Ivy Bridge Big (old)

This page is exactly like my blog post, it is added for better site navigation/management.

Hey everyone! Other than the research I found for ‘best laptops of 2012’ or ‘best ivy bridge laptop’ I based rest of these sales from popular items sold on eBay that were Ivy Bridge and 15″ and up. Because of this, not all Ivy Bridge bigsize laptops are here, if you believe there was a model or specific I had missed, let me know and I will look it up and add it here regardless of information found.

New laptop sales are declining for a reason; people don’t need newer hardware when the laptops, and in this generation these laptops are still gud.
Since Sandy Bridge, Intel’s tick/tock method hasn’t been all its up to be, only energy efficiency is what you gain with maybe 20% of a performance increase. Does that justify paying six times more buying new than used?
Comparing the previous models these laptops replace, there isn’t much of a price difference despite being “better” than them. If you’re gonna be buying a barebones unit, you’re probably going to spend the same amount for an AC Adapter, HDD/SSD, & battery as you would for a Sandy Bridge laptop.

Disclaimer:

These prices posted are during the time I did research on current and trending market price! Supply & demand, Moore’s law, exploits, recalls and time will factor changes! I did not research extensively about reliability, feel, Linux/Windows 10 usability, or common problems on these laptops! Laptops at the lowest price point may or may not come with an OS, unlocked BIOS, or AC adapters. You might need to put some work into them if buying the lower priced units!

Mistake on my part:

On non-retina MacBook Pros, I might of messed up the quantity information which may affect price because I didn’t put -‘retina’ in one of the two searches I use. So during my calculations some ‘retina’ models may of fell through the search, which might of bumped up the prices. However whenever searching for ‘MDxxxLL/A’ shouldn’t affect the results I got, which luckily more accurate data is provided than ‘mid 2012 macbook pro’. Oddly, a significant amount of non retina models were not displayed in the results when I searched w/ the ‘-retina’ modifier… quite a tangent I know!

LISTING FORMAT (read this or it looks all gibberish)

E.G. M17x – $440 – 800 // 1000 ~ 15 v 123 – Alienware 17 (M17x R4)

M17x – The model name most people know it by (except for idiots)
$440 – This is the lowest price I saw sold give or take some that I see is ready to be used by someone else. Sometimes its based off it totally working w/ AC adapter, othertimes it may need a battery, ac adaptor and OS.
800 – This is the high price I see this trending for, it could be just as good as the lowest price
// 1000 – This is the max price you’d pay for a laptop with a great warranty, new/flawless condition, upgraded and/or max specs. Its up to you if you want to pay this price rather than the high price.
~ 15 – This is about how many I saw available online thru eBay at the time of searching. More numbers means more of a selection to choose from, which would hopefully mean better price selection, specs and conditions.
v 123 – This is how many items were sold within the past 3 months using the search term on eBay. With more numbers I can get a more accurate number for prices, but with lower numbers, sometimes estimate what it can be.
The information after the numbers is usually the specific model, year/quarter released & certain specifics I try to explain.

15″ Mainstream

E6530 – $125 – 400 // 600 ~ 91 v 493

T530 – $160 – 370 // 580 ~ 111 v 409

8570p – $115 – 320 // 460 ~ 59 v 209

MD104LL/A – $550 – 850 //1100 ~ 56 v 306 – (2.6GHz i7-3720qm, mid 2012, MBP 9,1)

MC976LL/A – $580 – 950 // 1200 ~ 36 v 200 – (2.6GHz i7-3720qm, retina 2012, MBP 10,1)

T530 oddly starts out higher then the rest, ends the same
I think the E6530 can have an IPS ultrasharp display, maybe the 8570p, T530 def not!
i7 starts at 250 for Dell, 240 for Lenovo, 220 for HP, and 550 for Apple. 😀
Some of the mid 2012 MBP’s can be bought under $500 even at $400, but these are mostly BIN with heavy wear or something broken (BT/CD/USB/Dented)
$700 is a good price for either of these Macs.
If you’re going the retina route, RAM is soldiered this time, SSD is now a somewhat proprietary mSATA.
Retina batteries are glued onto the palmrest!!! Possible damage to frame, & touchpad if you want to replace it, you have been warned, good luck!!!!

