Hardware Intel Core i7 Mobile 720QM Benchmarked

http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/laptops/2009/11/13/intel-core-i7-mobile-720qm-benchmarked/1

Intel recently launched a new range of quad-core, Hyper-Threaded Core i7 processors for laptops. Kobalt Computers was first to get us a laptop to test for this preview of what Core i7 in a laptop can do. Read on to see whether a 1.6GHz CPU and a GeForce GTX 280M GPU can cut it.

 

So what about battery life?

 

I was also wondering about this

 

We did a battery life test for the review, but it seemed pointless to include it in this article as we're focusing on the CPU here.

the problem is that in order for the battery life result to mean anything, we'd need an extremely similar laptop (a similar CPU, same graphics card, hard disk and battery) to compare with, and that's pretty hard to come by. So, I can say '48 minutes when playing Crysis,' but that's only really useful in regards to the Kobalt G860 laptop, and not the CPU that we're talking about here.

 

maybe something like the test that they use on anandtech would give people a general idea about battery life when not gaming

 

A GTX280M should be roughly equivalent to a desktop 9800GTX.

 

are you sure about the 8GB limit? HP have there Envy 15 advertised as supporting 16GB.

 

Yup and looking at the results is no quicker than a HD4850m...... (which for reference will be clocked at 500/1750 down from the 625/2000 of the desktop card it is based on (literally as there is no drop in feature set))

Hugs his Advent 6555.... : )

No doubt this laptop (which offers an identical gaming experience to my Advent) costs more than twice as much..... I digress.

 

Many manufacturers list the memory limit based on their own testing. Not on what the chipset manufacturer specifies. Many notebooks will take more than the manufacturers claim. Just because the chipset supports more than the manufacturer says though does not necessarily mean it will go up to the chipset limit.

A good example is that most Intel 965 equipped notebooks will actually take 6 or 8gigs (8 is the chipset limit), though most people and manufacturers state that 4gigs is the limit. I suspect this has to do with people thinking since notebooks have half the memory slots compared to desktops that they can only accommodate half the memory.

 

Ah, yes. But the memory isn't connected to the chipset with the Core i7 720QM - it's connected to the CPU. I'm not familiar with the Envy, but Intel says its CPU can only address up to 8GB of memory. There is a mention of 'depends on memory type' here:
http://ark.intel.com/Product.aspx?id=43122
so it could even be that the CPU will only accept 4GB of 1,333MHz memory and 8GB of 1,066MHz. Anyhoo, I'm going to believe Intel's spec sheet for now.

 

The G860 like most notebooks has only 2 memory slots and as you can only obtain 4GB stick SO-DIMMs the maximum 'supported' by the manufacturer (us in this case) is 8GB. 8GB SO-DIMM is fairly expensive anyway and with RAM prices only going one way at the moment 8GB + would be almost impossible to justify even if 6GB SO-DIMM modules existed.

8GB is more than enough in a laptop

 

Looks like a promising CPU. Pair it with a decent mobile GPU (come on ATi, we know you want to release mobile 5000 series) and you could have a gaming laptop worth buying...

 

i disagree.

i dont need an extremely similar laptop to compare as long as the other competitor has enough info for purchase consideration.

example: comparing between
a. i7 CPU laptop with $1500 price tag that runs crysis for 48 minutes
b. Turion laptop with $1000 price tag that runs crysis for 2hours
would mean something than not knowing how long the battery life in the i7 at all.....


o well. ill wait for the full review then

 

You might want to look at the framerates for that as well. ;D

 

OK, here's the last laptop review we did with two sets of numbers:
http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/laptops/2009/10/28/alienware-m17x-gaming-laptop-review/5

 

And what about the Gaming performance os Asus W90Vp??

 

lol I know they were focusing on the CPU but still they test it on a LAPTOP so umm battery life seems like a logical thing to still test to at least see how fast that CPU will drain it.

 

yes it can run crysis so stfu

 

Can I buy this laptop now? I'm in the market to get a W7 64bit laptop 4gb ram minimum, but all the laptops I see now don't have that software and hardware installed. Maybe I should wait until all Vista laptops are gone from the shellf?

I have downloaded the Custom PC benchmark suit and ran it on my pc based on your affordable spec (Jun 2009). My pc got 771 total, but I had messenger, gadgets, printer, rainlender, 3rd party firewall and avg running in the background. It may be marginally faster, but I don't think it will reach anywhere near 1000 points, unless I OC the machine.

 

But if you buy a laptop like this, you won't be buying it to get through a day at work (playing Crysis) on batteries. You'll be buying it as a more portable alternative to a desktop, so as long as it weighs less than a ton and is capable of being moved around the house you're sorted.