Will I see a performance difference running an i7-4500U vs an i7-4700MQ/HQ?

[Bacon_Party]

I'm planning on purchasing a high performance multimedia laptop for college, and one of my requirements is that it has a touch screen, which severely limits the amount of laptops with full wattage i7s available to me. I also know low wattage ultrabooks generally have a longer battery life and are thinner, so I'd like to know if it would really matter if I got a low wattage one instead. I know the low wattage is dual core and has a slightly slower clock speed, but if I'm using the laptop for watching movies/tv, light gaming, programming, and light photo/video editing would it really matter? One other thing I'm looking for is a dedicated GPU, so the integrated GPU difference isn't a factor. I also want the laptop to last through the 4 years of college, so please consider it from a future-proofing standpoint also.

 

[Anheanz]

i thnk your going to have quite a hard time finding a laptop that fits all of your requirements. I dont know of any touchscreen ultrabooks with a dedicated gpu and i7. If you could do without the touchscreen it would really open a lot more doors for you certainly make it easier for you to find the rest of your requirements.

 

[Bacon_Party]

i thnk your going to have quite a hard time finding a laptop that fits all of your requirements. I dont know of any touchscreen ultrabooks with a dedicated gpu and i7. If you could do without the touchscreen it would really open a lot more doors for you certainly make it easier for you to find the rest of your requirements.

I realize that, but I find it entirely necessary when dealing with Windows 8 and I have certain games I play with touch screen features that I'd like to experience. I have seen a few ultrabooks with i7s and 750Ms, which is all I need, but I don't want to sacrifice any performance. I might be willing to give up dedicated graphics if the laptop had the intel iris integrated gpu, but it's not like there are many of those out there either.
One example would be this Asus laptop: http/www.microcenter.com/product/428652/Zenbook_UX31LA-DS71T_133_Ultrabook_-_Silver_Aluminum

My niche interest is why I'm here, I'd like to know if I'm just making this too hard on myself and if I can broaden my search a bit.

 

[Bacon_Party]

I'm planning on purchasing a high performance multimedia laptop for college, and one of my requirements is that it has a touch screen, which severely limits the amount of laptops with full wattage i7s available to me. I also know low wattage ultrabooks generally have a longer battery life and are thinner, so I'd like to know if it would really matter if I got a low wattage one instead. I know the low wattage is dual core and has a slightly slower clock speed, but if I'm using the laptop for watching movies/tv, light gaming, programming, and light photo/video editing would it really matter? One other thing I'm looking for is a dedicated GPU, so the integrated GPU difference isn't a factor. I also want the laptop to last through the 4 years of college, so please consider it from a future-proofing standpoint also.

There is a massive difference between the i7-4500U and the i7-4700MQ/HQ. It's not just the cores, it's the clock speeds. There is no comparison between the two.

If you want a quad-core i7 and a touch display, you have two good options.

1. The ASUS N550JK with:

i7-4700HQ
8GB RAM
1TB HDD
Nvidia GTX 850M Graphics
15.6" 1920x1080 IPS touch display


2. Lenovo IdeaPad Y50 with:

i7-4700MQ
8GB RAM
1TB Hybrid SSD (8GB)
Nvidia GTX 860M Graphics
15.6" 1920x1080 touch display

Either are solid options. The ASUS Is cheaper and has a nicer display, but it has slightly less powerful graphics than the Y50. I'd say bang for buck, the N550JK is going to be your best bet.

One thing I'd like to know is if I would get more battery life from the older N550JV, because is uses the 750M which takes less max power than the 850M, and as far as I can tell everything else seems to be the same, though I doubt I'd be using the GPU at max power very often.

I have looked into the Y50 and I didn't like hearing about the mushy keyboard.