2.5 C2D with 5400 rpm drive vs. 2.4 C2D with 7200 rpm

[easypz]

What do you think guys? I have two notebooks xps m1530 that are the same price. One with a 2.5gHZ C2D and 320mb HD @5400 and one with 2.4gHz C2D and 320mb @7200 rpm. Which combo will give me better performance. Help.

Easy

 

[easypz]

C'mon you guys. I know you've got opinions, I hear them all the time.😀

 

[corkyg]

My choice would be for the 2.4 with the 7200 rpm drive. But - why not just get the 2.5 and have the 7200 rpm drive put in it and have the best of both?

 

[IlllI]

you will probably see zero noticeable difference between either one

 

[DarkRogue]

Actually, you will see a lot more difference with the slower hard drive than the CPU, as I experienced myself. I went from a 7200rpm HD to a 5400rpm one thinking there won't be a difference, and my boot times more than doubled. If I were you though, get the faster CPU and buy your own 7200rpm HD. Win-Win! 🙂

 

[IlllI]

boot time has no real effect on everyday use. unless you are rebooting dozens of times a day, its a one time thing. plus you could use some hibernation mode etc.

it all depends on what easypz plans on doing. for example i doubt he would see any difference in using ms word but if he plans of moving hundreds of gigabytes then he probably would

 

[COPOHawk]

go with the 7200 rpm drive.

The difference IS noticable. Especially with newer hardware. Just like there is a difference between 7200 rpm and 10K.

There will be virtually no difference between 2.4 and 2.5 ghz.

HTH.

 

[Zap]

If the CPUs were the same type, then I'd go with the faster drive with slower CPU. With notebook Core 2 Duos, there are 65nm with 2MB and 4MB cache, and 45nm with 3MB and 6MB cache. The 45nm potentially will run cooler and get better battery life, plus will outperform a 65nm chip of the same MHz (besides more cache, typically runs on faster FSB and might even use faster RAM).

 

[thecoolnessrune]

Originally posted by: Zap
If the CPUs were the same type, then I'd go with the faster drive with slower CPU. With notebook Core 2 Duos, there are 65nm with 2MB and 4MB cache, and 45nm with 3MB and 6MB cache. The 45nm potentially will run cooler and get better battery life, plus will outperform a 65nm chip of the same MHz (besides more cache, typically runs on faster FSB and might even use faster RAM).

Yeah, I would say what matters most is what type of Core Duo it is (T2xxx, T5xxx, T7xxx, etc.)

That matters more than if its just 2.4 or 2.5. But also considering that the HDD is the largest bottleneck existing in computers 7200RPM HDD > 100 Mhz.

 

[996GT2]

2.4 with the 7200 RPM definitely. That's actually the configuration I have in my Thinkpad 🙂

 

[Emulex]

you can put 5.0ghz cpu in there but if its queueing disk in perfmon it will sit and spin cycles waiting for disk i/o , paging, etc.

biggest mistake folks make. a laptop with that much horsepower (either cpu) would benefit from the fastest drive(s). If you setup raid-0 to stripe two drives both cpu's would feel faster

 

[easypz]

Thanks for all the feed back guys. I figured the 2.4 gHz cpu and the 7200 rpm drive was the best combination and that's what I went with.

I knew you guys would chip in once someone got the ball rolling. :thumbsup:

 

[wayliff]

I would go with the faster hard drive.

 

[nordloewelabs]

7200RPM. i wuldnt even think twice. the speed of the drive not only affects boot time, it affects all processes that constantly read/write to the drive. so opening programs, saving files, browsing cached webpages, etc.

on a side note: i know a guy that 5 years ago -- somehow -- bought a desktop PC from Gateway and the PC came with a 5400RPM hard drive.... it was painful even to browse the web. how can a computer company even make 5400RPM an option for desktops? geez! :-D