That's just the sort of site I'm looking for. I've got a rough idea now of the desktop equivalents of my mobile hardware, thanks. I'm just looking ahead really, thinking about what my obsolescent machine will and won't be able to handle - newer games mainly. Hopefully by the time I splash out on a new computer (not sure whether to go mobile again or go for a desktop next time ?) most older games (including my gogs) will have been made compatible with Windows 10. I think I can hold off for a good while yet.

The S models of Intel's CPUs usually have a TDP (Thermal design power) of 65 W, while the T models have a TDP of usually 35 W or in the case of quad core CPUs 45 W. Due to the lower TDP the T models are clocked at lower frequencies and as such are slower than the S models. Models without any letter at the end have an even higher TDP (usually in the range of 77 to 95 W).
You can find technical information for pretty much any Intel CPU on Intel's ark.intel.com website. It is pretty useful for comparing CPU features.

Cool! Thanks alot for the links!

I cannot figure out if you mean that the website is too pessimistic or too optimistic.

Oh. I'd hate to see what they would say about my machine. I think I never paid more than €30 (£20) for a graphics card.

They'd probably turn your computer into a self detonating kablooey thingie to get rid of you! O____o

kablooey: adjective
destroyed, ruined; blown apart; also written kablooie

"We'd make fun of you, but we are afraid your machine isn't good enough to render our insults!"

Thanks for that clarification. This illustrates what I mean when I say that, to the layman at least, it is not obvious where your hardware stands in the hierarchy (in terms of performance) of that particular type of hardware. So, an i7-3770S is quite significantly more powerful - in terms of its ceiling performance - than an i7-3770T ? To the layman that is not obvious at all because first of all you have to know what the T and the S mean. You can look all this stuff up, obviously, but where do you start researching and where do you end ? If you don't know the science behind the new technologies then none of this stuff is obvious at all. The situation will continue to become more complicated as time goes on, and people who understand all this stuff now may fall behind eventually, since that's how things tend to go. Anyway, this was not intended to be a rant. Thanks again for your very helpful information. I wonder why the huge list of CPUs I have in front of me includes the I7-3770S but not the T ?

I agree that it is far from obvious how one PC compares to another. The huge amount of available CPUs and GPUs doesn't make it particularly easy. What makes things even worse is that performance also depends on the application as well. Many applications do not utilize multiple CPU cores (or only very few), so that a dual core CPU with a high per core performance might actually be faster in that case than a lot more expensive quad core with hyperthreading and what not, while in other cases the latter is much faster.
To get a rough estimate for particular components sites like the Passmark website as mentioned by RWarehall are pretty useful.

I actually find it really interesting but I don't have a background in science or computers, so I will always be dependent on advice from those who do. That's one of the reasons why I like the gog forums : you can (usually) ask a "stupid" question and not get shot down in flames. I must admit, though, that I still don't totally understand how / why some (for example) 5-series Geforce cards (I'm talking desktop here) can be better than certain 6-series cards - although I think only the 590 qualifies as an example ? Then throw into the mix mobile GPUs and CPUs and you've got a perfect recipe for confusion for the layman. By the time I half understand all this stuff it will be out of date anyway !

So, basically, GPU companies have a variety of products at different price ranges. For the GeForce cards, that second digit represents the "quality level". Think of it as cars. You can have a 2015 Taurus or you can have a 2012 Mercedes. While the Taurus might be newer, the Mercedes is probably a better car.

So think of the 590 as the Mercedes of the series, whereas the 560 is mid-range. So, even when a new series was started, the higher end of the 5 series may very well be better than lower end cards in the 600's series.

Often, some of the higher numbered cards of the previous series are prototypes for the next one. And we haven't even addressed differences between companies AMD vs. Intel vs. NVidia...

All-in-all that is why using benchmarks as a ballpark is probably best. There is much to compare, from number of hyperthreads; memory capacity; clock speeds; processing cores; etc. Even depending on the application, what's best may change. The best for Photoshop processing times may very well be different vs. a game using extensive 3D rendering. Just as some want a car for fuel economy, others want a car with a lot of passenger space.

I am interested in gaming performance first and foremost.

I already "understand" (though not scientifically) the hierarchy WITHIN a series of GPUs, e.g. the NVidia 5-series. So, 550 <560<570<580<590 (variants, e.g. 560Ti excluded). That's all pretty straightforward. I also "understand" that an entry level card from the following series (the NVidia 6-series) can be inferior to quite a few of the 5-series cards. It's already quite complicated even at this stage, however. From the list I wrote down some time ago I have the following "hierarchy" of (desktop) NVidia GPUs, excluding much earlier models, and including "variants", exclusively from the 5- and 6- series :

690 (best)
590,680
580,670
660Ti
570,660 (my 680m apparently belongs in this tier)
560Ti,650Ti Boost,750Ti
560,650Ti,750

That's a selfishly chosen list since I wanted to know where my card (the 680m) stands in relation to its desktop counterparts, but it's already quite confusing, and this is only a list of the best NVidia 5- and 6- series cards. These are all GTX cards, I believe. Before that came the GT and GTS cards. And I haven't even included AMD cards.

Processors are even more arcane ! But as has been said already, benchmark scores are a good guideline if you're in doubt, although for some reason these are not always available for mobile components. It's difficult to know, as a laptop user with very little technical knowledge of computer hardware in general, where your hardware sits in relation to its desktop counterpart(s).

Also, what has been said about how an application (e.g. a game) utilises your hardware also comes into the equation. Struth, it's not exactly straightforward this stuff !

I believe (but am not at all confident) that my i7-3720QM and Geforce 680m are roughly equivalent, respectively, to an 15-2400 processor, or perhaps an i7-3770T, or perhaps an i7-970 ; and (GPU) to a GTX 570 or a GTX 660.

It would be really nice of publishers to give the minimum and recommended specs for a game in terms of laptop hardware too, but that's probably not going to happen.

A thread full of useful stuff :-) Laptops, desktops and mobiles (and comparable pocket computers) all have their use. Nothing (in theory, never mind some problems) stops me from gaming on both my desktop AND laptop :-)