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Laptop help...

C

corcesca

Junior Member
I'm looking for a laptop but I can't decide on what to get... AMD64 Turion or Pentium-M... I had some friends tell me to get the Intel one because it has DDR2 ram. I doubt that'll be much of a difference over the DDR ram in the AMD systems.

I'll mostly be using this for programming/coding/scripting ... whatever you want to call it, and maybe for movies or games when I'm bored either Guild Wars or CS which isn't very demanding for video preformance anyways.

HP/Compaq customizable ones are out of the question.. since they won't ship it to where I live (Canada).
 
P-M is faster than the Turion. I dont know which one lasts longer, but the Turion uses 25/35 watts depending on model and the P-M uses 25 or less watts. DDR2 isnt necessarily faster, but in laptops DDR1/2 doesnt really change performance.

Another part of your equation depends on how much you can spend. Put up a link on which laptop you think you want and us, the forum people, can tell you whether its a good deal and what to upgrade.
 
First I HIGHLY recommend you read a lot of the threads here, even search the Notebook forum using Turion. This question has been asked a lot. But for now, here's the reader's digest version:

Turion 64: basically a low-power mobile A64, roughly 10% faster than P-M in most tasks, roughly 10% less batt life than P-M in most usage; more cost effective than Centrino in general

DDR2 doesn't make a bit of difference in the overall performance of the notebook when comparing Intel to AMD. The bus architecture on the Intel vs AMD systems is very different and thus the memory is as well; for now you needn't worry about the type of memory.

Price range? Screen size?
 
I read the forums... most are US models which I can't get here. I have a $1500 budget..that's in Canadian dollars.. and yes I know about the 10% difference but is that using the ML chip or MT chip? I've been looking at the HP/Compaq ones...V2310, nx6125 since i can't get any other Turion laptops from that company here. I don't have much of a selection I guess. Both of those use the ML-28... I would like to get a ML-30 or MT-30, there's also the Acer ones but most of them didn't get good reviews... the high point of it was the video card... X600/X700.

Screen size.. well WXGA would be better...14-15 inches...
 
There are not many MT-based machines yet. The 10% approximation is based on the ML chips, which are 35W.

For what you are talking about I would venture into your local Best Buy (or Future Shop?) and check out the Gateway 7510gx. It is around $1200USD, 15.4" WXGA, A64 3700+, 1GB RAM, DVDRW, 128MB X600 graphics. Great machine for the money and will even do a little gaming.

Acer makes decent laptops. Their quality control seems to be a little sketchy, so I would get a good warranty with one. Otherwise they are good quality and have a lot of features for the money. Right now the X700 is the best bang for the buck GPU, so try to get that if you can.

It sounds like gaming is a second priority, so focus on the other specs first. That Gateway has a lot for the money, check it out.

EDIT

Check out our initial comparison of the Acer Ferrari 4000 (Turion ML-37) and Acer 8104 (Pentium M 2GHz) here:
http://www.laptoplogic.com/news/06/27/2005/326/0/
 
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