A8 4500M + HD7730M vs. i3 3110M + GT650M

[leaderWON]

looking to purchase a laptop soon and have narrowed down my choices to these two configurations. although gaming performance (at this price) is my primary concern i have three questions:

1. which will be the better overall general performer?
2. which will be the better overall gamer?
3. which will be better able to handle (the poorly coded, but still fun) GTA4?

thanks in advance!

 

[dudewitbow]

the gt650m performs better than the hd 7730m on hybrid mode alone. the i3's architecture will in general(not all of the time) score better than the A8 chip.

 

[leaderWON]

1. What is "general performer"? I'd take the I3 for typical laptop use. The 7730M is like the 7690M + a bit
2. The I3+GT 650M.
3. See answer number 2.

Why not upgrade to the I5, however?

1. yes, typical use. browsing, handbrake, wmm, 7zip etc...
2. figured that much from my research. i guess i was really wanting to know how big the gap was.
3. i thought gta4 preferred 4 core cpu's? so 2 ivy cores beat 4 trinity cores in gta?

i could get an upgrade to a 1080p screen in the amd system for the price of upgrading from an i3 to i5 in the intel system. not sure if i would notice a difference between an i3 and i5 in daily use but i'm sure i'll notice the difference between 720 and 1080p.

bonus: how much would an i3 hold back that 650m in comparison to a i5?

 

[leaderWON]

the i5 option is looking better and better. meh, why can't they make a quality 720p display?! the pixels aren’t the problem at 14" imo, but the viewing angles and color reproduction just kill me on most displays. there is no reason why my phone's screen should look better than the one on my laptop.

 

[leaderWON]

Best answer selected by leaderWON.

 

[leaderWON]

I think GTA4 is a three-core optimized, but still I bet that the GT 650M + I3 is a faster configuration, although it's not sure.
Take, for example, the I3-2350M (slower than the I3-3110M)
http/www.notebookcheck.net/Intel-Core-i3-2350M-Notebook-Processor.53423.0.html

Compare the SuperPi results (uses 1 core) but also the wPrime (uses all cores) and you'll see the that I3 competes well against the X3 N830 2.2GHZ - that tells you something about the core vs core performance. Same for A8-3500M (4 cores, 2.4GHZ max). The A8-4500M isn't much faster than the A8-3500M if at all.
So.

notebookcheck.net told me all i needed to know so you indirectly got the "best answer". thanks!

 

[freet]

the gt650m performs better than the hd 7730m on hybrid mode alone. the i3's architecture will in general(not all of the time) score better than the A8 chip.

I bought the A8 one in Best Buy because he said that A8 is is better than i3 but less than i5. Was I lied to?