Which is a better configuration of laptop for gaming?

armartinbose

Honorable
Jun 15, 2012
4
0
10,510
Which is a better laptop configuration for gaming?

Sandy Bridge Core i5 2450m @ 2.5GHz
6GB DDR3 RAM
1GB DDR5 Graphics Card AMD Radeon HD 7470m

Or

Ivy Bridge Core i5 3317u @ 1.7GHz
4GB DDR3 RAM
2GB DDR3 Graphics Card 7670m
 

armartinbose

Honorable
Jun 15, 2012
4
0
10,510
Thanks for the quick reply..:)
Is the difference very evident?
The first one is a bulky lap, while the second is more of an ultraportable.. I like my laptop to be very portable..
So i want to clarify that.. If i buy the second one, will i be able to play games in low settings?
 
Actually the 2nd laptop would be the better gaming laptop because of the more powerful graphics card. Most games are limited more by the GPU than the CPU as long as the CPU is fast enough. The Ivy Bridge Core i5-3317u is a fast enough CPU; while it is 1.7GHz it would be comparable to a Sandy Bridge CPU clocked at about 1.8GHz. Not a huge improvement but it is still fast enough not to bottleneck a HD 7670m.

AMD laptops using a Llano APU and the integrated graphic core performs better than a Sandy Bridge CPU using a HD 3000 graphic core as far as games are concerned. At the same clock speed a Llano CPU has about 20% - 25% less CPU processing power than a Sandy Bridge CPU. However, Llano's integrated graphics core is more powerful. Depending on exactly which Llano APU the integrated graphic core more or less ranges between almost as fast as a desktop Radeon HD 5550 to almost as fast as a desktop Radeon HD 5570. The Intel HD 3000 is more or less equivalent to a desktop Radeon HD 5450.

Despite the slower CPU core in Llano APUs, the more powerful integrated graphic core allows a Llano based laptop will beat a Sandy Bridge laptop using only the Intel HD 3000 integrated graphics core in large majority of benchmarks that I've seen.

Therefore, I would choose the 2nd laptop with the slower IB CPU and the faster video card.