Description:
The Intel Core i7-2630QM is a quad core processor for laptops. It is based on the Sandy Bridge architecture and offers Hyperthreading to handle 8 threads at once. The i7-2630QM is manufactured in 32nm and offers an integrated graphics card and AES functions.
This CPU is nothing to laugh at despite it being OEM only and 2ghz stock. It's ridiculously fast considering for the average joe. Whether it's from rendering, gaming, or just web browsing, this CPU has a very high performance/price ratio(if it could be bought retail
).
With games such as Battlefield: Bad Company 2, Dragon Age:Origins, (heavily modded) Oblivion, etc. the frame rates are much, much higher than most would expect from a laptop. Turbo-boost isn't even needed to maintain a respectable FPS with this, and most of the time, it's my GPU that is bottlenecking the CPU. Not only does it perform well in games, it also performs well out of games. The battery life with this CPU is roughly 4 hours while web browsing and listening to music. Much higher than many would expect from a gaming laptop.
Only real complaint I can really say is that it runs a little warm. Though, the reason for that is the poor cooling on my laptop. Other than this one complaint, this CPU is the best one I've own yet.
TL;DR
I would say this is the ABSOLUTE minimum for a gaming laptop. It even have good battery life.
This processor only runs at 35% while running games like Battelfield 3 and Crysis at Ultra settings@1080p
which means that it will have plenty of power to run the highest demanding games for the next 5 years, the bottle neck in gaming has been and will continue to be the GPU. This mobile processor runs 5% faster than the AMD Phenom II X6 1090T (which is a 6 core desktop CPU running a 1.2 GHZ higher base clock speed and consuming twice the power.) If you are building a laptop for gaming it is better you buy the fastest GPU you can afford, the slowest I5 or I7 mobile processor is twice as fast as needed for non crossfire,SLI gaming setups. Battelfield 3 shows almost no gains in frames/second when system ram is doubled from 2GB to 4GB, or GPU ram is doubled from 1 GB to 2 GB , only when a single core processor is used does the framerate take a performance hit,
I have owned this laptop for over a year now and this processor still impresses me daily.
I am able to open 10 or 20 programs at a time while doing large drive transfers and the CPU just keeps on truckin.
this mobile processor runs faster than all but a few AMD desktop processors that use 125 Watts, and it does it while using just 45 watts
the only time I really need more horse power is when I am producing on my video editor and from what I have read the fastest 6 core desktop processor is just 2 times as fast as this one.
this processor runs at just 35% while running games like BF3 and Crysis at ultra settings . so it will be the last component that I will need to upgrade in my laptop in the coming years.
What is more impressive is that this processor is at the slow end of the Sandy bridge mobile processor list. When I had my laptop built by Sager, I had the option of upgrading to the 2670QM for 130 dollars . this 200 Mhz increase is only a 7-10% increase in speed . you can buy an SSD for less than 130 dollars and get a 400% speed increase in read / write speeds , and no more seek time,latency or waiting a few seconds for your drive to spool up after going to sleep.
my laptop never gets hot , not even running CPU or GPU stress tests. this has to do with the laptop design and not to do with the CPU
how hot a laptop gets while using a CPU has to do with how well the laptop cooling system is designed . In this case removing the 45 Watts of heat generated by this 2630QM
Pros
Cons
very fast ,great for multitasking,8 threads, low Wattage
It's impressive how well the processor behaves for its age. It is now more than 2 and a half years old and it still gives the impression it could stand as a "Desktop" processor for a while. GPUs that usually come bundled with laptops that are on it become old way before their processor.
And important factor is that it is in i7 (4 real cores with 8 virtual cores), making it a beast for its age and power consumption compared to an i5 for laptops, that only has 2 cores.
In general CPUs like these (and its equivalent successors of IB and Haswell) are so good that they are easily desktop replacements with their only problem that the GPUs that are (usually) bundled with them are way worse, in effect they are not worthy of its power unless you paid a big premium for them.
Pros
Cons
Extremely fast for a laptop processor, lasts for years, it is a desktop replacement
laptop disadvantages, most GPUs you will see bundled with it are not worthy of it.
Ratings
Overall
4
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