Intel Core i7-2640M Mobiler SR03R 2.8GHz 2 Kern 4MB L3 PGA988B

The Intel Core i7-2640M is the fastest dual-core processor for notebooks in the 3rd quarter of 2011 and replaces the Core i7-2620M. It offers two cores and can process 4 threads simultaneously thanks to Hyperthreading. The base clock of 2.8 GHz can be dynamically increased to 3.3 GHz (load of 2 cores) and 3.5 (1 core) by Turbo Boost with sufficient cooling. Compared to the slower i5-2540M, the 2620M not only offers a higher clock speed, but also more Last Level Cache (4 versus 3MB), but the older 2620M is only clocked lower.

Sandy Bridge is a further development of the Arrandale architecture. Apart from optimisations, the new 256-bit AVX instructions in the CPU part and the improved Turbo 2.0 are particularly worth mentioning. Furthermore, AES functions and an improved dual channel DDR3 memory controller for max. 8 GB DDR3-1333MHz are now integrated directly in the processor.

The integrated DirectX 10-capable Intel HD Graphics 3000 graphics card is housed directly in the CPU and shares the Level 3 / Last Level Cache with it. Although this reduces the processor performance somewhat when graphics are activated, the graphics performance is significantly better than with the old Intel HD Graphics and on a par with an Nvidia Geforce 310M entry-level graphics card.

Thanks to the improved architecture and the revised Turbo Boost, the performance is above a similarly clocked Arrandale CPU. The 2640M should thus reach the performance of the fastest Arrandale quad-core models (e.g. Core i7-920XM). Therefore, the performance is also sufficient for demanding activities such as HD video editing or 3D games. Due to the high clock speed of 2.8 GHz (3.3 - 3.5 GHz via Turbo), the 2640M also has advantages over the slower clocked quad-core processors for software that only utilises 1-2 threads.

The Sandy Bridge dual-core processors also include the graphics card and the memory controller in the specified TDP of 35 watts. However, the Turbo Boost 2.0 makes full use of the TDP under load. With 35W TDP, the processor is best suited for 14" notebooks and larger.