Which of these two laptops? (i5 3210M, 4gb, GT 635M vs. i5 4200M 8gb GT 740M)

[mitya]

In my ceaseless quest for a new laptop I'm now choosing between these two:

- http://www.saveonlaptops.co.uk/Lenovo-Z510-59395010_1536137.html
- http://www.saveonlaptops.co.uk/LENOVO-Z500-59399412_1533701.html

Summary:

i5 3210M vs i5 4200M
4gb vs 8gb
GT 635M vs GT 740M

Price difference is £130 ($215), a not inconsiderable amount. Simple question: is the more expensive one £130 better for what I need? It's mostly for web dev and music production.

The older i5 is gonna bes lower than the newer, that's obvious, but it doesn't seem from what I've read that I should expect a huge difference. Are there any important "instructions" the 3210 lacks? (I don't even know completely what instructions means, I've just heard it in CPU talk...)

I'm feeling the cheaper one; I can chuck more memory in, and the GPU is fine for me as gaming is way down the priority list (though I'd like to fire up HL2, Doom 3 etc - nothing that recent.) Unexpectedly, NotebookCheck seems to report the 635 as achieving the better FPS in the like-for-like game benchmarks I looked at, even though the 740M has the better specifications.

Thanks in advance.

 

[Cheeseball]

Go for the i5-4200M with the GT 740M. The i5 is on 4th generation Core technology (Haswell) at the same clocks and the GT 740M is Kepler-based, but it more or less matches up with the GT 635M.

 

[erocker]

Go for the i5-4200M with the GT 740M. The i5 is on 4th generation Core technology (Haswell) at the same clocks and the GT 740M is Kepler-based, but it more or less matches up with the GT 635M.

+1 to this.

 

[mitya]

Thanks, @Cheeseball. Forgive me, but I'm not sure I see your reasoning for the extra cost. Like you say, the processors as the same clocks, and the GPUs are pretty identical. Could you elaborate on why you feel the more expensive one is worth it? Newer processor tech, sure, but to a hardware greenhorn like me, I'm not sure what that brings to the table as such. The benchmarks I looked at showed only a slight favouring of the 4200...

Continued thanks

 

[RCoon]

Newer generation processor is faster clock for clock. 3210 @ 3Ghz is slower than a 4200M @3Ghz also has better power efficiency (aka better battery times). Also 740M is more likely to gain from newer driver updates, due to it being of the latest set of cards.

In other words, buying last generations tech is a poor choice when buying new gear.

 

[Jack1n]

The Z510 for sure:
1. Haswell is significantly more power efficient on mobile platforms(while also providing more IPC).
2.The z510 comes with windows 8.1 compared to windows 8.
3.4GB of ram will probably be enough for most things you do but its always good to have overhead.
4.The 740m is a little faster than a 635m.

 

[MustSeeMelons]

Go for the Z510. It's overall just better, but does it justify the price difference? That depends on how much you value those £130. Those 4gb of RAM can be a pain if you're multitasking a lot and taking the price of RAM in consideration.. But if you really want so save some here, buy that extra RAM some time down the road and never look back

 

[mitya]

Thanks, guys. Think I'll spend the extra and future-proof the system slightly. Thanks for the advice.

 

[xenocide]

I would say the Z510 based solely on the fact that is has twice as much RAM. 4GB just wouldn't be enough for me these days.