AMD QL-65 vs Intel T4300

[smitbret]

Just looking for a decent laptop for my girlfriend. She just wants it for basic internet, e-mail, word processing, look at photos and maybe playback a DVD occasionally. If it weren't for the DVD part, I would just get her a netbook. She'll like the larger screen and keyboard, thought.

I have bought and taken back about five different laptops from different stores cuz I keep thinking I see a better value. I am finally set on one of these two:

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/Gateway+...&skuId=9548643

or

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/Dell+-+I...&skuId=9528825

I liked everything about the Gateway better, EXCEPT the expected battery life. Performance wise, what is the QL-65 vs. T4300 and what kind of battery life could I really expect out of either of these. If I knew she could squeeze out a three hour movie on the QL-65, I'd go with that one.

Anyone?

 

[Decembermouse]

That's so nice of you to help her out with this!

The T4300 will be a bit faster than the QL-65, but the QL-65 comes with a much better graphics chip, the Radeon 3200, with 40 stream processors. The Intel will come with integrated Intel graphics (this particular one, the mobile GMA4500, is more than a year old), which are barely passable. I mean, I know she's not going to be doing any hardcore gaming or anything, but the Intel chips often suffer in everyday tasks. They sometimes have problems doing the 3d effects in Windows Vista/7. Playing HD video doesn't always go very well, and picture editing can be problematic. Their graphics chips don't support Flash, OpenCL, or any GPU Compute applications. Nvidia and AMD have much more well-developed graphics chips, which also tend to give you better image quality not only for pictures, but in general. Then again, I'm not sure how important that is to her or how much stuff with photos and DVD's she will be doing. Me, if I was going to get a laptop (not for gaming even), I'd get either a Core 2 Duo or an Athlon/Turion II, but it'd have to have graphics from Nvidia or ATi.

At the moment, I wouldn't bother with either of these laptops though. The new AMD mobile platform, with either the Athlon II or Turion II is superior to either of these. These chips are a newer generation than the two you're considering. Plus, they come with Radeon 4200 graphics, so if she ever feels like doing HD video or serious picture editing type tasks, using it with an HD camcorder, or hooking the laptop up to an HDTV (you don't usually get an HDMI connection with Intel graphics chips), it's future-proof for that. The battery life is better than previous generation, and they run cooler too. Here's one for $450:

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/Gateway+-+Laptop+with+AMD+Athlon%26%23153%3B+II+Dual-Core+Processor+-+Coffee+Brown/9605383.p?id=1218130488875&skuId=9605383&st=athlon%20ii&cp=1&lp=2

This Gateway in the link above will be faster than either the T4300 laptop or the QL-65 laptop, in terms of both CPU and graphics, as well as memory access, since the CPU is based on the K10.5 STARS architecture instead of K8.

(edit) with these newer processors, undervolting is pretty easy. It's a 45nm processor architecture which doesn't need as much juice as the older processors. You can probably get around 4 hours if you undervolt it a bit, and it will run cooler too. There are plenty of people here I'm sure who'd be happy to help with that, myself included.

 

[alexruiz]

Well, here is the answer. Get neither. An athlon II, or even better, a Turion II will be faster than either of them.

That's so nice of you to help her out with this!

The T4300 will be a bit faster than the QL-65, but the QL-65 comes with a much better graphics chip, the Radeon 3200, with 40 stream processors. The Intel will come with integrated Intel graphics (this particular one, the mobile GMA4500, is more than a year old), which are barely passable. I mean, I know she's not going to be doing any hardcore gaming or anything, but the Intel chips often suffer in everyday tasks. They sometimes have problems doing the 3d effects in Windows Vista/7. Playing HD video doesn't always go very well, and picture editing can be problematic. Their graphics chips don't support Flash, OpenCL, or any GPU Compute applications. Nvidia and AMD have much more well-developed graphics chips, which also tend to give you better image quality not only for pictures, but in general. Then again, I'm not sure how important that is to her or how much stuff with photos and DVD's she will be doing. Me, if I was going to get a laptop (not for gaming even), I'd get either a Core 2 Duo or an Athlon/Turion II, but it'd have to have graphics from Nvidia or ATi.

At the moment, I wouldn't bother with either of these laptops though. The new AMD mobile platform, with either the Athlon II or Turion II is superior to either of these. These chips are a newer generation than the two you're considering. Plus, they come with Radeon 4200 graphics, so if she ever feels like doing HD video or serious picture editing type tasks, using it with an HD camcorder, or hooking the laptop up to an HDTV (you don't usually get an HDMI connection with Intel graphics chips), it's future-proof for that. The battery life is better than previous generation, and they run cooler too. Here's one for $450:

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/Gateway+-+Laptop+with+AMD+Athlon%26%23153%3B+II+Dual-Core+Processor+-+Coffee+Brown/9605383.p?id=1218130488875&skuId=9605383&st=athlon%20ii&cp=1&lp=2

This Gateway in the link above will be faster than either the T4300 laptop or the QL-65 laptop, in terms of both CPU and graphics, as well as memory access, since the CPU is based on the K10.5 STARS architecture instead of K8.

(edit) with these newer processors, undervolting is pretty easy. It's a 45nm processor architecture which doesn't need as much juice as the older processors. You can probably get around 4 hours if you undervolt it a bit, and it will run cooler too. There are plenty of people here I'm sure who'd be happy to help with that, myself included.