Advise about Sandy Bridge i3 Laptop purchase

Psion444

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Jun 11, 2011
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I am looking for advise about a Sandy Bridge i3 Laptop.
I know the processors are quicker than first generation i3s but not sure by how much.
There does not appear to be many such laptops available and it would be interesting to know whether any gains due the processors is offset by other factors in the available machines such as poorer motherboards etc.
Any pointers would be appreciated.
 
Hello Psion444;

At the same clock speed the Sandy Bridge i3 are faster than and Core i3 and some Core i5 CPUs.

But you CAN find Core i3 3xx CPUs that perform better than Core i3 23xx CPUs.
An example would be a Core i3 2310M 2.1Ghz vs Core i3 380M 2.53Ghz.

Some other differences: Integrated graphics
Core i3 3xx CPUs have Intel HD Graphics
Core i3 23xx CPUs have HD Graphics 3000

USB 3.0 more likely to be found in the Sandy Bridge laptops but there is no hard and fast rule about that. Check the laptop specs if USB 3.0 is important to you.

Here is a big list Comparison of Mobile Processors (CPU Benchmarks) that shows the mobile CPUs and a few desktop CPUs for comparison ranked in order of CPU performance.
Example: Core i3 2310M #67 Core i3 380M #54