General

Regarding the processors, the i5 will work better for you. If you're not doing anything that takes advantage of more than 2 cores (you probably won't), the i5 will be able to match or surpass the i7 in performance (single core operations). The typical power consumption of the i5 is also ~20% lower.

You won't see much difference between 6gb and 8gb of ram, but 8gb is considered optimal for gaming.

In overall gaming performance, the GT 650m is slightly better than the GT 740m.

Both laptops will work fine, but I'd venture to say that the Lenovo is the better choice.

[quote=AsianPeople]Am I missing something here? The Y500 that was linked is dual-core. The Asus laptop has a 3630qm. Seeing that it is a modern game, Bioshock Infinite is more than likely optimized for mutli-core set-ups. Maybe I'm just arguing semantics, but the Asus laptop seems a lot better overall.[/quote]

Very very few games can use more than 2 cores and those that do don't massively benefit from the extra threads. The i5 in that Lenovo Y500 is hyperthreaded and has 4 threads which Windows OSs will see as a quad-core processor.

Bioshock Infinite is not a game that benefits from more than 2 cores.
http://static.techspot.com/articles-info/655/bench/CPU_03.png
There are two dual-threaded processors in that benchmark comparison. One of them, the dual-core Phenom II X2 570, performs one frame worse than the quad-core Phenom II X4 980, the latter which is clocked 200 MHz faster. Both of those processors are based on the same chip - the Phenom II X2 570 is a quad-core Phenom II with two disabled cores. It can be reasonably concluded that Bioshock Infinite will perform the same on two processors that only differ by core count.

[quote=Burning]
...and yes, the Lenovo laptop is the more powerful of the two. You don't have programs or games that can use the i7s extra cores/threads and the Y500's faster clocked i5 is therefore going to be faster for what you do.[/quote]

Am I missing something here? The Y500 that was linked is dual-core. The Asus laptop has a 3630qm. Seeing that it is a modern game, Bioshock Infinite is more than likely optimized for mutli-core set-ups. Maybe I'm just arguing semantics, but the Asus laptop seems a lot better overall.

@Burning: Yes, sadly I'm not. But yes, didn't really explain much as I didn't find many issues with it only the sound, bad FPS if you want to play in highest graphics, other than that I enjoyed it apart from the fact that I needed windows to do the majority of what I wanted to do haha.

Ya, I waited around 7 months for it too as my dad is an extremely busy man.. which just added to my disappointment. After we took the Apple back... I ended up going to PC world and bought a laptop (The screen was pale even after changing the settings) so I ended up taking that back... then I was given a laptop that wouldn't even charge... I guess I just have bad luck... Apart from with this desktop I'm using now - touches wood-

[quote=Burning]Battery capacities are not a direct indication of battery life. However, given the similarity of the core components used in both the Lenovo Y500 and ASUS N56VB, I would expect the Lenovo to have a longer battery life.[/quote]
thanks again for all the help, i greatly appreciate it
i'm almost certain i'll buy the Lenovo

Battery capacities are not a direct indication of battery life. However, given the similarity of the core components used in both the Lenovo Y500 and ASUS N56VB, I would expect the Lenovo to have a longer battery life.

@burning:
i don't know what this means but you probably know much more about it but i've found on a site the battery capacity(roughly translated) is 72 WH for the Lenovo and 56 WH for the Asus, higher sure sounds better, at least i hope it is.

[quote=Liddy]@Burning: Yes actually I have. My dad bought me a desktop from Apple just before I got the computer I am using right now. I used it for 2 weeks and I couldn't stand it my dad had even bought me win7 so I could play my games, even the built in speakers on the monitor were so bad! extremely tingy and sometimes made popping noises (I only had the volume 1/4 up) so they replaced it! and still had the new one for a further month and it was just terrible I am a hardcore gamer and I love to play my games on the highest graphic setting! Which was IMPOSSIBLE as my FPS would go so low (8-10), so I took it back again and my dad said he wanted his money back.. which they paid back into his account (obviously it takes a few days) then after we left we went straight to PC world and bought the one I am using right now, not only does it run A LOT faster, I have to agree, I liked the camera that was built into the screen. But reality stands they are NOWHERE near worth the price they're sold for.[/quote]

So you had a bad experience; we all do. However, you didn't actually describe the differences in technical terms beyond the speakers and in really vague performance terms.