15″ Workstation

M4700 – $232 – 580 // 820 ~ 62 – 199

W530 – $300 – 620 // 800 ~ 82 – 231

8570w – $250 – 525 // 600 ~ 120 v 138

BTO/CTO – $800 – 1100 // 1350 ~ 15 v 30? – (2.9GHz i7-3820qm, mid 2012, MBP 9,1)

MD831LL/A – $750 – v 1000 // 1250 ~ 20 v 58 (2.9GHz i7-3820qm, retina 2012 MBP 10,1)

Remember, if the laptop originally came w/ a dual core processor it has only 2 RAM slots, quadcores have 4 slots. Keep this in mind if you are looking to save cash when upgrading to 16 or 32GB of RAM
I have gotten a few low end 8570w’s to refurbish, & I broke even on them and was not impressed… 😡
But with the W530, I got a great deal for $250, I added 8GB RAM to end at 16GB RAM and I sold it for $500. Although I did have an FHD display, the panel I had had a blue tint and visible vertical lines. I was somewhat able to colour calibrate it, but the lines didn’t go away. Dat 5 hour battery life w/ optimus, quadcore and Winblows 10.
No M4700 listing specified it was an IPS ultrasharp, good luck.
About the 8570w’s, there were about 10+ units for $575 that were in great condition.
Whats wild is that, the creme of the crop, retina ivy bridge i7 macbook doesn’t seem to have higher prices than its unibody precursor.
Well there are way less rMBPs in this CPU category, but given the price/ratio one would think the newer ‘sleeker’ laptop would have a higher price.

15″ Budget Biz

E5530 – $100 – 200 // 300 ~ 29 v 180

E530 – $100 – 180 // 220 ~ 17 v 101

L530 – $120 – 170 // 200? ~ 8 v 6

6570b – $140 – 240 // 300 ~ 50 v 108

4540s – $150 – 230 // 300 ~ 31 v 126

4545s – $100 – 151 // 250 ~ 4 v 16 – AMD Variant

MD103LL/A – $450 – 730 // 1000 ~ 90 v 608 (2.3GHz i7-3615qm, mid 2012, MBP 9,1)

MC975LL/A – $520 – 800 // 1000 ~ 59 v 361 (2.3GHz i7-3615qm, retina 2012, MBP 10,1)

If you’re looking for a cheap FHD Ivy Bridge machine, the E5530 is based, I seen listings for $130 and w/ warranty!
L series is usually just a little bit more than the Edge brother (sissy?) but there weren’t many out there so yeah
About 30 of these 6570b’s were parts units, 140 was the lowest decent machine w/ HDD & AC adaptor.
Arguably these MBPs shouldn’t be here but whatever, they are the base models out of all of em.
From all the laptops I researched, it seemed that there wasn’t any business machines made by the other manufacturers. You either got an ultrabook, prosumer, or media laptop. At least I wasn’t able to get good enough information + listings for them.

15″ Consumer (Entry, Media, & Thin)

15R – $100 – 260 // 320 ~ 13 v 78 – Dell Inspiron 5520

U510 – $180 – 320 // 400 ~ 8 v 25 – Lenovo IdeaPad

M6 – $150 – 280 // 360 ~ 10 v 22 – HP Envy M6-1125dx

M5-581 – $185 – 220 // 300 ~ 1 v 25 – Acer Aspire

V3-571 – $180? – 350 // 450 ~ 3 v 16 – Acer Aspire

V5-531 – $92 – 160 // 240 ~ 6 v 24 – Acer Aspire

SVS15 – $155 – 295 // 500 ~ 5 v 17? Sony Vaio S Series 15.5″

K55VD – 200 – 400 // 500? ~ 1 v 2 – Asus

N56V – 220 – 330 // 380 ~ 0 v 7 – Asus

NP680Z5E – $160 – 300 // 540 ~ 1 v 7 – Samsung ATIV Book 6

The Asus I don’t know much about, uncommon machine.
Ugh… Inspiron… But some of these Acer laptops tho.
Yet the Acer V3 was the ‘best’ if you were going for entry level
Not too sure on the price of the ideapad tho\
Seems like the Asus has the most parts readily available if you get a craptop
The Samsung here sports a FHD display, & is a better battery life version of the ATIV book 4 later in the guide. I am guessing it has a slightly bigger bottom frame, as well as a better GPU.

15″ Gaming

G55VW – $430 – 550 // 700? ~ 5 v 11 – Asus

Y580 – $260 – 420 // 530 ~ 5 v 33 – Lenovo

GT60 – $350 – 480 // 520 ~ 3 v 16 – MSI GT60-ON Dominator

P150m – $300 – 500 // 600 ~ 4 v 6 – Sager/Clevo

The asus is the pricest of the bunch, the Sager/Clevo isn’t too strong.
A German based seller sold a Clevo for 350 Euros <3
The MSI is a tough pinpointing, you might end up with a haswell model!
The Asus seems to be the most priciest out of all, didn’t research why. 😛

