Processor choices

[MickJ]

I am in the process of choosing a new laptop, the old one was fried in a thundestorm. Luckily it was insured.

 

The choice of procesor is where I cannot make up my mind as to the one best for the job.

 

It will be running XP Home edition with a wireless 802.11g (54 Mbps)and 10/100 LAN, DVD/CD-RW/DVD-RW combo drive and all the usual bits.

 

Mainly used for number crunching, word processing, Web design, DTP and Photo editing, in fact almost anything except Video editing.

 

So, any thoughts out there of which is the most useful processor out of the following, not listed in any order of preference.

 

AMD Athlon XP-M 2500+

Pentium M 735

Pentium M 1.6GHz

 

Thanks

[jeepster]

i've got a 2ghz mobile p4, and i dont think you should get anything less, software these days requires so much (some might say uneccessary) processing power that anything less than 2ghz will be obsolete by the time you get it home. i bought mine last year when 2ghz was the fastest mobile processor you could buy, but now it struggles sometimes with multiple windows and heavy photoshop use

[Jem]

i would agree with jeepster anything smaller than a 2 gig cpu would be a waste of time, but if you can, you want the highest cpu you can get, so as to be future proof

[MickJ]

OK thanks, that's the Pentium 4 1.6 out of the running.

 

Do either of you know how fast the Pentuin M 735 runs? Can't find any info from Intel on this.

[MickJ]

Thanks, found it and it runs @ 1.7GHz

 

Looks like I will have to consider the 755 @ 2.0GHz at least it has 2Mb L2 cache which should help the speed.

 

AMD XP-M only has 640K.

 

Presume the 2Mb cache is better overall than 640k?

 

[ 25. July 2004, 03:57 PM: Message edited by: MickJ ]

[jeepster]

is the 755 the new celeron? i dont know much about them but they're usually good (cheaper) altenatives to pentiums. 2mb cahce is indeed better than 640k

i still dont know anyone that has bought an AMD chip and been totally pleased with it, i know they sell millions of the things and they now have a good reputation (for price if nothing else) but everyone i know whos tried them comes back to intel before long.

[MickJ]

Have a look here as the 755 is listed with the Pentium M's.

 

Must agree on AMD, have one in the desktop, not impressed, thought it was me being negative. Always had Intel chips before this one.

 

Most Laptops seem to have AMD when you look in the magazines, especially those in the top 10 lists. Seem to do well in the Worldbench tests even if nothing else is in their favour.

 

[ 25. July 2004, 05:11 PM: Message edited by: MickJ ]

[chesters1]

quote:

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but everyone i know whos tried them comes back to intel before long.

---

not me ,now the floating point issue has been fixed its AMD all the way and probably 90% of pc`s sold

i cant fault modern AMD cpu`s but if you like the others then go for it.

[poledark]

Forgive the naive question, but is multi tasking aided by lots of memory?

 

Den

[jeepster]

definately, the more RAM the better