Broadwell or Skylake laptop?

euskalzabe

euskalzabe

[H]ard|Gawd
Joined
May 9, 2009
Messages
1,478
Hey guys,

Context: I'm buying an Asus UX305, it'll be used for Word, Excel, Powerpoint, internet browsing, music and Netflix. Maybe occasional light gaming (think Mark of Ninja or Trine)

Main question: I have a $75 discount that'll expire on 10/20 and I don't know if I should buy the Broadwell based one now or wait until the Skylake upgrade.

Would the better battery life or performance be worth losing the $75 discount? Getting the i5+8GB+256GB for $675 right now seems like an incredible deal that'll last me at least 3 years.

I'm not sure what to do. Any advice? I also posted this on the Mobile forum to see what they have to say.
 
Which Broadwell? Is it one of those models with the huge L4 cache? If so, I wouldn't wait for Skylake.
 
If we are speaking about full i5 then I'd go for Broadwell (in fact i already did myself;)) . If you run out of power then <10% IPC increase won't save you.

Core M I'd wait for skywell as the one in ux305 is throtling badly.
 
euskalzabe said:
Amazon says it's an Intel Core i5-5200U. Intel says it has 3MB cache, I don't know how many levels or how that affects performance though.
Click to expand...

That page only shows L3 cache, the L4 cache (sometimes called eDram) doesn't appear to be shown. I believe that the eDram only applies to chips with Iris Pro graphics. I don't believe the i5-5200U is one of those, but I'm not sure. I only mention it because of the dramatic impact the L4 cache has on performance. In most benchmarks the desktop 5775C (broadwell w/ 128mb L4 cache) was even faster than the desktop 6700K (skylake).
 
Michaelius said:
If we are speaking about full i5 then I'd go for Broadwell...
Core M I'd wait for skywell as the one in ux305 is throtling badly.
Click to expand...

I considered the M but it's "only" $50 cheaper. I'm happy to spend the extra money for greater performance, AC wifi and supposedly 2h extra battery life.

I just don't know if it's a bad idea to buy now with Skylake coming out, or the $75 discount I have for the next 10 days makes Broadwell the better deal. I mean, 8gb, 256gb and i5 for $675. I still have a hard time believing I could buy that right now. So cheap. But I want it to last me 3/4 years, hence my hesitation to buy a Broadwell machine at this point.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top