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Need help deciding processor

C

corup7ion

Weaksauce
Joined
Apr 21, 2006
Messages
121
I'm buying through HP, and I want the best overall performance for my money. Here are the options I have. I have the bottom one chosen. (so the higher i go the more money I save)

Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo Processor P8700 (2.53GHz)
-$1000.00

Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo Processor T9550 (2.66 GHz)
-$850.00

Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Quad Processor Q9000 (2.00Ghz)
-$750.00

Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo Processor T9600 (2.80GHz)
-$600.00

Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Quad Processor Q9100 (2.26 GHz)
-$250.00

Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Quad Processor QX9300 (2.53Hz)
 
Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Quad Processor QX9300 (2.53Hz)
No price??

What do you want the performance for?
Do you intend to overclock?
 
Can you go with the cheapest option, pull the chip, sell it, then buy a better chip for cheaper than HP's prices?
 
I'd go with the T9550. No point in getting the T9600 because you're only getting 130 MHz for $250. It also depends on what you're using the computer for, but I wouldn't put a quad in a notebook. Runs hot and drains your battery.
 
Well, lot's of projects with photoshop, gaming, and I want a very clean and lagless experience.
 
I wouldnt even consider an LGA775 chip anymore. Being that you can get an x58 motherboard now for $200-250, and the Ram prices have dropped into the sub $100 range for 6GB of DDR3... AND you can get an i7 920 for under $300 (which overclocks like a champ), I would go that route. I wouldnt pay more than $200 for an LGA775 since its a dead end.
 
undertheradar said:
I wouldnt even consider an LGA775 chip anymore. Being that you can get an x58 motherboard now for $200-250, and the Ram prices have dropped into the sub $100 range for 6GB of DDR3... AND you can get an i7 920 for under $300 (which overclocks like a champ), I would go that route. I wouldnt pay more than $200 for an LGA775 since its a dead end.
Click to expand...

This is a laptop, not a desktop, so these are all going to be Socket P and not LGA775.

Is this your main rig? If I was spending the money and it was for gaming/photoshop, I would pick the T9550, spend the 850 you save on an SSD or some nice HDD, photoshop is going to suffer from the HDD and lack of a scratch disk more than from the CPU. If you wanted a quad it would be a toss up of the Q9000 and Q9100 but is 260MHz and 6MB of cache worth the extra 500 bucks? I still think it would be better spent on an SSD or the like.
 
undertheradar said:
I wouldnt even consider an LGA775 chip anymore. Being that you can get an x58 motherboard now for $200-250, and the Ram prices have dropped into the sub $100 range for 6GB of DDR3... AND you can get an i7 920 for under $300 (which overclocks like a champ), I would go that route. I wouldnt pay more than $200 for an LGA775 since its a dead end.
Click to expand...

Responses like this make me laugh. Did you even bother to read the original post?

Anyway, as I recommended, the T9550 is the best bang-for-the-buck. For gaming and photoshop, it's more than enough.
 
undertheradar said:
oops, sorry. nowhere in the OP did I see a reference to the procs being 'mobile'.
Click to expand...

The processor numbers give it away, as they start with "P" and "T" the others (the quads) are not desktop chips either.
 
Most of my background is with AMD, so the T's and P's dont pop out at me, although I have seen that before when shopping for a laptop (okay, I have an i7 now, but still... before that intel didnt even exist to me...lol).
 
Go balls deep and go for the fastest dual core you can, the T9600. You know you want to.
 
PC_User said:
Not the best advice. Like I said, the difference of 130 MHz is not worth the additional $250.
Click to expand...

QFT

Don't waste your money on something so small. 250 can do allot else where.
 
Great info. To add, This will be my main rig. Would it be smart to purchase a slower CPU and purchase one through Intel instead? additionally. What is a SSD?

Also - You say games and photoshop will suffer more from the HDD. 1TB 5400 RPM.. Should I start with a 350 7200 RPM and add another? Is that possible with a laptop? This computer comes with a few.. not top end items..

It comes with a Geforce 130M or something like that. I know there is way better. I know this isn't the place, but if i purchased a better one down the road can I replace it personally?
 
corup7ion said:
Great info. To add, This will be my main rig. Would it be smart to purchase a slower CPU and purchase one through Intel instead? additionally. What is a SSD?

Also - You say games and photoshop will suffer more from the HDD. 1TB 5400 RPM.. Should I start with a 350 7200 RPM and add another? Is that possible with a laptop? This computer comes with a few.. not top end items..

It comes with a Geforce 130M or something like that. I know there is way better. I know this isn't the place, but if i purchased a better one down the road can I replace it personally?
Click to expand...

An SSD is a "Sold State Disk" the new "wave" in storage tech, read/write speeds and random access times dwarf mechanical drives but are VERY pricey for the amount of space you get. I have 2 HDD's, I use one for a scratch disk, photoshops files get very large when working and so use the hard drive for swap space since it can not all be held in RAM. What I do sometimes is make a RAM drive and load the files to it and use it as a scratch disk, the difference in times to apply an effect or whatever you are doing is night and day. My PC with a 6GB RAM drive being used as a scratch disk with a E2180 (cheap dual core clocked to 3GHz) is faster than my Q9550 (OCed to 3.8GHz) using a normal hard drive for photoshop work. Because if you have a file that has grown to 10GB in size, a large amount is going to end up being written in swap space on the HDD, once this happens it becomes the limiting factor in speed. Search Google or Adobe's website, they have allot more info on scratch disks and the like.
 
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1x Super Talent or OCZ 32GB SSD ($130.00) for your booting partition C:\
1x Super Talent or OCZ 32GB SSD ($130.00) for your Apps, swap and temp files D:\
2x Seagate 1TB each ($200.00 for the pair) in raid 0 for your data E:\


But if you have lots of cash, you could raid 0 a couple of 128GB SSD or 2x 256GB SSD which is super fast and you would get a decent amount of space and super fast working drive, much better than any SCSI setup. AND more importantly, no noise and no heat at all, no moving parts, except for the PSU, processor and video card fans.
 
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The t9550 is your best all around choice here,but be warned.You will face alot of heat issues with that chip.You better have 10 batteries a solor cell and the cord anywhere you go.50 percent battery life gone for just cutting it on.lol
 
4 drives in a laptop? I doubt this. I'm looking into a sager NPS5797, looks like it comes with 1 350 gb 7200 RPM drive. how should I go about this
?
 
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