Intel Core i7-2820QM - Sandy Bridge For Notebook PCs

[Apoptosis]

Intel Core i7-2820QM - Sandy Bridge For Notebook PCs

Are you curious how the new Intel Sandy Bridge processor architecture performs in mobile platforms? We have the new Intel Core i7-2820QM processor locked and loaded in a Compal notebook that should make most desktop PCs run away and duck for cover. After checking out this 2.3Ghz quad-core processor with Hyper-Threading and 8MB of L3 cache, you might not ever look at your old notebook the same way!

"The Intel Core i7-2820QM Sandy Bridge processor is by far the most impressive mobile processor that we have ever seen and the performance shown is even more impressive when you take into consideration that this is on an early Intel reference system! Sandy Bridge will surely take performance to the next level for mobile users. If you have a notebook that is more than a couple years old and are getting tired of waiting on your notebook to do a CPU intensive task then you might want to take a look at one of these processors..."

Article Title: Intel Core i7-2820QM - Sandy Bridge For Notebook PCs
Article URL: http://www.legitreviews.com/article/1506/1/

[hark]

I was interested in seeing the performance of the IGP of the Sandy Bridge processor. Not bad, I think it's approaching current generation console levels.

[Techman#1]

At the end of your article, you stated that people that avoided laptops with out discrete graphics in the past wont,or dont need to anymore.I think that is big time wrong.The games you benched aren't even,the most graphically intensive games available today.They were also set at very low settings and were barely at playable frame rates at 720p resolution.The upcoming titles in the near future will be even more graphically intensive once this happens the frame rates at 720p will be unplayable.This chip also doesn't support dx11 so its allready out dated.What if you hooked it up to a tv the frame rates would be unplayable especially at 1080p.
How they think they can ask 2000$ for a laptop without discrete graphics and low end gaming performance is beyond me.This is why I think amd's solutions will be much better.They will offer much better gaming performance at a very low price compared,and they will also be dx11 capable.Yes I do know that even with the tweaks they are doing to the k10 architecture the cpu performance may not be as high as sandy bridge's.But the 6000 series integrated gpu will offer better gaming performance,will be dx11 capable and will have better price tag.Don't forget that amd's chips will be quad core and will be able to throttle up (overclock themselves) for better performance and down for better battery life.Even a amd laptop with a gpu in the apu and discrete graphics combined will probably not have a 2000 dollar price tag,depending on the discrete chip, and will offer way better gaming performance.

[Apoptosis]

At the end of your article, you stated that people that avoided laptops with out discrete graphics in the past wont,or dont need to anymore.I think that is big time wrong.The games you benched aren't even,the most graphically intensive games available today.They were also set at very low settings and were barely at playable frame rates at 720p resolution.The upcoming titles in the near future will be even more graphically intensive once this happens the frame rates at 720p will be unplayable.This chip also doesn't support dx11 so its allready out dated.What if you hooked it up to a tv the frame rates would be unplayable especially at 1080p.

How they think they can ask 2000$ for a laptop without discrete graphics and low end gaming performance is beyond me.This is why I think amd's solutions will be much better.They will offer much better gaming performance at a very low price compared,and they will also be dx11 capable.Yes I do know that even with the tweaks they are doing to the k10 architecture the cpu performance may not be as high as sandy bridge's.But the 6000 series integrated gpu will offer better gaming performance,will be dx11 capable and will have better price tag.Don't forget that amd's chips will be quad core and will be able to throttle up (overclock themselves) for better performance and down for better battery life.Even a amd laptop with a gpu in the apu and discrete graphics combined will probably not have a 2000 dollar price tag,depending on the discrete chip, and will offer way better gaming performance.

It depends on what types of games you play, you are totally correct on that. I do agree that the majority of your points are valid. For basic gamers or those that what to fire up a game here and there it's not a bad solution at notebook resolutions.

[Techman#1]

I do agree that it may be an option for (casual) gamers.But the games they are going to have to play are older titles,and a few current with the quality turned way down.

What bugs me the most is that I prefer nvidia's gpu's.It seems to be able to purchase an upcoming laptop with an nvidia gpu,will mean big $.The cause of this seems to be the over priced sandy bridge cpu.Kinda sucks for nvidia .Good for Amd though.

[Pyrosity]

Ok I have to ask a few questions. I found this site when I googled I-7 sandy bridge. Was looking for more information on it since I am ready to upgrade my old and Turion x 2 with x1200 ati notebook.
I was looking at the laptops you have Xhosas to put up against the sandy bridge. What disturbs me is there is no other quad core with hyperthreading you have benches it against. The Amd is a quad but sadly and lost it's edge since the core micro was released.
So you test the second fastest quad core mobile intel has to offer against dual cores that
Don't even match up in ranks. Such as I-5 540 dual core is Two ranks under the 580.
A good true comparison bench would have to be done on equal grounds
Last generation I-7 840 qm would be perfect which ranks 1 less then the 920 and. Two ranks lower then the 940xm. Which puts the 840 as the older version of the 2820 . Then both CPUs would be 4c/8t .also both would be the fastest non extrem edition. Then the true light of sandybridge could be showen. So far on this way of
Bench marking it's like putting a buguti veryon against a ford focus.

[Apoptosis]

Ok I have to ask a few questions. I found this site when I googled I-7 sandy bridge. Was looking for more information on it since I am ready to upgrade my old and Turion x 2 with x1200 ati notebook.
I was looking at the laptops you have Xhosas to put up against the sandy bridge. What disturbs me is there is no other quad core with hyperthreading you have benches it against. The Amd is a quad but sadly and lost it's edge since the core micro was released.
So you test the second fastest quad core mobile intel has to offer against dual cores that
Don't even match up in ranks. Such as I-5 540 dual core is Two ranks under the 580.
A good true comparison bench would have to be done on equal grounds
Last generation I-7 840 qm would be perfect which ranks 1 less then the 920 and. Two ranks lower then the 940xm. Which puts the 840 as the older version of the 2820 . Then both CPUs would be 4c/8t .also both would be the fastest non extrem edition. Then the true light of sandybridge could be showen. So far on this way of
Bench marking it's like putting a buguti veryon against a ford focus.

Pyrosity,

Thanks for the feedback. It would be nice to put a bunch of notebooks to test and compare these new CPU's against, but notebooks are loaners and have to be sent back. It's also not easy to get loaners, so we tried the best we could to get some decent notebooks in. I'm glad ACER sent over the AMD notebook for a couple weeks as otherwise we wouldn't have had any AMD numbers in the charts. We are going to try to do more notebook reviews in the future, but it is very costly for a review site to do notebook reviews. As I noted they are loaners and the reviewers who write the reviews want to get paid for their work. I've had writers ask for $500-$700 to do a laptop review. Trust me the revenue from advertising isn't there to support anything close to that. The site usually loses money on some reviews and notebook reviews are usually one of the losers. While Legit Reviews might not always have the greatest toys in the world you can at least read the articles here and know we are 100% independent and our numbers are spot on. You can count sites like that on one hand.