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General discussion

Need help finding new notebook-please

Sep 18, 2005 12:17PM PDT

Been at all the usual places looking for best bang for my buck to replace my desktop and do internet, some cool gaming, home office stuff and media. Found for about $1400 the Toshiba Satellite M45-S3551 (1GB pc2700 ddr sdram, 100gb hard dr, pentium m 1.86ghz, 2mb L2, 533mhz fsb, 802.11 b/g wireless lan) which I like but am concerned about the 1.8ghz when compared to the HP ZV6130 which has a pentium 4 with double the ghz speed but only 512MB ram and also has "dedicated video memory". WHICH IS A BETTER LONG LASTING MACHINE?

Discussion is locked

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zv6130 has an Athlon 64 3200+
Sep 18, 2005 1:49PM PDT

not a P4. The Toshiba is going to get better battery life but the zv6130 has a more powerful and 64-bit capable CPU and much better video. It's also heavy.

The Athlon 64 3200+ runs at 2GHz. The 3200+ is comparable to a 3.2GHz (3200MHz) P4 since the P4 is an inefficient architecture that was rigged to fool people into thinking it's faster than it is if they only look at clockspeed. The Pentium M and Athlon 64 (and AMD Turion) are comparable at the same clockspeed (the Pentium M is basically a minor update of the Pentium 3, the last good desktop CPU Intel ever made and the last Intel CPU I ever bought).

I'd take a look at some AMD Turion (low-power Athlon 64) notebooks too since they're more directly comparable to the Pentium M's (except the P-M's are 32-bit-only so forget running 64-bit Windows Vista next year). See the Acer Travelmate 4400 (and Ferrari 4000 if you have the cash) and these guys:
http://www.xmeld.com/html/msi1029.html
for starters.

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Gaming is the issue
Sep 18, 2005 11:30PM PDT

Machines that are equipped with either Pentium or AMD CPUs are capable of running 3D games it they have a graphics card that has dedicated resources, in otherwords, not the Intel intergrated 900 series graphics accelerator. 64 bit systems are inherently better gaming platforms but you pay a price in terms of heat and battery life (with the Athlon 64) or machines to choose from (Turion). The Toshiba is reviewed here at CNET, looks like it has the intel graphics package and bad battery life...a sucky combo. The HP has the Athlon 64 with a dedicated GPU, much better for gaming but heavy, runs hotter than many machines and has poor battery life. Don't worry so much about the speed of the processor. Look at ABS G4, Acer Ferrari, ASUS Z71 or Dell 9300. I'm about to buy a machine and have some of the same wants you have, but I'm also real concerned about weight of the machine. I'm strongly attracted to the Sony FS790 line. It doesn't have the graphics punch of the other machines I'm listed but it will handle the gaming demands I have (most peole overbuy on the notebook they choose and pay for that in higher cost, reduced battery life and weight).

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Asus Z71V
Sep 19, 2005 1:37AM PDT

The Z71v is a nice laptop for gaming, but if you go for it, wait until the 'refresh' model is out (not sure what the designation was for it.)

Plus you get the geek factor of having an Asus laptop.

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the geek factor (-:
Sep 19, 2005 4:47AM PDT

How true... what do you know about ABS G4s? They're an ASUS platform and ABS has been around for a while have been around for a while. Think that would be a better choice than buying from one of the resellors that build on ASUS whitebooks?