Notebook: Which Video? Which CPU?
OK we've been here before but we're going there again.
CPU: compare A64 3200+ vs P4 3.06 vs P4M whatchamacallit 1.7
I suspect 3200+ rules the roost, a couple of you guys have em, how they holding up?
Video - can't afford a 9700M or 9800M. What I see advertised locally are various ATI's like 9000, 9200, and so forth, and various NVidia's like 5200, 440, etc etc. Iyam clueless as to which is which, there are many more listed than what I stated above. What am I looking for and looking to avoid?
Primarily a surfing rig but *some* gaming will be done on it.
:banghead: :Canflag:
CPU: compare A64 3200+ vs P4 3.06 vs P4M whatchamacallit 1.7
I suspect 3200+ rules the roost, a couple of you guys have em, how they holding up?
Video - can't afford a 9700M or 9800M. What I see advertised locally are various ATI's like 9000, 9200, and so forth, and various NVidia's like 5200, 440, etc etc. Iyam clueless as to which is which, there are many more listed than what I stated above. What am I looking for and looking to avoid?
Primarily a surfing rig but *some* gaming will be done on it.
:banghead: :Canflag:
0
Comments
Rig 1 - Compaq, A64 3200+, 512 MB, 60G HD, DVD RW, 64MB GeForce 440, 802.11g $2200 CDN
Rig 2 - Compaq, Centrino *no speed stated, guessing 1.4 or 1.5*, 512 MB, 80G HD, CD RW/DVD, 64MB GeForce 5200, 802.11g, $2100 CDN
Rig 3 - HP, P4 2.8, 512MB, 60G HD, CD RW/DVD, 128MB Radeon 9000, 802.11g, $1800 CDN
for $100 cheaper, the same as above EXCEPT 2.66 P4 and video is listed as "64MB ATI Radeon" so it could be anything.
I am loathe to go with Compaq or HP tho my primary experience was with a desktop PII 400 that ended up being virtually non-upgradeable and a horrible deal. It never broke down on me tho.
For US viewers, take $CDN X .75 to get a *rough* idea of what I'm looking at in $US.
They have a number of excellent notebooks (a lot of them are OEMd by Clevo, and they're identical to Sagers' notebooks) that fall in your price range.
But back to my list, if you had to chose at gunpoint would it be GeForce 440 or 5200? both are 64MB
Also in my experience, the P4 and Celeron(netburst) laptops I've used didn't feel as responsive as my Pentium M laptop or even my old P3 laptop, but my experience is basically with Dell Lattitude P4's on the job.
Hope this helps some, keto.
OK passed on the sale items. All of the above were integrated graphics. Pricing on separate vid card systems started a couple hun higher, a Sony with a 9700 was $2800 and not in stock.
The salesman was a good looking well spoken young guy, I bet he sells extras by the ton. He offered me a """DEAL""" on the Sony - $100 off if I took the $500 3 year warranty, for $3200 total. I'm not sure who walked away faster, me or him. But I can see some of the ladies swooning and handing over their purses to this kid, he was good.
Still no lappy for keto.
Two grand was/is the rough budget, and I realize that won't likely get me what I want by about a grand. This is a luxury item, far far from a necessity and so can easily be bypassed.
for under 2000 + it has the 9700M w128 meg
2.4 Prescott (533/1MB), 512MB DDR, 15" SXGA+ driven by a 9600m/128mb, 30GB/4200RPM HDD, CD-RW/DVD combo drive: 1899.00 CAD.
That unit has no O/S, I'd want a faster HD (bigger not important), a 2.4 PressHot doesn't impress me so that needs to be upgraded....y'know where I'm headed here? $3 grand again. So it's gonna be either step up or step back and the latter is looking like primary option for now. No sweat, as noted above it's a luxury not a need.
I want a P'M' with ATI graphics (9600 at least). There are a few options out there. But by the time you add any features, such as memory or hdd the price is $1650, before shipping and tax.
I guess that I wait. And watch to see what others are doing.....
they go for 1500 us
eMachines Notebook with AMD Mobile Athlon™ 64 Processor 3200+
Model: M6810
I really love my M6809 though.
Here's the deal: it was advertised at BB for $1999 in this morning's flyer, which was a mistake - they have a disclaimer in store saying it's $2299 but they will honour $1999 until they run out of a handful of units in stock. Which they will do today, they sold 2 more while I was there. I quickly ran to Future Shop to check pricing, the IDENTICAL unit was on the shelf at $2599.
Given the 14 day return policy, I figgered no harm in trying it out. I'll load up Doom3 (if I can) and a few other games, watch a few DVD's. If it's horrible, back it goes.
I also did something I totally don't believe in - I bought the extended service plan, 3 years worth. I've heard lots of ugly stories about laptops and am *just* leery enough to think that a few bux a month for a) in store service instead of shipping to Toshiba Toronto b) total replacement if 60 days in service or if serviced for any 4 items in 3 years is worthwhile. So, time to go load it up and see how she flies.
Oh yeah, and I made them fire it up in store, the screen is 100% fine.
Adding it to the home network was no problem, and it gets a very clean signal from our wireless router. Anything I've done so far has been very responsive.
The bundled software is very minimal but thats no big deal to me at all.
It's been Folding for 24 hours now, is on 3rd WU.
I suggest that you replace the thermal paste with your favorite thermal paste as soon as possible and not get stuck with my thermal paste problem, that is if your CPU is not stuck to your heatsink.