Kaby Lake Ultrabooks: Mobile CPU bottlenecking w/ Razer Core

[tniemuth95]

Hey guys, I'm looking at a new utlrabook to go along with a razer core and I am wondering how long until the CPUs become the bottlenecks. I'm debating between the New XPS 13 (w/ i5) and the New Razer Blade Stealth (w/ i7). Both around $999 and releasing this week. FYI the old XPS 13 has been confirmed to work with the Core so I'm assuming the new one will as well.

The (model I'm interested in) Dell XPS 13 comes with an i5-7200u processor and the Razer with an i7-7500u. Benchmarks show the i5 being only about 5% less powerful than the i7. At what point down the road would you think these CPUs would be a significant bottleneck (looking for atleast medium settings at 1080P)? I'm not too concerned with any of the other differences between the Razer and the XPS because they're almost identical except for the screen, which seems negligible to me since they are only ~13" laptops. I'm leaning towards the Dell due to the overall aesthetics but if the i7 is that much better, I might push Razer.

The other option I'm considering is buying a lightweight gaming laptop with a dedicated GTX 1060 (looking for under 5 lbs.) since these have stronger CPUs. While I'd prefer an ultrabook that I can dock to play games on (college student, want a small laptop to take to library, etc.) would an actual gaming laptop last longer down the road?

Thanks for your help everybody.

 

[velo3100]

My opinion is to buy a lightwight laptop with a gtx 960m. These will have an advantage of having a better cpu, better cooling, less noise and longer lifespan as these are made to game whereas ultrabooks are not.

 

[tniemuth95]

My opinion is to buy a lightwight laptop with a gtx 960m. These will have an advantage of having a better cpu, better cooling, less noise and longer lifespan as these are made to game whereas ultrabooks are not.

Ehh, definitely looking for new gen graphics. The 960s are still based on the old 28nm architecture and is getting pretty ancient. Think I'd more satisfied going with a light weight gaming laptop with a 1060? There's a few out there that are under 5 lbs (my max weight). Thanks for the response

 

[tylerwbrown]

Buying a 128 GB Razer Blade Stealth gives you 8 GB of RAM, a 7500u processor (dual core), a 1440p touch-screen, and a 53 WHR battery, with a 12.5-inch screen. $1,000.
Adding a razer core (with the discount) and a cheap 1060 is $650. That brings you to $1,650.
I would personally upgrade the $1000 model to the $1,250 for 16 GB of RAM and a 256 GB SSD, putting the total to $1900.

The Razer Blade FHD is $1800 to start, with a 256 GB SSD, a 1060 included, a 6700hq processor (quad core), a 1080p screen, and a 70 WHR batter, with a 14-inch screen.

So to get these as similarly specced, you'll have the following:
Razer Blade FHD: $1800, 256GB SSD, 16GB of RAM, 1080p non-touch screen, 6700hq processor, NVIDIA 1060 graphics card, 70 WHR battery, 14-inch screen, 4.16 pounds and .7 inches thick.
Razer Blade Stealth w. Razer Core && Video Card: $1900, 256GB SSD, 16GB of RAM, 1440p touch screen, 7500u processor, NVIDIA 1060 graphics card, 53 WHR battery, 12.5-inch screen, 2.84 pounds and .52 inches thick.

Battery life might still be better on the ultrabook since it's processor is easier to power.

 

[jaguarskx]

Hey guys, I'm looking at a new utlrabook to go along with a razer core and I am wondering how long until the CPUs become the bottlenecks.

Generally speaking, the vast majority of games are not limited by the CPU. The types of games that are generally very dependent on the CPU are strategy games like the Civilization / X-Com series. Though Besthesda's Fallout and Elder Scroll series are pretty CPU demanding for FPS games, but not as much as strategy games. Additionally, older Intel CPUs still tends to perform very well in newer games which also gives weight to the fact that the CPU is not really a bottleneck... as long as it is powerful enough not to bottleneck the GPU.

Below is a CPU benchmark of Fallout 4 which pairs a GTX 980 Ti with various CPUs. from Techspot. The 2nd generation Sandy Bridge i5-2500k (3.3GHz) CPU still performs pretty well against the 6th generation Skylake i7-6700k (4.0GHz) CPU; 93 FPS vs 113 FPS. That's a difference of 20 FPS, but the i5-2500k is only running at 82.5% the clockspeed of the i7-6700k; 3.3GHz vs 4.0GHz; or a 17.5% difference. If 113 FPS is reduced by 17.5%, then using this quick and dirty way to even out the difference in clockspeed (meaning drop the i7-6700k down to 3.3GHz), then the FPS is 93.23 FPS.

4.0GHz - 3.3GHz = 0.7GHz

0.7GHz / 4.0GHz = 17.5%

113 FPS * (100% - 17.5%) = 113 FPS * 82.5% = 93.23 FPS


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