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General discussion

advice on new dv7 computer

Jun 19, 2010 2:00PM PDT

which is better if you had a choice a Intel I5 430m, 2.5 ghz with 2 320 hd at 5400 or a intel I5-430m 2.26 ghz with 2 320hd at 7200 running windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit. Does the faster 7200HD make up for the lesser (2.26 to 2.5 ) processor speed or is it a wash. These are at Sams the rest of the spec's on the 2.5ghz sams hasn't posted on the web site yet. The two computers are dv7-3188cl and dv-7-4087c

Discussion is locked

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If you are just enquiring about hard drive speeds
Jun 19, 2010 8:39PM PDT

then I wouldn't be too concerned.

I'm no expert but for the average user, (like me), hard drive speeds have little noticeable effect. The read/write speed increase is in micro-miliseconds, and is too small for the end user to see any difference.

Similarly with the processors. 2.5 Ghz or 2,26 Ghz is pretty much the same.

What may improve performance is RAM. Too little, especially on Windows 7, will significantly slow down performance. But you don't say what RAM is being offered, so it is difficult to judge that.

Mark

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Ram
Jun 20, 2010 2:30AM PDT

They both have 6GB of ddr3

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No
Jun 19, 2010 10:26PM PDT

No, the faster HDDs won't even come close to making up for the loss in CPU speed. However, as stated, the average user is unlikely to notice the difference between 2.25GHz and 2.5GHz or 5400RPM and 7200RPM.

While I personally wouldn't buy an HP system, I'd much rather just burn my money so I at least get something worthwhile out of the deal, if I had to choose between those two systems I'd go with the first one based on the specs you gave. RAM will make a difference, but can also generally be easily upgraded.

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Yes
Jun 19, 2010 11:36PM PDT

I changed an old Acer ter-600 hard drive from 4200 RPM to 5400 RPM and the improved drive helped the machine improve the boot time from 4 minutes to 2 minutes.

Drive speed can matter but unless you have a BENCHMARK to show for it, you can't tell where the speed increase or loss will be. In my old laptop it was night and day differences because the new drive was some 11 millisecond seek time versus the old 18 millisecond seek time.

If you are to compare hardware in detail don't forget the other numbers. It is possible for a 5400 RPM drive to beat a 7200 RPM drive if we have other hard drive performance parameters in favor of the 5400.

This may only confuse you so think about this. You can change hard drives with ease. The CPU is an item I've seen changed only a few times in 20 years (in laptops.)
Bob

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...and if you upgrade
Jun 20, 2010 3:21AM PDT

Well, if you ever decided to upgrade for more speed, a SSD will replace one of those 320GB's and you'll see a BIG differance in speed.

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Beware the SSD trap.
Jun 20, 2010 3:26AM PDT

My HP MINI 1000 came with SSD an is the slowest machine I ever used. We did replace that SSD and speed improved dramatically.

If there is a lesson here is that SSD doesn't mean fast or faster.
Bob

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I have an SSD
Jun 20, 2010 5:30AM PDT

on this Vista rig I am using.

I think I was a little too early with my experiment. It does seem a bit faster than an ordinary hard disk, (although I haven't done any benchmark tests), but it is flaky and falls down too often.

Mark

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SSD
Jun 20, 2010 1:56PM PDT

I just installed my 2nd SSD this weekend (Kingston SSDNow V 64GB)in my laptop since I've been so happy with my first one in my desktop. On a Windows 7 machine, with TRIM, my first one is over 6 months old, hasn't lost a second and in my practical test. Here is the result. 7200RPM boots up in 75 seconds. Cloned HD to SSD and the boot up is 31 seconds. Opening Word from a fresh install of Office 2010, 7200 takes 13 seconds, SSD takes 2 (Yep two seconds). It's like instant.
Sorry to hear your results on a HP netbook is not as you'd like, but have you compaired it to a cloned spin up HD?
OP, good luck with your new machine!
Tom

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Just to complete the HP MIni item
Jun 20, 2010 9:17PM PDT

That SSD is definitely bottom of the barrel. We ended up replacing it with a SSD with better specs and yes it was a clone job. My point here is simple and has repeated itself a few times. SSD doesn't mean fast or better. It might or it might not. A shame there is not some rating that you could know ahead of time.
Bob

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advice on new dv7 computer
Jun 20, 2010 9:22PM PDT

I installed last week a Kingston SSD 64gb in my Dell laptop Studio 1749,
had 2 7200rpm Hard drives 4gig Ram took 75 seconds to load, but now need only max 25 second, yes 25second and everything comes in an instant. My best choice ever, also less noise and fan don't run so often. As I, for Years have all my documents, Photos ect on a external hard drive, recommend for everyone and if you need to work somewhere just take your external hard drive with you. good luck.
Jurgen

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SSD
Jun 20, 2010 9:27PM PDT

I forgot to say , I made a clean install of windows7 on the SSD and all the drivers I downloaded before from the Dell-side and saved it on my external Drive. Now I have still my full system on my old Hard drive so something goes wrong I just change it.