15″ Prosumer

XPS 15 – $270 – 500 // 700 ~ 5 v 32 – Dell

250 G3 – $155 – 280 / 350 ~ 15 v 28 – HP

NP88Z5E – $320 – 600 // 750 ~ 8 v 16 – Samsung ATIV Book 8

SVF15 – $300? – 460 // 550 ~ 1 v 16 – Sony Vaio Fit Touch (SVF15A16CXB)

Eh, this XPS 15 is a ‘gamer’ ultrabook. Take it as you will, I see nothing special.
The HP 250 seemed to be produced later and can be bought new for under $300. It is aimed to be boring or business-ish-izzz
So the Samsung I got mixed information, from what I sourced, it is bBased off the ATIV Book 6 chassis but with a 1080p display, better GPU and slightly better/bigger battery. I presume the bottom lid/frame is a bit larger, usnure of parts compatability.
The Vaio is a convertible tablet w/ an interesting hinge/pivot point in middle of the display instead of typically at the end of the keyboard. Supposedly this can be a problem if it gets dirty.

15″ Thin / ‘Ultrabook’

NP900X4C – $300 – 530 // 700 ~ 3 v 44 – Samsung Series 9

NP780Z5E – $280 – 400 // 540 ~ 2 v 8 – Samsung Chronos

V5-571 – $130 – 240 // 330 ~ 35 v 117 – Acer

NP470R5E – $105 – 230 // 340 ~ 8 v 44 – Samsung ATIV Book? 4

Not gonna lie, these are all pretty lame. There was some Acer that was a ‘gaming ultrabook’ but its pretty shitty and had overheating problems, so I left it at the Consumer section, have fun with that.

17″ Workstation

M6700 – $420 – 700 // 950 ~ 52 – 117

Covet – $650 – 1000 // 1200 ~ 2 v 5

8770w – $360 – 600 / 820 ~ 88 v 51

$700 is about the middle of the road when it came to M6700’s, you can def spend $1100 on one of these
The ‘Covet’ weren’t listed specifically as Covet but dat orange cover. Note Extreme edition CPUs are available in ‘normal’ M6700’s as well. Covet is a higher priced ‘limited edition’.
Not to knock on the Precision, but I do like the Elitebook Workstations, totally want to get a 8770w before the design change to slimmer machines, big fan of the 8760w.

17″ Consumer

17R – $200 – 300 // 400 ~ 8 v 56 – Dell Inspiron

G700 – $100 – 220 // 700? ~ 0 v 10 – Lenovo

M7 – $240 – 300 // 420 ~ 3 v 10 – HP Envy M7-1015dx

4740s – No Data

SVE17 – $??? – 400? // ??? ~ 0 v 1? – Sony Vaio E series (SVE171C11L)

The Envy is pretty pricey for what you get, people think they are good lol
The Lenovo is an entry level laptop while the HP and Dell are media centric.
Not much in the 17″ department thats not gamer or workstation
Nearly no info on the Sony Vaio, mystery machine w/ one BIN listing.

17″ Gaming

NP700 – $300 – 500 // 620 ~ 3 v 5 – Samsung Series 7 Gamer (NP700G7C)

X870 – 350 – 400? // 580 ~ 2 v 6 – Toshiba Qosmio

X875 – $500 – 700 // 930 ~ 4 v 13 – Toshiba Qosmio

G75VW – $420 – 650 // 800 ~ 31 v 103 – Asus

Blade – $700 – 820? // ??? ~ 1 v 4 – Razer Late 2012 Model

M17x – $440 – 800 // 1000 ~ 15 v 123 – Alienware 17 (M17x R4)

GT70 – $360 – 540 / 650 ~ 3 v 13

P170EM – $540 – 650 // 770 ~ 1 v 3

X870 had four out of the six sold for under 400…
X875 has 3D for dat e x p e n s i v e e x o t i c a e s t h e t i c
Alienware gets just as expensive because ‘murrika
The Asus seems to be the ugliest of these machines, they get rub marks on the lid from design and/or fingerprints. Not a popular machine, plenty of one bid auctions below $500
I had trouble on data gathering for the Razer Blade. Plenty of different models w/ the Blade name.
Clevo/Sager gets no love, probably the ugliest 17″ laptop ever made. If you have one, you look like a FN gweeb.

18″ Laptops

M18x R2 – $630 – 830 // 1100 ~ 18 v 66

If you’re thinking of the M18x you might get the R3 model if you’re gonna spend some extra anyways
Data-wise I couldn’t find much information readily available for 16″ or 18″ laptops, so I didn’t bother digging deep.

I based gaming laptops from this Verge post.

To be real, I think Sandy Bridge quadcore i7 laptops would be a better choice price/performance wise unless you really need dat battery life and slightly better performance.

I reason this by the fact that some of those laptops support MXM cards and can be hella upgraded for cheap.