Hello folks… I am currently on a Lenovo ThinkPad T430s on an i7, but a much different i7 than comes in my new Framework order…
I’ve put an order in to get a Intel® Core™ i7-1165G7 with 32GB 3200Mhz RAM. I am wondering if I should have paid the additional $400 to go with the 1185 i7… as of right now I chose the middle option.
Do you think this will be fast enough for me? I’m coming off a 12 year old laptop, and while specced out with 16GB (slow) RAM I think that I’ll be knocked away by the difference in speed. What do you think? I’d rather order more laptop NOW if needed, but… do you think this will feel like a completely different system to me? The ThinkPad processor is an Intel Core i7-3520M @ 2.90Ghz with Mesa DRI Intel HD Graphics 4000. I think its a bit long in the tooth and that I’ll feel like a completely different system… or so I hope.
Does anyone suggest that I upgrade for $400, to the fastest Framework?
I’m very excited about what Framework is offering, but I do want to make sure I make the smartest purchase. I hope to use the Framework for some time to come; If there were an AMD option I probably would have went with it, but am OK with staying on Intel…
Any other suggestions? I can’t wait to receive more info and hope my orer goes thru quickly and painlessly. Its supposed to ship in Sept. Fingers crossed…
Thanks, anyone who takes the time to reply;
Paulie420
There is basically no difference in performance between the 1165 and the 1185, and either is going to be multiple times faster than your old i7. The only real difference between the two (besides maybe 100MHz of boost, which is hardly going to affect things since they’re using the same cooling), is the vPro features in the 1185.
I agree with Nich. The difference in speed - if there even is on on this device - will be barely noticeable between the i7 options. Even the i5 option would be several times faster than what you’re used to, and not very much slower than the 1165.
The only people who should ever get the top end model are those with business use for vPro. Without that, it’s a complete waste of money.
And if you were ordering the fully prebuilt ones, but wanted more ram or storage, the answer is to do the diy one and select what you want yourself. Putting it together looks incredibly easy, so that should be no issue.
Really, the low and middle ones are very similar as it is. The difference is just GPU cores. I had also even seen one review that showed the lower end one as slightly faster if you didn’t need it for GPU stuff because the fewer cores let the CPU boost higher and longer.
But the 1165G7 is a good choice. (Though, when Framework releases an Alder Lake Mainboard, aka the next CPU generation that’s coming out soon, I’d swap to that. Should have more cores and be more power efficient. 4 is just too few for a new computer. Or even an old computer. But it’s acceptable because you should actually be able to upgrade it, and Tiger Lake really is actually pretty fast. The previous gen wouldn’t have been worth it, though.)
I would say you made the right choice. A lot of reviews and tests done with the 1165G7 and the 1185G7 come to the conclusion that the 1185G7 is not worth the price hike, since there isn’t a real performance increase.
Below, I’ve provided two links that show that usually, the 1185G7 is actually usually neck at neck with the “lower-end” 1165G7, or is actually marginally worse (not sure why that is the case).
My understanding is that in almost all cases that comes down to one of three things, silicon lottery, margin of error for tests conducted, and thermal management on the laptop side. The first two are self-explanatory. For the last point, the higher boost comes with higher power draw, making the i7-1185g7 more susceptible to thermal throttling. Marginal, but enough that some laptops might suffer for putting the more powerful chip in there. Overall I’d hedge my bets that the primary source of slower tests would be the limitations of testing methods used.
Technically speaking the i5 is the better CPU for value and even performance in some instances.
“You see every run had a huge amount of variance, which is normal for Cinebench, but the Core i7 was just really all over the place. On average, it was still slower than the Core i5.”
I thank all of ya’s for your replies. After reading everyones suggestions, I don’t think I have a use for the vPro stuff - I do use some servers at home, but they are all just Linux machines - I don’t use Active Directory or anything…
If anything, after reading everyones opinions my only thought now is that maybe the base option would have been enough for me!! I’m happy, tho, that I picked the middle i7. I, too, wish it would have been the newest [and/or NEXT] gen processors, but… this is going to be a whole new league for me regardless.
I really hope Frame.work catches on and upgrades are available for years to come!!
The high end i7 had vpro and a slightly better igpu. Basically within a few percent of eachother. Be happy with the i7, that’s not a bad purchase. I’d personally snag the i5, but the i7 has more cache and more igpu execution units.