There is actually not much difference between i5 and i7. How should I choose a laptop CPU?

As the brain of the computer, the CPU has always been one of the most important hardware items when consumers buy computers. Although the CPU is no longer a bottleneck in the field of ordinary consumer computers, higher-performance processors are still a rigid demand for many users. Consumers' enthusiasm for AMD's Ryzen series processors shows that consumers have already complained about the current CPU progress speed, whether it is cheering for the powerful performance of Ryzen itself or the performance improvement of Intel or the industry over the years.

You should know that quad-core processors have been in the consumer market since the Core 2 era, and mobile devices also have quad-core laptop processors at the same time. However, today, the manufacturing process has improved from 45nm to 14nm, but laptop processors are still quad-core, and the performance obviously does not reflect the huge improvement of the manufacturing process. For ordinary consumers, the benefits of Moore's Law have not been felt for a long time, which is a pity for the entire electronics industry.

The slow progress of mobile processors is certainly due to the business strategies of manufacturers, but the support of multi-core in software in recent years is also an influencing factor. For ordinary consumers, a high-frequency dual-core four-thread processor can actually meet most application needs, especially for notebooks with large heat dissipation and power consumption restrictions. However, everyone has also discovered that there are basically no mobile processors with a main frequency exceeding 4GHz, and only the top i7 quad-core processor can get a higher main frequency through overclocking, which makes the ordinary quad-core i7 processor the first choice for users who need strong processing performance.

Generally speaking, the performance of a processor is measured from four aspects, namely the main frequency, the number of cores and threads, the size of the processor cache, and the architecture. Regarding the concepts of these four, I will analyze them slowly through the introduction of each CPU below.

The main frequency has hardly improved in recent years (it has even regressed when trying to reach the highest frequency). After the main frequency of desktop processors reaches 4GHz, it is a matter of luck to go further (in the era of Ivy Bridge architecture, it could reach a high frequency of over 5GHz, but things have been getting worse since then). The same is true for laptops.

At present, there are three types of standard voltage processors: Core i7 with four cores and eight threads, Core i5 with four cores and four threads, and Core i3 with two cores and four threads. Under the same frequency, the maximum performance of i5 is almost double that of i3, and the four extra threads of i7 can bring about a 30% improvement in multitasking performance. However, in terms of power consumption and heat dissipation of notebooks, it is difficult for i7 to fully exert its performance, so the greater advantages of mobile version i7 over i5 are basically reflected in the higher main frequency, and it cannot obviously crush i5 in terms of absolute performance.

Intel XPU official overclocking software (supported by a few notebook models and CPUs)

Some of you may want to know which mobile processor has the best performance, so let me briefly explain it. The three most powerful mobile processors currently available are i7-7820HK, i7-6820HK and i7-4940mx. Their common feature is that they do not lock the frequency multiplier, which means they officially support overclocking. Through the Intel XTU software, you can unlock power consumption, overclock, adjust core voltage and other operations. The actual performance of these three is basically linked to the main frequency. The better the physique, the better the performance. The CPU temperature is not linearly related to the main frequency. When the main frequency reaches the threshold, the CPU temperature will increase significantly. Although the KabyLake architecture of the 7820HK is more advanced than the Haswell architecture of the 4940mx, the actual gap is not very large, with only about 5% difference under the same frequency state.

As for low-voltage processors, the most common products are i5-7200u and i7-7500u. Both processors are dual-core and quad-thread products. The main difference is that the 7500u has a slightly higher turbo frequency and an extra 1M L3 cache. In terms of actual performance, there is only a performance gap of less than 15%. The L3 cache will not significantly affect the performance of the processor under normal conditions, but when the other parameters of the two processors are similar, the gap will be reflected. The processor with a larger L3 cache will bring certain performance advantages in games and other applications.

Which processor should I choose when buying a laptop?

According to normal logic, the higher the CPU, the better. However, this idea needs to be based on the fact that the machine can meet the power consumption and heat generation of the processor. Unlike desktop computers, which have less heat dissipation pressure and can flexibly adjust parameters, laptops are inherently limited by small heat dissipation space and power consumption limits, so this should be taken into consideration when choosing a CPU under the premise of a limited budget.

For ordinary friends who like to play games, choosing a higher-level graphics card is definitely more cost-effective than choosing a better CPU. If you compare the i5-7300HQ and i7-7700HQ, if the price difference is large, it is completely fine to choose 7300HQ. When running most games, the graphics card is more important than the CPU. As a quad-core processor, 7300HQ does not have a performance bottleneck.

For users who only have ordinary business office needs, the current mainstream processors can meet their needs. i5-7200u and i7-7500u are the standard configurations of the current mainstream business notebooks. They have excellent performance and low power consumption and low heat generation. These two processors are both dual-core and quad-threaded, and there is no obvious performance difference. When the price difference of a single CPU reaches 700 or 800, it is obviously more appropriate to choose 7200u. The actual performance of these two processors is actually very good. There is no problem even running some stand-alone games and online games. Using the HD 620 core graphics card to watch high-definition movies can perform hard decoding, and even 4K high-bitrate HEVC movies can be played perfectly.

For ordinary users, the i5 is more than enough

For users who love stand-alone games and often do rendering and transcoding, i7 is definitely the best choice. Even if the frequency is reduced, the i7 still has a higher performance than the i5 in the same state due to the advantage of eight threads, so you don’t have to choose i5 because of the worry of frequency reduction. When running applications that rely more on the CPU’s single-core performance, processors with higher main frequencies will have extremely obvious performance advantages. For example, in StarCraft 2, the number of frames will increase significantly for every 0.1GHz increase in main frequency. The reason is that this type of RTS game has a large amount of calculation, especially when there are many units. Therefore, the CPU that supports overclocking mentioned above has an absolute advantage when playing this type of game, but the price of this type of notebook is generally high, and friends who have the conditions should try to choose such a processor.

Good game, recommended for friends with high configuration

It will probably take some time for AMD's Ryzen processor to land on the mobile side, and it may take until the next generation of ZEN processors to appear, so the current mobile side is still dominated by Intel. In fact, even if AMD really makes a comeback, it is difficult to have a significant impact on the mobile market that is almost completely occupied by Intel, because the power consumption and heat generation limitations as well as the performance of the motherboard chipset make it difficult for AMD to gain an advantage, so there is no need to wait for AMD to appear before buying a notebook.

As a winner of Toutiao's Qingyun Plan and Baijiahao's Bai+ Plan, the 2019 Baidu Digital Author of the Year, the Baijiahao's Most Popular Author in the Technology Field, the 2019 Sogou Technology and Culture Author, and the 2021 Baijiahao Quarterly Influential Creator, he has won many awards, including the 2013 Sohu Best Industry Media Person, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Beijing Third Place, the 2015 Guangmang Experience Award, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Finals Third Place, and the 2018 Baidu Dynamic Annual Powerful Celebrity.