Your Computer Specs

Spengo · Post by **Spengo** » Thu 17 Nov, 2005 3:17 am

http://www.xtremenotebooks.com/index.ph ... el_id=1037

This one would be awesome except for one thing- Pentium M, not AMD. Hopefully, when the new notebook amd chip comes out, these people will duplicate this model but with 64bit goodness. 'Tis a heavy 8lbs though.

The geforce 7800 is cool though.

Much cheaper than alienware's and with a better gpu too.

*wishes he had money for a laptop like this*

Me too.

Working on that... Got about $350 now.

Think I can make $2k by next summer counting on that I can get another job now that the soccer season's over and including christmas, birthday, and graduation money? (gonna only ask for $$$ this year)

CompWiz · Post by **CompWiz** » Thu 17 Nov, 2005 12:34 pm

Spengo wrote:http://www.xtremenotebooks.com/index.ph ... el_id=1037
The geforce 7800 is cool though. Much cheaper than alienware's and with a better gpu too.

Actually, same GPU, I believe. Also, Alienware has a better looking case.

But they are expensive

Post by **benryves** » Thu 17 Nov, 2005 12:44 pm

I finally got a sound card (wahey) to replace the crappy AC'97... Creative Audigy SE [AKA Audigy Value]. Not at all bad, given that I don't have the room/money for an expensive speaker system.

CompWiz · Post by **CompWiz** » Thu 17 Nov, 2005 7:00 pm

I got a Mad Dog Prowler sound card for free with rebates from office max.

You have to love those deals.

kalan_vod · Post by **kalan_vod** » Thu 17 Nov, 2005 10:21 pm

I always get too lazy to send in the rebates

......

Spengo · Post by **Spengo** » Fri 18 Nov, 2005 12:09 am

CompWiz wrote:
Spengo wrote:http://www.xtremenotebooks.com/index.ph ... el_id=1037
The geforce 7800 is cool though. Much cheaper than alienware's and with a better gpu too.
Actually, same GPU, I believe. Also, Alienware has a better looking case. But they are expensive

Alienwares get REALLY expensive if you try to put the 7800 go in them.

Also, I always thought the alienware case was rather flashy and annoying. I much prefer a plain grey case with the xtreme notebooks logo in the corner as opposed to a bright shiny blue thingy with glowing alien heads on it.

Acer's ferrari has the coolest looking case in my opinion. It just lacks gpu goodness. Oh yeah, it also is two pounds lighter than the alienware one.

lloydkirk1989 · Post by **lloydkirk1989** » Fri 18 Nov, 2005 1:29 am

I don't know why, but it seems like acer's intel notebooks are cheaper than their amd64 notebooks. Like this one for example has the same specs as the acer ferrari 4000 for $400 less. The 4 hours of battery life is pretty sweet too. For $200 more than the ferrari, you get this, which is like the best desktop replacement I've ever seen. Maybe its my imagination...

Spengo · Post by **Spengo** » Mon 21 Nov, 2005 5:08 am

I've been looking at the pentium M notebooks too, and they seem to own the turions and mobile athlons as far as battery life gpu options, and even prices go.

They are cheaper, have better graphics cards, and are usually lighter. It seems that right now, the only advantage turions and mobile athlons have over the pentium Ms is the 64 bit goodness. When amd's new notebook cpu comes out, will it be able to compete with the weight, battery life, and price of the pentium Ms?

sager's pM notebook
x-treme notebook with pentium M
and even alienware's pentium M

These are all about 8lbs, have geforce 7800 go (except the alienware which has a 6800 go), and have a battery life of 2.5 hours.

currahee · Post by **currahee** » Mon 21 Nov, 2005 1:33 pm

The Pentium Ms are quite decent CPUs themselves. Gotta give credit to the Intel devs in Israel who developed them. I think the only thing that holds them back from actually competing with Athlons is that they've been designed for mobility in mind. As for future generation Athlon-Ms, they had better have Dual Core. Who knows what kind of power Dual Core Pentium Ms will yeild.

benryves wrote:I finally got a sound card (wahey) to replace the crappy AC'97... Creative Audigy SE [AKA Audigy Value]. Not at all bad, given that I don't have the room/money for an expensive speaker system.

Lucky you, if I want to upgrade my sound I would need to buy an external Soundblaster

lloydkirk1989 · Post by **lloydkirk1989** » Mon 21 Nov, 2005 5:54 pm

yeah, pentium M is probably Intel's best cpu. I was looking at some performance charts comparing the pentium m and the turion 64. Apparently, the performance differentials are very minimal, one or the other winning by 2 or 3%. Thats not including the fact that pentium m owns the turion in battery life and heat production. Like spengo said, the only advantage is the 64 bits, which realy isn't a requirement now nor will it be for a long time. The next release of MS windows will have a 32 bit version. So for now, I think I'll go with a pentium m laptop and wait for the next release of the acer ferrari.

currahee · Post by **currahee** » Mon 21 Nov, 2005 6:00 pm

Well again, the Turion isn't really what you'd call a processor- it's AMD's pseudo answer to Intel's highly successful Centrino platform. Anandtech mentions the Turion is AMD's mobile platform and is just an essentially rebranded Athlon 64 Mobile.
What the Pentium M needs now, is a decent desktop chipset, SSE3 extensions, ramped up bus speed (or get rid of it altogether in favor for an HT-like system) and it could easily be on par with the desktop Athlons.

lloydkirk1989 · Post by **lloydkirk1989** » Mon 21 Nov, 2005 6:16 pm

Until amd releases a 64 bit mobile processor at a decent price and with other advantages besides the 64 bits, Intel centrino technology will dominate the mobile market. Intel has also got better publicity. Ask the average computer tech guy and he will tell you intel is better.

Spengo · Post by **Spengo** » Tue 22 Nov, 2005 2:47 am

Here is a great article comparing pentium M and turion. It seems that in performance, turion is slightly better with pentium M right on it's heels, (except for Doom 3 which apparently the pM gets a few more fps on) and in battery life, pM is way better during processor intensive stuff, and the turion is very slightly better during idle time. In the time the article was written, most pentium M notebooks were more expensive than turions, but today, the pentium M seems cheaper- even with MUCH better gpus.

currahee · Post by **currahee** » Tue 22 Nov, 2005 4:34 am

Oh snap! That's a 1.6Ghz pM! Gotta read that. (Same as my laptop CPU)
Oh yeah did you guys know that HyperTransport was actually implemented in the earlier Athlons as well?

I was kind of shocked to have read it. The website which I found the photo said that HT 1.0 apparently was a bit "flawed", comparing it to the new HT performance.

Brrr... it's cold here. I'm starting to not like my laptop for not producing enough heat to light up my room

I wonder if that's good heat too that radiates out of your computer...

Spengo · Post by **Spengo** » Tue 22 Nov, 2005 4:57 am

Well, with pentium Ms I'd probably want 2.0Ghz at least. More than that probably doesn't make much difference gameswise, but less would be slow.

Besides, as far as cpu's go, the pentium M's are getting pretty cheap.