What is the difference with these processors?

[ademuth93]

I'm looking at laptops for college and I was on the Dell site (gasp!) to see what their cheaper laptops had to offer. I was pleasantly surprised when I saw that all their laptops offered i7 processor upgrades if one wished to upgrade.

But then...

I noticed that the processors clocked at 1.6 GHz. What's up with that? The MacBook Pro i7's come in at >2.4 GHz. Are Dells just cheap little bastards or what?

Anyone care to elaborate on this seemingly huge difference for the same processor?

Also, can anyone give an estimate on how noticeable the difference between a 1.6 GHz and 2.4 GHz processor would be?

 

[aeboi]

http://www.notebookcheck.net/Mobile-Processors-Benchmarklist.2436.0.html

for example, the 1.6 GHz is at #18 while the 2.66 GHz i7 is at #15

not much of a difference, clock speed isn't everything

 

[vant]

I think you are putting too much emphasis on the CPU.

Dell 1.6GHz i7s are quad cores.

 

[RedReplicant]

It may be 1.6ghz, but look how well it performs.
http://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu_lookup.php?cpu=Intel+Core+i7+720QM+@+1.60GHz

That list also has the CPU in the 15" i5 - Intel Core i5 M 520 @ 2.40GHz. Note that it benches 2/3rds as well as the 1.6ghz i7.

 

[grahamnp]

The 1.6 is a quad and only really pulls away in multithreaded apps at the expense of battery life and heat. It's Intel's higher end part but its based on a slightly older technology so its not worth it if you aren't using apps that can take advantage of multiple cores.

 

[demonsavatar]

The 1.6Ghz quad does pretty well using fewer cores too because it can ramp up to 2.8Ghz using Turboboost.