Buying new laptop, i5M vs i7QM or should i wait for Haswell

[AndrettiSC]

Hello

I'm looking to buy a new laptop for my examinations and college.

I'm mainly going to use it for
-Maple (math/physics)
-Webbrowsing
-Casual gaming now and then (CIV 5, mass effect 1-3, Empire Total War etc.)
-HD video to TV
-Multitasking with 2 displays

I'm just wondering whether or not i should go with the I5-3230M (2x2.6GHz 3MB cache) or the I7-3612QM (4x2.1GHz 6MB cache). The price difference for me is 130 dollars.

I'm also considering waiting for the new Haswell processor and integrated graphics for improved performance and battery life, but i'm just wondering if it will be worth the higher price and the wait time.

Here's the rest of the system specs.
OS: Windows 8 Pro
Ram: Kingston 8GB DDR3
SSD: Samsung 840
Grafics: Intel HD 4000
Battery life: 6-7 hours (according to the company with normal use such as word and webbrowsing)

Here's a link (in danish) http/www.mm-vision.dk/produkter/vispcsystem.asp?action=vis&type=notevision&menu=notebook&varenr=702500010&gruppe=visionnotebook

My current laptop is a Toshiba satellite. It works okay, but the boot time is ridiculously long and it isn't very fast when opening up programs or calculating anything in 3D. It also hates it when i press next turn in most total war games

OS: Windows 7
Processor: I3-2310M 2.1 Ghz
Ram: 4GB
HDD: 5400 rpm
Grafics: Nvidia Gerforce 315M

Your thoughts please

 

[jaguarskx]

The biggest difference between Haswell and Ivy Bridge will be the improved integrated graphics (iGPU) performance. There will be two iGPUs the Intel HD 4600 and the Intel HD 5000. Naturally, the higher end model CPUs will have the Intel HD 5000 iGPU. I'm a guessing it might be only available in Core i5 and Core i7 CPUs. No info has been released.

The Intel HD 4600 is estimated to be about 20% more powerful than the Intel HD 4000; which is a little more powerful than the nVidia GT 610m. The Intel HD 5000 is a bit of a mystery in terms of performance. It has 2x the number shaders compared to the HD 4600 (40 vs 20). The estimated performance increase seems to range between 50% - 100%.

Given the number of shaders, I think the actual performance increase would be closer to the higher end of that range rather than the lower end. This would basically mean the Intel HD 5000's performance will be somewhere between the nVidia GT 625m and GT 630m.

 

[Armabyte]

The integrated 5200 Iris Pro graphics (in cpus with H in there model number) are about as powerful as a 640m or 650m, actually.

 

[jaguarskx]

Nothing points to CrystalWell (or I suppose it's now called Iris) being as powerful as the GT 650m. Just because it was demo'ed along side a laptop with a GT 650m proves nothing especially since there were no benchmark results.

Intel's claim is that the new graphics core is up to 100% more powerful than the Intel HD 4000. If the Intel HD 5200+eDRAM (Iris) is equal to the nVidia GT 650m and the nVidia GT 650m is only 100% more powerful than the Intel HD 4000, then I am sorry to say that the GT 650m's performance must really, really suck.

 

[Armabyte]

Perhaps more like a 630/640.
Even so it should be enough to play ME, Civ, and TW and moderately high settings, possibly even higher.