dual core i5 v quad i7 lappy 4 games

[xauss]

hi folks,

i am considering getting a laptop that can do a better job at gaming than my current one.
i'm looking in my price range at one with GTX 765M graphics card as a happy price to performance medium allowing most games to be played at relatively high detail.
gaming is the only thing that really makes any demands on my hardware, so my question is for my needs, which cpu should i consider?
i7 4700MQ (2.4 Ghz)
i5 4330M (2.8 Ghz) (additional cost of £23 over 4700MQ)

also is it worth upgrading RAM from 8Gb to 12Gb or £16Gb (all at 1600Mhz) though the upgrades start getting pricey.

i'm unlikely to get a SSD at this time (concerns about failures) and will get a 750 GB WD Scorpio Black 7200 rpm for the hard drive (is there a significant performance benefit to loading games on a SSD if i were to get a small one in the future for that purpose?)

[David (PassMark)]

You are much better off with a desktop machine for gaming.
They are more powerful, easier to upgrade, easier to repair & cheaper to buy.

8GB RAM is enough. If you have the money, then get a SSD. They do fail from time to time, but so do traditional drives.

[xauss]

i know a desktop will be more powerful, if not significantly cheaper when adding monitor, case, PSU, keyboard + mouse in addition to the motherboard, cpu, gpu, ram, harddrive etc.

however, a laptop better suits my other work / life needs, and i dont need all the bells and whistles when gaming, just decent smooth rates with reasonably shiney graphics.

having googled a little on dual core i5 v quad i7 laptops performances on gaming - i'm still a little unclear. some say the faster clock rates on the dual core will do better since the hyper-threading on quad cores are not (or rarely) utilized on games - although this may change (or is changing).
the 4330M's 2.8 Ghz can dynamically increase with turbo boost to 3.4 (2 core) or 3.5 for a single core
the 4700MQ's 2.4 Ghz can be boosted to 3.2 (4 core) 3.3 (2 core) or 3.4 for a single core... not much difference to the i5 on the boosted clock-rates...

so is there really any advantage to the more expensive dual-core i5? especially if the quad core can provide better performance on non-gaming processes, and that games will increasingly benefit from multi-core processors.

alternatively, the higher power requirements of the i7 will generate more heat making cooling more of an issue and adversely effect the dynamically increased clock-rates, swaying back in favor of the faster base rates of the i5

[David (PassMark)]

Hyperthreading doesn't add much, even under ideal situations (can even be a negative). A Hyperthread core isn't nearly as good as a real additional core. I would get the cheaper CPU and put the money saved towards a SSD. You'll notice a SSD more that the small difference in CPU performance.

[xauss]

i just seen this thread... http://forum.notebookreview.com/hard...quad-core.html
which i somehow missed before, generally making the case for quad-core over dual-core, albeit on a previous generation of processors (though i dont think the reasoning would have changed from sandy bridge, to ivy bridge, to Haswell)
looks like the i7 for me