2nd gen i3 or 1st gen i5

[yman]

hi,

i have 3 laptops to choose from

laptop for my old man watching streaming vids youtube, bbc etc organising photos and burning vids to dvd.

its really a cpu and gpu question all 3 just about have same specs with 4gb ram in each one

for £300 ($488)

1st gen i5 430m 2.26ghz
nvidia gf 310m 512mb

or for an extra £50 ($81) two laptops at same price

2nd gen i3 2310m 2.1ghz with intels hd 3000 or

1st gen i3 370m with a nice little beauty of a gpu the gt 420m 1gb

according to websites i5 and the 2nd gen i3 laptops from the my choices claim the new i3 one will have a 1% increase in performance taking the cpus and gpus into consideration. 1% for £50 is not taking my fancy, but could potentially upgrade to 2nd gen i7 for that extra £50

but the i3 with the gt 420m that dedicated gpu would be nice to have if watching/playing any 3d content,

i own a similar spec i3 laptop with a geforce gt 325m, kind of in the same boat i would like to upgrade cpu in the future to a i7 820qm or 940xm not 100% sure if the laptop can take the extra heat from 35w to 45-55w

should i buy into 2nd gen cpu's with a shared gpu?

or buy 1st gen cpu's with a better dedicated gpu?

or save myself £50 and get a average older tech laptop

 

[wintermint]

Between the HD 3000 and 310m.. they are pretty much on the same level. They're both entry level budget graphics that can handle light gaming like Left 4 Dead. nVIDIA does have stronger driver support. However, the 420M will beat the HD 3000. You mentioned both 310m and 420m so yeah... between the first gen and second gen you really won't see much improvement.. I don't think it should really matter I mean Intel is still really far ahead of AMD so the older generation will still be better than what AMD offers.

 

[cadder]

I thought the latest generation of i3 was more energy efficient.

I would also consider the brand and their reliability, and the expected battery life.