Ivy Bridge laptops have arrived: Is it time to upgrade my gaming laptop?

New 3rd Gen Intel Core (Ivy Bridge) powered laptops have hit the market, do I need to upgrade my gaming laptop to these latest 22nm processors or chipsets? This question is asked by thousands of gamers and everyday laptop owners who want the latest specs and highest levels of performance for their systems. There are two ways to answer this question.

First, if you just bought or purchased a gaming laptop with the old (I can’t believe we’re saying this already) Sandy Bridge processors and your system performs all your games at the highest levels (or whatever each level likes to play your games on) then no problem. Your current laptop is quite adequate and you don’t really need to upgrade it.

Keep in mind that we are talking about high performance laptops here, if you just want a device for browsing the web, emailing, watching movies and doing some simple word processing then almost any laptop on the market will meet your requirements. and it will meet your needs. needs. Likewise, if you have a high-performance rig and it meets all of your requirements, there’s really no need to spend money on an upgrade or a new laptop.

However, gamers are often an odd bunch, they just want the best of “everything” on their gaming machines. So the only question left to ask: “Is Ivy Bridge better than Sandy Bridge?”

Comparing just the speeds, the next generation of Quad Core processors is slightly faster. For example, take the top of the line Sandy Bridge – the Core i7 Extreme 2960XM with 2.7 GHz and bump it up to 3.7 GHz with one core. Now compare this top Ivy Bridge: the 2.9GHz 3920XM boosted to 3.8GHz with one core. Server and desktop processors will have slightly different performance levels.

However, speeds are one thing, but laptop performance in the real world of gaming is something else entirely. Overheating is a major issue that most gamers have experienced at one point or another. There has been talk on some of the gaming forums about heat issues with Ivy Bridge processors, especially when they are overloaded. Overclockers.com reports that Ivy Bridge runs about 20°C higher than Sandy Bridge when overclocked. In reference to the desktop Core i7 3770k, this overheating was caused by the “integrated heat spreader” and this issue should be looked into further before purchasing, especially if you are overclocking your system.

Also, most benchmarks and tests show that Ivy Bridge could definitely be worth upgrading. PCWorld in its benchmark tests reported that there was only a moderate increase in CPU performance when using Ivy Bridge compared to Sandy Bridge, BUT these new 3rd generation quad-core processors offered “significant graphics improvement, as well as a better battery life.

In another comparison, Anandtech benchmarked an Ivy Bridge laptop against AMD’s Trinity platform and found that Intel won the day, however AMD’s Trinity 7660g integrated GPU outperformed Intel’s HD 4000. In contrast, Anandtech found the battery life on this Ivy Bridge system to be somewhat disappointing compared to the Sandy Bridge and AMD Trinity systems. More testing is probably needed here to get a more accurate judgment on battery life.

Regardless, more and more gaming laptops are switching to the new Ivy Bridge systems, perhaps most notably the new Alienware M17x R4 laptops. Others include ASUS G75VW-DS73, Toshiba Qosmio T752, MSI GT60, and MSI GT70. In the coming months, expect more high-end Ivy Bridge gaming portables from major manufacturers to hit the world. If you’ve been waiting to upgrade your laptop or buy a new system, now is probably the time to do it.