Real world difference between i5 and i7?

[kai_uk]

An i7 of course has 2 extra cores compared with an i5. However, in terms of real world usage is there really any difference in performance? If someone gave you 2 laptops one with an i5 and the other with an i7 will you actually notice the higher processing speeds or is it an extra cost for small gain?

 

[lucrativeonline]

It really depends what youre going to be doing. For the every day "facebook surfer" who isnt doing much more than browsing the web (or building webpages) you wont notice much of a difference between a higher end i5 and a lower end i7. That being said, if you plan on using it for gaming, or moderate multitasking(between photoshop and other resource draining programs), you're going to want an i7.

personally, i run an old i7 2920xm in my old alienware m17x and i love it, runs every game beautifully(and maxed) with my gtx 680m and 16gb of ram.

 

[OhioTom76]

I'm not sure if the jump in performance from an i3 to and i5 is comparable as going from an i5 to an i7 - but for what it's worth, I have an i3 desktop and an i5 laptop. I don't really notice a tremendous performance difference between the two unless I am doing something like rendering some animations in Adobe After Effects, or working on some large files in Adobe Photoshop and applying some effects to them. Also, if I am running Netflix or Hulu in my browser while trying to run other tasks, for some reason they are major resource hogs - Netflix in particular. In the past there was an issue with Silverlight constantly crashing, but I think they've moved on from Silverlight by now and it's all HTML5 with Netflix - I think.

I've run 3D roller coaster simulators and other types of games on my i3 system without too much trouble. I can't run them at maximum graphics effects, and frame rates, but rather close.