Intel Core i7-3720QM Pro Reviews

When we tested the Core i7-3770K in April, we found it to be 10-17% faster than the Sandy Bridge Core i7-2600K while consuming over 10% less power. In essence, this makes Ivy Bridge a more refined version of Sandy Bridge. Intel's only weakness was in its HD graphics engine, with the HD 4000 still being much slower than AMD's A8 series APUs. This remains true of Ivy Bridge's mobile parts. Clocked at just 2.6GHz or 25% lower than the i7-3770K, we recorded 20-25% less performance from the Core i7-3720QM, so we should see a similar trend when comparing mobile Ivy Bridge processors to their Sandy Bridge equivalents. Unfortunately, we didn't have a Sandy Bridge Core i7 laptop on hand, but we were able to compare the i7-3720QM with enough processors to determine its capabilities.

The Intel Core i7-3720QM is easily the fastest notebook processor we've tested to date. In standard compute workloads like Cinebench and LAME MT, the new Ivy Bridge Core i7 offered performance gains of 12 - 20% over Intel's previous generation Sandy Bridge processors, though it's hard to make direct clock-for-clock comparisons, since Intel Turbo Boost speeds vary significantly between the two architectures. What's more impressive however, is how far Intel's Ivy Bridge graphics core has come along since Sandy Bridge. Intel claimed we'd see a 2X performance increase in integrated graphics performance with their HD Graphics 4000 core; and we saw just that in many game tests like Batman: Arkham City, Left 4 Dead 2 and FarCry 2. Furthermore, Intel's Quick Sync video transcoding engine in Ivy Bridge is also nearly twice as fast as Sandy Bridge's already smoking fast Quick Sync engine.

Naturally, standard notebooks and even gamer-oriented systems will benefit from what Ivy Bridge brings to the table. We saw some of this potential in our i7 3720QM benchmarks. Despite retailing for the same price as the Sandy Bridge chip it is destined to replace, it offers a significant improvement in every application. The 22nm Tri Gate design also seems to be paying dividends since we noticed the Ivy Bridge processor was more willing to boost up to higher turbo ratios than its predecessor. Whether or not this was due to cooling system differences between one system and another is anyone’s guess but both processors were continually running at nearly identical temperatures throughout testing.

Ivy Bridge for mobile has easily exceeded my expectations. Because this is not a new architecture I was expecting to see gains between 5 to 10 percent. Instead, the new Intel Core i7-3720QM runs away from every previous processor in multiple benchmarks. Granted, it is among the most powerful versions of Ivy Bridge we'll see in a laptop - but it's still quick even if handicapped. I was most impressed by our real-world Windows Live Movie Maker and SunlitGreen BatchBlitz tests. These show that the new processors should provide a real, noticeable improvement in mundane applications. Intel HD 4000 is better still. Intel’s IGP is now on par with a low-end discrete GPU. Most modern games are enjoyable so long as you keep detail settings at low to medium if you don’t exceed a resolution of 1366x768. Intel has finally produced an IGP that can handle most games at the native resolution of the average laptop. Ivy Bridge is proving to be an even more exciting release for laptops than for desktops. Intel HD 4000 can be replaced with a much quicker video card for under $100 in a desktop, but most laptop manufacturers ask between $100 and $200 for an upgrade from Intel’s IGP to a mid-range discrete GPU that, in some cases, will prove to be only slightly more powerful.