i7-7500U vs i5-6300HQ laptop performance comparison

[Dinago81]

Which configuration would be better for general use, heavy multitasking and gaming?

i7-7500U with 16gb DDR4 RAM and Intel 620 shared graphics (13.3" touchscreen)

i5-6300HQ with 8gb DDR4 RAM and GTX 960M with 2GB GDDR5 (15" non-touch)

I am planning on buying a laptop with one of these specs, but do not know which to choose. Both of the laptops are very similar in price and are the final 2 I am choosing from.
Thank you all for your input.

 

[CTurbo]

The i5 + 960M is better in just about every way but battery life.

 

[Dinago81]

The i5 + 960M is better in just about every way but battery life.

Even though the i5 is slower, and does not have hyperthreading, and comes with less ram? Does the graphics card really make that much of a difference in everyday tasks and gaming?

 

[CTurbo]

The i5 has 4 real cores vs the i7's 2 cores with hyperthreading. The i5 is actually the faster cpu here. The i7 is a low watt model so it's not exactly a fair comparison.

And then the 960M vs the i7's igpu? no contest.

 

[SteelCity1981]

the 7500u is not a gaming cpu nor was it meant to be. it's designed to be a utlra low voltage cpu for laptops and ultrabooks. now thats not saying the 7500u can't play games, it just not suitable for graphical intense games due to it only being a dual core cpu. the 6300hq is because it's an actual quad core, which is suited for graphical intense games. 4 real cores will always beat a dual core with 2 virtual cores in any program that requires multiple cores. as for the GTX 960m vs HD 620, it's like comparing night and day. the GTX 960m will destroy a HD 620 in anything that requires lots of rendering like gaming. the HD 620 isnt meant for heavy rendering while the GTX 960m is.

 

[DreZeZ]

the 7500u is not a gaming cpu nor was it meant to be. it's designed to be a utlra low voltage cpu for laptops and ultrabooks. now thats not saying the 7500u can't play games, it just not suitable for graphical intense games due to it only being a dual core cpu. the 6300hq is because it's an actual quad core, which is suited for graphical intense games. 4 real cores will always beat a dual core with 2 virtual cores in any program that requires multiple cores. as for the GTX 960m vs HD 620, it's like comparing night and day. the GTX 960m will destroy a HD 620 in anything that requires lots of rendering like gaming. the HD 620 isnt meant for heavy rendering while the GTX 960m is.

Would the I7 still be good for gaming with a 960m? Because I also would like a great battery life, and I'm looking at a Asus laptop which has 7500u and 960m.

 

[jaguarskx]

A Core i7-7500u with a GTX 960m can provide good game performance. Just be aware that games that can make use of more than 2 physical cores will not perform quite as well compared to a quad core CPU.

Fallout 4 is rather dependent on the CPU. The CPU benchmark chart shows the performance of several different CPU when paired up with a GTX 980 Ti. AMD CPUs do not fair well against Intel CPUs since they have lower processing performance. The Core i3-6100 is used as a proxy for the i7-7500u because both are dual core CPUs with Hyper Threading. The i5-4690k will be the proxy for the i5-6300HQ since both are quad core CPUs without Hyper Threading.

While the quad core i5-4690k does perform better than the dual core i3-6100, the difference is not too much; average of 98 FPS vs 88 FPS. Basically the i5-4690k gets about 11.4% better performance. Generally speaking, the raw performance each new Intel increases by about 3% - 4% on average which is primarily based on CPU intensive programs and benchmarks. When it comes to games, that 3% - 4% gain in raw performance is greatly diminished especially since most games are not dependent on the CPU (unless the CPU is so slow it bottlenecks the GPU); especially if the CPU is waiting for the GPU to finish it's calculations.

http://www.techspot.com/review/1089-fallout-4-benchmarks/page5.html

While having a quad core CPU for a gaming laptop is more ideal, a dual core CPU is still a viable option.

 

[DreZeZ]

A Core i7-7500u with a GTX 960m can provide good game performance. Just be aware that games that can make use of more than 2 physical cores will not perform quite as well compared to a quad core CPU.

Fallout 4 is rather dependent on the CPU. The CPU benchmark chart shows the performance of several different CPU when paired up with a GTX 980 Ti. AMD CPUs do not fair well against Intel CPUs since they have lower processing performance. The Core i3-6100 is used as a proxy for the i7-7500u because both are dual core CPUs with Hyper Threading. The i5-4690k will be the proxy for the i5-6300HQ since both are quad core CPUs without Hyper Threading.

While the quad core i5-4690k does perform better than the dual core i3-6100, the difference is not too much; average of 98 FPS vs 88 FPS. Basically the i5-4690k gets about 11.4% better performance. Generally speaking, the raw performance each new Intel increases by about 3% - 4% on average which is primarily based on CPU intensive programs and benchmarks. When it comes to games, that 3% - 4% gain in raw performance is greatly diminished especially since most games are not dependent on the CPU (unless the CPU is so slow it bottlenecks the GPU); especially if the CPU is waiting for the GPU to finish it's calculations.

http://www.techspot.com/review/1089-fallout-4-benchmarks/page5.html

While having a quad core CPU for a gaming laptop is more ideal, a dual core CPU is still a viable option.

Wow thank you so much for such a detailed and long messege! I think i'll still get the duel core since that offers like 7-8 hours of normal use compared to 4-5 hours of a quad core, i wanna use it for school aswell thats why i need some good battery life. And btw i have a pretty good desktop so ill just use the laptop it for some light gaming when im away.

 

[Saga Lout]

I've reinstated the OP's original choice of Best Answer in tis thread. It is against Forum Rules to deselect an OP's own choice and posters who take that action are likely to be banned for a token three days. A second occurrence and the ban will be permanent.