4 core 7th Gen Intel mobile worth the wait?

[gooberm]

So I need a new laptop. Battery, GPU, and 2 USB ports are dead. I'm thinking about the Blade Pro for its form factor and power. I travel and work a lot so this is a must. I do a lot of design work so need a large screen as well. It seems that it will be available in around a month.


ACTUAL QUESTION HERE:
Is it worth it to wait for 7th gen Intel mobile chips like the 7700HQ? It doesn't seem like there are any stats on it yet but they are supposedly increasing power consumption which should be good for mobile. What should the performance be like? The 6700HQ didn't have much performance upgrade even from the 4702HQ which I am currently running. I would expect more after 2 or 3 generations..

 

[gervino]

Energy saving gets better with each generation, so the wait at least will mean you will have similar/better performance that uses less power so you have a longer battery time. Onboard graphics and mobile graphics cards get better each generation, so that is also a thing worth thinking about.

 

[gooberm]

Energy saving gets better with each generation, so the wait at least will mean you will have similar/better performance that uses less power so you have a longer battery time. Onboard graphics and mobile graphics cards get better each generation, so that is also a thing worth thinking about.

Right. I'm mostly concerned about performance since performance hasn't increased much in the mobile world. The laptop I'm getting would have a 1080 in it, so graphics aren't too much of a concert although I appreciate the efficiency. Will the next gen have any noticeable raw performance bump?

 

[jaguarskx]

The CPU performance increase from 6th to 7th gen is pretty small. Intel primarily focuses on reducing power consumption. All things being equal a laptop with a 7th gen CPU should give slightly better battery life. A rough example would be user reviews of two similar Acer Aspire laptops that I have read. Based on consensus, the model with the i3-6100u has an actual 5 hour battery life while the new model with the i3-7100u an actual 7 hour battery life based on "average usage". It could be possible that the newer laptop may have a larger battery.

The biggest improvement that would be noticeable (in certain conditions) would be the Intel HD 620 integrated graphics which is equal to / marginally better than the nVidia 920m. That represents about 15% - 20% increase in performance over the Intel HD 520. For people who either cannot afford or need to purchase a laptop with a dedicated GPU, that is a pretty decent increase. For people purchasing a laptop with a dedicated GPU, then this is an unimportant improvement.


As for Intel's 8th gen Core series CPU, it will likely be the same modest improvements. The biggest CPU performance improvements was the 2nd gen Sandy Bridge CPU which offered an average 12% improvement over the 1st gen. Since then CPU performance has only improved around 4% - 5% on average with each new generation. On the integrated GPU end performance has generally improved around 15% each generation since the release of the Intel HD 3000 in 2nd gen Intel CPUs.

 

[gooberm]

The CPU performance increase from 6th to 7th gen is pretty small. Intel primarily focuses on reducing power consumption. All things being equal a laptop with a 7th gen CPU should give slightly better battery life. A rough example would be user reviews of two similar Acer Aspire laptops that I have read. Based on consensus, the model with the i3-6100u has an actual 5 hour battery life while the new model with the i3-7100u an actual 7 hour battery life based on "average usage". It could be possible that the newer laptop may have a larger battery.

The biggest improvement that would be noticeable (in certain conditions) would be the Intel HD 620 integrated graphics which is equal to / marginally better than the nVidia 920m. That represents about 15% - 20% increase in performance over the Intel HD 520. For people who either cannot afford or need to purchase a laptop with a dedicated GPU, that is a pretty decent increase. For people purchasing a laptop with a dedicated GPU, then this is an unimportant improvement.


As for Intel's 8th gen Core series CPU, it will likely be the same modest improvements. The biggest CPU performance improvements was the 2nd gen Sandy Bridge CPU which offered an average 12% improvement over the 1st gen. Since then CPU performance has only improved around 4% - 5% on average with each new generation. On the integrated GPU end performance has generally improved around 15% each generation since the release of the Intel HD 3000 in 2nd gen Intel CPUs.

I agree but I have also read that the 7700k is going to be increasing performance by around 15% over the 6700k. After Kaby, they are supposed to do a die shrink which don't usually increase performance. From that, I would expect 7th gen to increase performance. I'm just wondering if the same will be true for the mobile chips considering they have not increased performance at all since 4th gen and if that performance bump is worth the 3?? month wait if its even going to happen.

 

[jaguarskx]

Well, I have not been keeping up on the desktop CPUs for several months. I really do not need an excuse to upgrade my desktop yet again. So being oblivious to potential performance gains helps keep my wallet fat.

However, if that's the case, then I wonder what portion of the 15% performance increase is based on higher clockspeed. Especially if overclocking was done.