Performance issues (developers opinion highly appreciated)

[RoaylGamer]

Hello.

I am on a verge of buying myself a new laptop which mainly will be used for playing poker. My biggest concern is how my HEM is going to be running on those systems since the more hands i got the slower the DB and whole HEM is working...

Is there anyone smart enough to answer me which processor from intel i7 series would be best for max performance of HEM and poker softwares.

So my choice is between Intel i7-720QM and Intel Core i7-620M. I guess i am wondering how much of quad core processor advantage HEM is planing to take advantage off in future and does it even matter in performance of HEM/pokerrooms. (perhaps HEM is more based on HDD speed and other stuff)

Any advice on choosing one over other mainly for poker reasons would be highly appreciated both from users and developers/mods.

Thanks.

[_Loki_]

drop patvs a pm with a link to this thread is my best advice :)

[fozzy71]

HDD speed is the most critical factor. There are many threads about this topic. Search the forums for 'performance' and you will find threads where PAT has given suggestions in the past.

[Patvs]

Read the top 10 performance tips thread in my signature.

Three things to take into account:
-1 number of cores (i7-720QM vs the rest)
-2 hyper-threading (i7 vs the rest)
-3 clockspeed
(and the confusing thing is, the general DESKTOP rules: i7/i5 = 4 cores don't go for the LAPTOP processors where EVERYTHING is different)

The "great" thing about the i7-720 CPU is it supports hyper-threading.
The i5/quadcore have 4 physical cores/4 logical cores, but the i7 has 4 physical/8 logical cores. (the new i7-980X even has 6 physical cores/12 logical cores)
The Intel Core i7-620M only has 2 cores with hyper-threading.

So the big question is should you want want more cores, or hyper-threading?
Tomshardware did a good article about it today: click for article (http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/hyper-threading-core-i7-980x,2584.html)

Clockspeed:
i7-720QM = 4x 1.6 Ghz
i7-620M = 2x 2.66 Ghz
i5-520M = 2x 2.4 Ghz
i3-330 = 2x 2.13 Ghz

Is the i7-620M even cheaper than the 720QM or about the same price? It probably outperforms the 720QM in single-core applications. Then again the i7 also supports "Turbo Boost Technology", so if the i7-720QM isn't using all 4 cores, it can run 2 cores in 2x 2.? Ghz also.

Hardly ANY program uses hyper-threading or benefits from hyper-threading. HoldemManager/PostgreSQL certainly won't benefit from it.
They WILL benefit from 4 cores instead of 2.

Though, if you can find a i5/i3 mobile laptop that is around $200 dollar cheaper than the i7-720QM, I'd recommend buying the cheaper laptop, and spending the $200 on a 80 GB Intel X25-M G2 Postville solid state disk.
A SSD harddisk will have a MUCH bigger impact on performance than i7 vs i3/i5 will.

[RoaylGamer]

thanks for your much informative replay...

from what you said i can gather that HT has much less affect on performance rather than number of cores and clockspeed. So in my case i7-720QM would a better choice...

funny thing that the i7-720QM laptop is a cheaper choice as well...

i had one more question tho... i am not sure what are you suggestion by getting a SSD drive for laptop... can you insert it inside or do you use it as an outside drive?

thanks again

[Patvs]

I'm suggesting to DUMP the standard 5400 RPM 300+ GB laptop drive, and replace it with a 80 GB Intel X25-M G2 Postville SSD.

(if the laptop comes with a 7200 RPM drive you can consider to just keep that drive. It should be OK if your database remains small)

If you need 500+ GB for media files, buy an extra external normal harddisk for that.

[RoaylGamer]

i see...

well i am not planing to keep any HUGE data base although i have no clue how huge are we talking about.... i got around 1 mil hands.

[fozzy71]

Typically a DB is ~10gb per 1 - 1.25 million hands, assuming your logging is off. If logging is enabled, all norms go out the window.