AMD w/discrete vs. i7 Sandy integrated

[deusexmachina]

Hello everyone,

So, the douche bag at Fry's told me that the laptop I was buying was a quad core AMD. It ended up being a dual core 2.9 GHZ laptop. I like the machine because of the fingerprint reader making life easier for logging into everything with a simple swipe. This is much improved over the worthless facial recognition stuff from my old Lenovo.

So, I'm considering returning this
Windows Experience 5.0: AMD Phenom II 2.9 GHZ laptop that came with a 512MB dedicated ATI Radeon 5470

And getting this:
Intel i7 2630 Sandy Bridge, Integrated graphics 64 MB

Or perhaps:
Intel i7 740QM dedicated GE Force 310M 512 MB

I don't do any gaming, my main concern is video editing and rendering. I also use Solidworks. My current Core2duo laptop with Intel HD integrated graphics can handle the Solidworks just fine. The current Windows Experience index is a mere 3.9. I'm impressed with what I'm reading about Sandy Bridge and concerned that I'm sticking with a bad machine on the AMD. What are your guy's throughts? TIA

 

[jaguarskx]

Sandy Bridge's IGP is about as powerful as the desktop version of the HD 5450. In the review below an i5 2500k using IGP and beat an i5 2500k with a dedicated HD 5450. However, it also looses to a dedicated HD 5450 in some benchmarks as well.

http/www.anandtech.com/show/4083/the-sandy-bridge-review-intel-core-i7-2600k-i5-2500k-core-i3-2100-tested/11

Additionally, laptop video card are slower than their desktop counterparts. For example, based on some benchmarks of the Mobility HD 5850 that I've seen, it looks about the equivalent to a desktop HD 5770. That's a relatively large drop in performance.

It is my conclusion, that the IGP in Sandy Bridge is at least as powerful as the Mobility HD 5470. Additionally, the Intel i7 2630 is more powerful than the AMD Phenom II.

Sorry, but I don't know how the GeForce 310M relates to the desktop version of the HD 5450.

 

[deusexmachina]

This is a really great reply. With some very useful information for me. I've come to love the utility of the HP fingerprint reader. Unfortunately, the size of a 17" screen is simply too big for my uses. The only worthwhile 15" HP readily available is an i7 2630 with IGP only, the unit with switchable IGP/Discrete is 17".

With the new ring bus architecture of SB, I think that we'll actually see some decent performance gains with RAM.

 

[RetiredChief]

Are you limited to HP? Asus is a reliable Laptop as is the Toshibia.

 

[deusexmachina]

Chief- I pulled the trigger on the HP. I've been using the fingerprint reader for days to log into everything and it has become a valuable tool.

 

[RetiredChief]

ENJOY

 

[deusexmachina]

Best answer selected by deusexmachina.