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Dell Laptop Purchase

C

CadniuM

n00b
Joined
Mar 30, 2004
Messages
33
Hey all,

A quick question (hopefully). I know quite a bit about desktops but laptops i am a bit sketchy on - my brother is buying one and asked him to scope out two different Dell's he can get through work for cheap. The two options he has are the 5150 or the 8600 (both with the 5200go cards which i told him to see if he could upgrade on the 8600 to the 9600 vid card). So a few quick questions:

The Inspiron 5150 has a 3.06 Ghz Pentium 4 processor whilst the 8600 is quoted at "1.60 GHz, 2MB Cache, 400 MHz FSB". Why is the clock speed so much lower - i am guessing a different architecture but dont know.

Other than that both setups are pretty similar, with the 8600 coming with a 64MB vid card. The 8600 costs about $AUS350 more though.

Any feedback is appreciated.

CadniuM
 
OK. Found some decent info on the net about the differences, so I guess the question now is:
Centrino 1.6 Ghz of Pentium 4M 3.06 GHz?

From what i read the 4M will have slightly faster performance with the cost being reduced battery life.

CadniuM
 
get the centrino, the battery life is worth it and you wont notice a difference in speed, too many otehr bottlenecks.
 
the 8600 has a M cpu, whithe the 5150 uses a regular P4
the M chip is a bit slower, but should be better for laptop (in what it can do, and in battery life)
the M makes more sense if you are on the go often (fly, need to do work where there is no outlet, etc).
if your just getting it to have a easy to carry pc then go with the cheaper one.


p.s.
if you plan to game on this thing, i would go for a laptop with the 9800 pro.


edit: lol.. 2 post while iw as posting
 
Stick with the Centrino powered laptop, the difference in speed is far too little and the battery life will last you much longer
 
Cheers for the replies. I've told him to go with the Centrino and try to upgrade the video card if possible - dont know if he can because its through his work and they only offer certain packages.

CadniuM
 
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