In any case, I reply to forum posts to these because there are fanboys and haters who comment on anything for no good reason. Your reason is fair, though you are obviously not the intended buyer Apple wanted.

@Burning: Yes actually I have. My dad bought me a desktop from Apple just before I got the computer I am using right now. I used it for 2 weeks and I couldn't stand it my dad had even bought me win7 so I could play my games, even the built in speakers on the monitor were so bad! extremely tingy and sometimes made popping noises (I only had the volume 1/4 up) so they replaced it! and still had the new one for a further month and it was just terrible I am a hardcore gamer and I love to play my games on the highest graphic setting! Which was IMPOSSIBLE as my FPS would go so low (8-10), so I took it back again and my dad said he wanted his money back.. which they paid back into his account (obviously it takes a few days) then after we left we went straight to PC world and bought the one I am using right now, not only does it run A LOT faster, I have to agree, I liked the camera that was built into the screen. But reality stands they are NOWHERE near worth the price they're sold for.

[quote=Liddy]Mac's aren't that great anyhow. People only want them because they're considered "cool" you can get a laptop way more powerful for less money [/quote]

Have you actually used a Mac? Have you actually compared it against similarly priced luxury Windows laptops?

[quote=Suryoyo]daddy's wallet doesn't agree [/quote]
Mac's aren't that great anyhow. People only want them because they're considered "cool" you can get a laptop way more powerful for less money

[quote=Snooki]why not a mac?
you can install windows 8 on it ;D[/quote]
daddy's wallet doesn't agree

why not a mac?
you can install windows 8 on it ;D

[quote=Burning]The metric is overvaluing the RAM on the previous-gen Y500, but the Y500 is the more powerful gaming computer of the two - faster processor (faster by 100 MHz, games don't care about the i7's 8 threads) and stronger GPU (650M > 740M.) Otherwise, there isn't a big performance difference and you can choose either of the two without losing too much though I can't seem to find battery life details.

Either is definitely enough for your schoolwork. Bioshock Infinite is going to run at Mediumish settings, but you might pull off High or Very High. That game is harder to predict the gameplay experience it has really good framerate smoothing / motion blur even down to 40 FPS. If you meant to ask about games with requirements in that ballpark, then all I can say is that both the GeForce GT 650M and GT 740M are roughly equivalent to the desktop GeForce GT 640.

...and yes, the Lenovo laptop is the more powerful of the two. You don't have programs or games that can use the i7s extra cores/threads and the Y500's faster clocked i5 is therefore going to be faster for what you do.[/quote]

thank you so much, i always thought 740>650 since the number is higher
so the lenovo is better AND cheaper, guess i should choose that one

[quote=Suryoyo]they both seem good but i don't understand why laptop 1 has slightly better score than laptop 2 which has in general better hardware(correct me if i'm wrong)
anyone cares to explain?[/quote]

The metric is overvaluing the RAM on the previous-gen Y500, but the Y500 is the more powerful gaming computer of the two - faster processor (faster by 100 MHz, games don't care about the i7's 8 threads) and stronger GPU (650M > 740M.) Otherwise, there isn't a big performance difference and you can choose either of the two without losing too much though I can't seem to find battery life details.

Either is definitely enough for your schoolwork. Bioshock Infinite is going to run at Mediumish settings, but you might pull off High or Very High. That game is harder to predict the gameplay experience it has really good framerate smoothing / motion blur even down to 40 FPS. If you meant to ask about games with requirements in that ballpark, then all I can say is that both the GeForce GT 650M and GT 740M are roughly equivalent to the desktop GeForce GT 640.

...and yes, the Lenovo laptop is the more powerful of the two. You don't have programs or games that can use the i7s extra cores/threads and the Y500's faster clocked i5 is therefore going to be faster for what you do.

The ASUS laptop has nearly twice as much processing power. The video cards are practically the same.

I say you go with the asus.

Go Dutch people !

The Asus is a lot better than the Lenovo laptop. It might just be the website messing with scores to get people to buy differently.

the first one because it reminds me of death note the greatest anime ever