Core i7-620M vs Core i5-540M [closed]

Solution 1:

I did a lot of research on the i3, i5 and i7 at work.
Basically (even with all the fancy numbers) with those 2 CPUs (especially if they are the Mobile (M) processors) your going to pay for 1MB more cache and 130Mhtz if you buy the i7. That is the down and dirty.
Being laptop solution for a developer I would suggest the i7 if funding permitted.
This is because the +1MB extra on cache would help if he had to run development utilities for all the software you mentioned.
Is he going to be doing a test that large on the Laptop?

Just some things to think about.

Embedded means it is designed so it can be soldered or permanently mounted to a board.

Solution 2:

From what I've read, the i7 (in general) has increased performance when it comes to things like video rendering and compression. It also generally has a higher-end graphics capability.

I would also suggest that your friend do some research on Adobe's new Mercury playback engine for the upcoming Premiere CS5. It's going to be a game changer, and he may want to see if he can get a laptop that supports it. This will mostly be reflected in GPU choices.