i5 vs i7 performance

[fps_dean]

Hey guys,

I have a 128gb Surface Pro 1 right now, and I like it a lot. But I was in best buy recently, and they had the Surface Pro 3, and I was really impressed with it. It fixed my major complaints about the 1 (battery life and weight) and increased the screen size effectively at the same time.

So right now, I am debating picking up the 256gb i5 model, or a 256gb i7 model and giving the current Surface Pro to the girlfriend, or possibly even waiting for the 4, depending when it will come out and when they announce that. I've read that after a lengthy period of use that the i7 will get hot and won't run at full speed, and the i5 becomes faster, but I'm not sure if this is even true, or if there have been some firmware updates since.

The Surface Pro 1 performs pretty well for me. I'm really wondering what the performance boost for the i7 is to the i5 and would it be worth it? Also, what's the battery life like on both?

 

[GreyFox7]

Battery life not much difference. You pay a premium for the i7 which for general use is not worth the price unless you specifically need the performance boost, some do and for those use cases its worth it. For mainstream use the i5 4 128 is the best value. Higher requirements would dictate more storage or CPU.

 

[SRVwannab]

I bought the i3, 64GB and loved it so much that I upgraded to the i5 256GB. Truth is, with so much stuff in the cloud, I really didn't need the additional HD space, and, for what I use it for, I probably didn't need the additional processor speed. It's just money, right?

 

[plop28]

Here some brut performance of both Surface : there is no huge différence.

SuperPi 1M
SP3 i5 128 : 13'235
SP3 i7 256: 11'409

Wprime 32M (4 threads)
SP3 i5 128 : 20'001
SP3 i7 256 : 19'751

3DMark06 1280x1024
SP3 i5 128 (HD4400) : 1825/2384/2967 TOTAL: 5559
SP3 i7 256 (HD5000) : 2020/2341/2927 TOTAL 5668

CrystalDiskMark

SP3 i5 128(HFS128G3AMNB-2200A)
375,3/272,9 244,1/150 18,17/50,66 298,5/167,5

SP3 i7 256(HFS256G3AMNB-2200A)
419,8/262,1 271,5/198,8 19,02/58,69 303,5/233,1

 

[fps_dean]

I bought the i3, 64GB and loved it so much that I upgraded to the i5 256GB. Truth is, with so much stuff in the cloud, I really didn't need the additional HD space, and, for what I use it for, I probably didn't need the additional processor speed. It's just money, right?

I manage okay with the 128gb now. It's just that with the 256gb, I could keep my full music collection on it, and still have plenty of room. I think it's worth it to me, and with 8gb RAM would also be nice, but it runs fine with 4.

 

[InspectHerGadget]

The performance of one of my key programs MYOB is 2 to 3 times better with the i7.

I would suggest to users to just get the i7 if they can afford it or at least try out programs, if they can, first.

I think the differences in performance may relate to on board CPU memory and database programs such as MYOB do a lot of database transactions.

The i7 is worth the extra, for me, but then I use mine for work, it is tax deductible and it saves me time.

 

[fps_dean]

Here some brut performance of both Surface : there is no huge différence.

SuperPi 1M
SP3 i5 128 : 13'235
SP3 i7 256: 11'409

Wprime 32M (4 threads)
SP3 i5 128 : 20'001
SP3 i7 256 : 19'751

3DMark06 1280x1024
SP3 i5 128 (HD4400) : 1825/2384/2967 TOTAL: 5559
SP3 i7 256 (HD5000) : 2020/2384/2967 TOTAL 5668

CrystalDiskMark

SP3 i5 128(HFS128G3AMNB-2200A)
375,3/272,9 244,1/150 18,17/50,66 298,5/167,5

SP3 i7 256(HFS256G3AMNB-2200A)
419,8/262,1 271,5/198,8 19,02/58,69 303,5/233,1

Thank you, this is exactly what I was looking for. Seems to be extremely minuscule gains for the i7, except in SuperPi. I'll save the money and get the i5, at least when I get the money for it. The i5 in the Surface Pro is fine for light Visual studio work, photoshop etc too, so I know I'll be fine. If there were more drastic differences then I'd shell out for the i7, but I'm not seeing it here.

 

[everalm]

Based upon the response by folks on this forum to date...YMMV...

In general, for all practical, "normal" processes the i5 with 8 GB of RAM will meet the vast majority of users needs without concern. The i7 would be useful for real heavy number crunching and the different on board video processor MAY (emphasis on MAY) be better for some gaming.

Then main difference appears to be that since the i7 is faster it will finish processor intensive tasks faster and MAY reduce (but will not eliminate) the thermal load that can lead to throttling in some cases. Battery life seems similar-same.

In general I would (and did) go for the i5 with 8GB of RAM and 256 GB of HDD as this seems to hit a sweet spot between raw grunt, RAM dependencies for Windows and SDD storage and price.

QA/QC on the i7 SEEMS (again not a definitive answer) to be a little better based on anecdotal evidence, that may however be an artifact of fewer i7's than i5's being purchased.

 

[fps_dean]

The performance of one of my key programs MYOB is 2 to 3 times better with the i7.

I would suggest to users to just get the i7 if they can afford it or at least try out programs, if they can, first.

I think the differences in performance may relate to on board CPU memory and database programs such as MYOB do a lot of database transactions.

The i7 is worth the extra, for me, but then I use mine for work, it is tax deductible and it saves me time.

Oh, interesting. I wonder if it's specifically MYOB related (which I don't run myself) or if SQL server may run notably faster too, which I run in a development capacity (only a very small database though).

I don't think I know anyone with an i7 that I could ask them if I could play around with or not.

I may have to consider the i7 now afterall. I am the type of person to buy something and hang on to it for a while and not upgrade every generation or two... a large part of the reason I'm looking up upgrade is that my girlfriend could really use the old one.

 

[GreyFox7]

Look at aggregate Benchmark performance on sites like:
http://ssd.userbenchmark.com/SpeedTest/4739/HFS256G3AMNB-2200A
Or PassMark... to search systems, run the test then use the advanced search under manage baselines.
A single data point wont tell you much.

 

[hughlle]

The i5/4gb will meet the vast majority of users needs. There is hardly any typical usage case that requires 8gb of ram.

 

[InspectHerGadget]

Oh, interesting. I wonder if it's specifically MYOB related (which I don't run myself) or if SQL server may run notably faster too, which I run in a development capacity (only a very small database though).

I don't think I know anyone with an i7 that I could ask them if I could play around with or not.

I may have to consider the i7 now afterall. I am the type of person to buy something and hang on to it for a while and not upgrade every generation or two... a large part of the reason I'm looking up upgrade is that my girlfriend could really use the old one.

I'd go with the i7. MYOB does use SQL server. The benchmarks just give scripted performances but are quite different to responsiveness.

We don't do hundreds of tasks in a minute just lots of small tasks all the time.