which of these laptops is best?

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code_wrong

One has an AMD Sempron CPU the other has Intel Pentium M CPU
The one with the Pentium M is £150 more expensive
There are other subtle differences between the latops as well.

What I am really interested in is the CPU comparison
the Pentium has 2MB level 2 cache the Semperon only has 128KB
I know that cache is imporant but I also knw that FSB is important
The Pentium has 400MHz FSB but the Semperon has a whopping 1600MHz

confused

please enlighten me

the laptops:
http://www.comet.co.uk/cometbrowse/compare.do?sku=267104&sku=296929&categoryId=572
 
Everything is better about the Sempron except the HDD storage and the L2
cache, although all you mentioned you cared about was the processor. You
definitely don't want to get anything with that slow FSB. That is about 3
generations behind what is being put out now. I don't see why the choice is
hard for you. The Sempron is cheaper.
 
Collon said:
Everything is better about the Sempron except the HDD storage and the L2
cache, although all you mentioned you cared about was the processor. You
definitely don't want to get anything with that slow FSB. That is about 3
generations behind what is being put out now. I don't see why the choice
is hard for you. The Sempron is cheaper.
Click to expand...

My post may be misleading - I am interested in comments on all aspects, but
I really want to know if there is a downside to having such a relatively
small L2 cache. That could be a bottleneck in the system? -

The other thing I just noticed - both systems are wide screen - I can't see
the need for this. TV is for watching movies and playing games (the spinning
of the DVD is a distraction on the computer and the latest games will not
play on your 1 year old computer) - documents are generally portrait shape -
web pages too - reading a very wide document is difficult, isn't it?

How do we make a laptop screen wide screen? - simply remove a strip of
screen from the top or the bottom - saves money on TFTs - pointless exercise
IMO

am I wrong?
 
You need to go somewhere that displays widescreen laptops and get a
demonstration. I am talking to you now on a 17" widescreen HP zd8000. If
games are your thing, you don't want to get a laptop. That is a waste of
time and money. You have misconceptions about the widescreen display. The
dvd's look great on mine and I bought mine just so I could set in my
recliner and type my documents. MS Word has no problem with the widescreen,
but of course you can make the text bigger in any word processor if you are
not comfortable with the display. For example, sometimes I will change my
view in Word from 100% to 110%. It is quick and easy, but I would not trade
my laptop for the world.

What you ought to do is chunk both laptops you are considering and go find
one that has all the features of the Sempron but also the L2 cache. But
whether you pick the Sempron or the Pentium, your games are going to be bad
on the laptop. I don't know any laptop that will come with an LCD that has a
contrast ratio greater than 400:1 and smaller than a 16ms response rate.
Most laptops won't even have those specs listed, and when considering LCD's
those are the two specs you need. This is because people are not buying
laptops for games and great displaying graphics.

Now that we have written off games, I can tell you that you don't have to
worry about the cache when you are actually considering something with a 400
fsb. The fsb speed is so behind the times that that is what is going to hold
you back.
 
code_wrong said:
One has an AMD Sempron CPU the other has Intel Pentium M CPU
The one with the Pentium M is £150 more expensive
There are other subtle differences between the latops as well.

What I am really interested in is the CPU comparison
the Pentium has 2MB level 2 cache the Semperon only has 128KB
I know that cache is imporant but I also knw that FSB is important
The Pentium has 400MHz FSB but the Semperon has a whopping 1600MHz
Click to expand...


Ah ha, a 1600MHz FSB?
I am a bit skeptical about that claim because I have seen similar
machines/the same,
advertised as 300MHz FSB so you really need to check this out as it may at
best
be misleading. I am pretty confused by the situation myself.
A look at the AMD site gives "The AMD SempronT processor's full-featured
capabilities can include HyperTransportT technology, up to 512k total
high-performance cache, advanced 333Mhz front-side bus, 3DNow! "
Unlilkely that they have achieved a 5 fold increase?
Also the CPU is running at 1800MHz so its a bit unlikely methinks that
the FSB is 1600MHz. I believe I have even seen some machiines
advertised with faster FSB's then CPU's!!
http://www.amd.com/us-en/Processors/ProductInformation/0,,30_118_11599_11603,00.html


I believe the AMD will be faster but you need to find benchmarks these maybe
helpful:-

http://www.cpuscorecard.com/all_cpus.htm
http://www.tomshardware.com/2004/12/21/the_mother_of_all_cpu_charts_part_2/page22.html

I believe the Intels burn more power which is a problem with notebooks hence
they
have to drop the CPU speed and ramp-up the cache to try and compensate for
it.

http://forums.amd.com/lofiversion/index.php/t61852.html


Let us know if you find an answer :O)
It will probably start "it depends on what your want to do............"
 
Emperor's New Widescreen said:
Ah ha, a 1600MHz FSB?
I am a bit skeptical about that claim because I have seen similar
machines/the same,
advertised as 300MHz FSB so you really need to check this out as it may at
best
be misleading. I am pretty confused by the situation myself.
A look at the AMD site gives "The AMD SempronT processor's full-featured
capabilities can include HyperTransportT technology, up to 512k total
high-performance cache, advanced 333Mhz front-side bus, 3DNow! "
Unlilkely that they have achieved a 5 fold increase?
Also the CPU is running at 1800MHz so its a bit unlikely methinks that
the FSB is 1600MHz. I believe I have even seen some machiines
advertised with faster FSB's then CPU's!!
http://www.amd.com/us-en/Processors/ProductInformation/0,,30_118_11599_11603,00.html


I believe the AMD will be faster but you need to find benchmarks these maybe
http://www.tomshardware.com/2004/12/21/the_mother_of_all_cpu_charts_part_2/page22.html

I believe the Intels burn more power which is a problem with notebooks hence
they
have to drop the CPU speed and ramp-up the cache to try and compensate for
it.

http://forums.amd.com/lofiversion/index.php/t61852.html


Let us know if you find an answer :O)
It will probably start "it depends on what your want to do............"
Click to expand...

However......
http://www.infoworld.com/article/04/11/23/HNsempron_1.html
Seems to favour the pentium.
 
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