i5 or i7 laptop ?

[ldor]

Hi everybody,
I am going to buy a new laptop which I will be using for Video Studio and Paintshop Pro. I wonder if there is a noticeable difference between VS performance on i5 and i7 CPUs. As far as desktops are concerned, i7 CPUs have much higher specs. However, for laptops it does not look so. They all have 2 cores, the clock speed is almost the same - around 3GHz. The only difference I've noticed is the cache - 3 MB on i5's and 4 MB on i7's. But I don't know whether that is essential for VS operation.
Does anybody have a hands-on experience with running VS on both these types of laptops? Could you notice a substantial difference in performance?

[bobp]

There is so much more to how fast a computer is than the CPU.
For example, an SSD (not the CPU) cut the loading time of a full orchestra of sounds in my music software from 9 minutes down to 3. It also made my flight simulator work really well. But as for rendering a 90 minute project with different video formats, lots of effects, slides and music? That still takes the computer in my sig. at least 8 hours.
If an i5 computer has other things you like better than one with an i7, I'd go for the i5. My laptop I use the desktop in my sig. for video and music editing) has an i3, and I think it is pretty fast. Of course, price is a consideration. W8 is faster, also. Though not drastically.

[asik1]

Idor, it all depend on the nature of your video work. How demanding is it?
laptops are not the best tool for heavy intensive computing.
For basic video editing where deadline is not of an issue any laptop will do as long as you will supply it with ample ventilation to keep it cool.

[TonyP]

Also, an i5 does not offer hyperthreading like an i7, which gives you a total of 8 virtual cores.
Usually, the one with the faster CPU will edit faster. But, as posted above, it is very CPU intensive and will require great cooling on the laptop. That is why I use a desktop. I can see trying to put my afermarket CPU cooler on a laptop CPU!

[pepegota]

If you want speed and efficiency, then I7 is the way to go. My I7 Haswell 4900 eats up video but, it is not a laptop.

[microgadget]

For what it's worth, I was on a very limited budget and picked up a used laptop that was new in 2008. At that time it was a high end laptop, but I got it very cheap due to the age ($135 US). I bought some RAM and a 256GB SSD for an additional $60. The processor is a 2.6GHz core 2 duo, and the graphics is an Nvidia Quadro FX 2700M (512MB video RAM). It's running windows 7 pro 64 bit, with 8GB RAM, and the LCD display is 1920x1200. I installed VideoStudio Pro X7 64 bit. The program never seems to use more than 2GB RAM. I enabled all hardware acceleration.

I've just completed my first project. I set it up for 1080P30 video, and the media I imported was all 1080P30 video and 25 megapixel JPEG still images. I also imported m4a (AAC) audio. The Core 2 duo handled this fine. I was able to use HD preview in either the preview window or full size smoothly. I used a lot of FX. During preview there were rare times where the frame rate slowed, but if I backed off and shut off HD preview everything was smooth. I did NOT enable smart proxy, didn't need to.

It took a good 1.5 hours to render the resulting 36 minute 1080P30 video with quality set to maximum, but the resulting 3.8GB rendered file was excellent with no hiccups or artifacts. Both cores were maxed during the render.

I'd love a high end i5 or i7 and a modern graphics card, and it would likely reduce my final render duration, but I really I'm content with the performance on my core 2 duo given the cost....

This version of the core 2 duo (Core 2 Duo T9400) is a 35W processor with 6MB cache (!!), unlike many of the budget low wattage core 2 duos that would not perform as well for this application....