core i7 will be slower than a Core i5 unless you're using something that is multi-threaded enough to effectively use a quad-core. Also, a large majority of people aren't familiar with setting core affinity nor are they aware of this issue. For comparison, my Core i5 520m could be overclocked to 3.2 Ghz when Turbo boosted, even with both cores (and the extra two hyperthreaded cores) @ 100% load. The i7 720m, 740m, and 820m throttle down when approaching their stupid 45w TDP max, so that means they can't be overclocked very much nor can they be forced to run with full turbo boost when the cores are loaded 100% since you can't disable Intel's TDP throttling.
In summary: Core i7 mobile has worse performance than core i5 in games that don't take advantage of quad-core, and can't be forced to run at full speed nor overclock nearly as much. Not sure if this is true for the Sandybridge Core i7 Mobiles, but from what I've read they're even more locked down than the previous generation. Really lame way for Intel to force you to buy an Extreme edition Mobile processor if you want a truly high performance mobile i7, which go for at least $350-500 on ebay/forums. :\
So, i have a 1.73 core 2 duo in my m11x.. will the performance (in games that dont take advantage of 4 cores) be the same? If so, :X
