Is i5/i7 just a marketing gimmick?

I have a Core2 duo 2.4 GHz. in the past which according to my understanding, is 2 cores, so virtually giving you the speed of a 4.8 GHz. processor (please correct me if I'm wrong)

Now I have an i5 2.6/2.93 GHz. Laptop, so I thought I would get blistering speeds since I have 4 cores/processor but this doesn't seem to be the case. They are not that different, even though the newer laptop has an i5 and a much better graphics chipset (ATI Radeon HD5650 11 GB)

I don't know how is the i7 also, suppose you buy a 2 GHz. laptop with an i7 processor, will it give you the speed of an 8 GHz. laptop since it has 8 cores? or is my understanding totally wrong about this because this cores BS is not getting into my head.

And why is it that on laptops we are stuck as the 2.8 GHz.. level for 2 years now..I thought that by this time we should have 4 GHz. laptop

please enlighten me and correct my understanding regarding this cores BS

 

I'll leave the core-count explanation to better hands, but my take on the laptops being slower GHz than desktops is heat. More CPU cycles = more heat and it just can't be dissipated quickly enough in a laptop. Past plateaus on laptops that I recall are 1.83 and ~2.3 GHz. Now through many years of learning about heat dissipation and reducing the heat generated by CPUs we have gotten laptop CPU speeds up to 2.8 Ghz. Also, just a guess but I bet a dual-core laptop runs cooler than a single-core at the same GHz, all else being equal.

 

If the software isn't written for multicore/threads, it's not going to perform much better than on a single core P4.

 

Blistering speeds in what? Processor speeds follow Moore's law.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moore's_law

There are jumps and dips but this theory has proved consistent,that said a doubling of processor speed every 2 years doesn't necessarily equate to real world applications taking half as long to complete,there are also a myriad of other factors to take into account which affect the speed of the specific application,hard drive speed is one of the most obvious when doing things like loading windows,browsing windows,installing programs,broadband speed when browsing the internet,standard HD's haven't improved much but SD drives have and upgrading to one will give you the biggest noticable general improvement.

If you take the windows experience index as an example you may score 7.5 in every category CPU,video card,memory but if your hard drive scores 5.5 which most regular drives do then your windows experience score will be 5.5 as the hard drive is weakest link.You also have to factor in that windows and the latest programs are designed with features that make use of the latest hardware,speed is only one aspect of how well a piece of software works,functionality is usually of much more importance to many people so a balance must be struck.

Your CPU is only one component,the one place when CPU speed will have actual noticeable improvements consistent with Moores law is in CPU intensive tasks such as Audio and Video encoding,playing HD video,data compression/decompression and cpu Intensive games.

Unless you do any of these heavily day to day its hard to see the 'actual' improvement but if you do then having the latest CPU will show a huge improvement is how long those tasks take.

The one way I would say is marketing hype by Intel is the importance they place on the speed of the CPU and the way they burn it into the conscience of the general public,most people don't even know what a video card is but they already know they want an I7 CPU and think the CPU will soley run the latest games which it can't.

Cores and speed are not related the way you think either BR,overall cpu speed in factored by the number of transistors multiplied by the speed they can trun on and off or frequency,the number of cores is irrelevant really unless in multi threaded applications as Satrow said.

Here you can the 'actual' speed of both of your cpu's,again though these figures are only important when doing CPU intensive tasks.

http://www.cpubenchmark.net/common_cpus.html

Damn that was long winded:-D I have too much time on my hands,prolly due to my overclocked I7 finishing everything so fast:-D

 

While the above is true, it is important to note that Windows itself if fully capable of using and supporting multiple cores so WITH ALL ELSE BEING EQUAL, a quad core should perform significantly better than a dual core - on Windows functions. But all else is not equal. Different motherboards, different RAM, different drives, different graphics - so you say they are not that much different, I totally disagree.

And as noted, if the program you are running cannot take advantage of multiple cores, that program will not see much improvement.

Heat is a major problem with all notebooks - their cases just cannot provide adequate cooling - but if not running hot, the CPU specs is not a factor. Notebook CPUs run full throttle if not hot UNLESS the notebook is configured in an "eco" or "green" setting to conserve battery power.

Most notebooks have integrated graphics. While integrated graphics today are much better than integrated graphics of just a couple years ago, just about any 1/2 way decent graphics card in a PC will perform better than just about any notebook graphics solution. And with today's graphics oriented computing world, graphics horsepower often defines a computer's performance. The more capable the graphics solution, the more tasks the CPU can hand off to the graphics solution. And it takes very little CPU horsepower to hand off tasks.

Finally, if you are judging computer performance while surfing the Internet, unless you connect via fiber optics, your ISP will be the biggest bottleneck - hampering the performance of any CPU, regardless the number of cores.

No, that is not right. Two cores does not mean twice as fast as one core. And 4 cores is not twice as fast as 2 cores. While certainly more work can be done, the clock speeds and the bus width is still the same.

A 2 lane highway can technically carry twice as many cars as a 1 lane highway, but the speed limit is still the same. And the on and off ramps are still typically 1 lane. So clearly a lot more cars can get from A to B on the two-lane, it is not double.

Ummm, not sure where you are looking but that is not true. Though heat removal from a tiny compact space of a notebook case is, and always will be a limiting factor, there are many notebooks with CPUs that run faster than 2.8GHz. But they tend to be very expensive. They also tend to be heavier and often bigger, and run down batteries faster - all traits most notebook buyers don't want. Note a long run time is typically one of, if not the most important selling points when choosing a notebook.

Do not be fooled by the marketing weenies for these notebook makers. Notebooks do NOT make good game machines or desktop replacements. And it always boils down to heat. Heat removal is a challenge in a big tower case so it is no wonder a notebook case would be a limiting factor. Plus notebook cases typically cannot be opened by the "normal" user for thorough cleaning of heat trapping dust - ESSENTIAL to maintain a cooling system's efficiency.

A notebook is, and always will be best suited for the road warrior who needs to keep in touch with the office, and to create and present PowerPoint presentations.