Processor Upgrade (Pentium M) VS. Price: Which has the best price/tech ratio?
 

Hello,
I'm in the process of customizing a dell inspiron laptop. I'm checking out the Inspiron 9300, which is a 17inch display laptop.

Here are the choices for processors:
Pentium® M 760 Processor (2GHz/533MHz FSB) [add $400]
Pentium® M 750 Processor (1.86GHz/533MHz FSB) [add $200]
Pentium® M 740 Processor (1.73GHz/533MHz FSB) [add $100]
Pentium® M 730 Processor (1.60GHz/533MHz FSB) [base/standard]

I understand that getting the latest and newest technology would be "penalized" by paying a dear price for it. I'm planning on using the laptop for stuff like email, internet, watching DVDs sometimes, etc.
I would like this laptop to be able to adapt to the technological advances that may come in 2 or 3 years. In other words, I don't want to keep buying a laptop every 2 years. I'd like to have a laptop that will last me as long as possible.


Which processor has the best price to power ratio? For example, it seems that paying an extra 400 dollars for the P-M 760 processor seems to be only out of tech-lust.

Your ideas, comments, please.


Jeff

you really won't notice any difference between the 2 gig and the 1.6 gig. not worth the extra money imho

I agree with rshaw... I have several of the 1.6 and a couple of the 1.8 and 2ghz in the field and you really can't tell a difference.

However it is worth the bump in price to goto a Latitude... if you can handle a smaller screen. The Parts and support are much better...

My 2 cents.

Could it be simply because of the power-saving features? I know that when you're not plugged in, the CPU runs at a lower rate so the battery doesn't burn up.

well sure, on battery power the bios can set to throttle the cpu speed, and lcd brightness, and benchmarks will show the 2 gig as faster, but running real world apps, you realy won't notice, or not enough to justify $400 extra. maybe if the 2 gig was on a 800mhz fsb board, the $400 might be worth it.

Most of our guys run plugged in all the time (it's amazing the batteries last) but they use them for everyday office apps and the difference is negligible, more memory seems to make a bigger difference.

We run latitude d600's and d400's and based on those i'd save the $400 and go with the 1.6 and bump the memory up to 1gb...

If you're going to go with Dell for a notebook, go for the Inspiron because the failure rate overall for the Inspiron line is only 4% (which is still high - all the big-name notebooks have miserable failure rates) wheras the Latitude line boasts a 14% or higher failure rate.

I'd recommend the Pentium M 1.86Ghz as its performance for most tasks is roughly equivalent to a 2.4Ghz Pentium 4 - hardly bleeding-edge but sufficient for most daily tasks, without paying the premium for the highest-Ghz version of that CPU.

where you're getting these statitstics?

original poster:

what are the cache specifications on the chips you have listed?

i'm running a pentium M 1.7ghz w/ 512mb here. it's more than fast enough for what i need it for (exactly what you need yours for). now that i've had this machine for a while, if i could do it all over again i'd go for the longest battery life possible. (well with reasonable performance .. i don't mean i want a 400 mhz chip)

do you really want to carry around a bulky / heavy 17" ? in my opinion thin, light, and long battery life is better than a little bit more performance. and anyways, you won't even notice too much of a difference with the cpu clock speed. if you want better performance get faster ram, and a 7200 rpm hard drive (however my 7200 rpm drive gets pretty hot and eats a little bit too much of the battery)

A study I read a while back when investigating which lines of laptops my company should sell. Believe it or not, of the big names, Dell actually has the lowest failure rate.

If you want real quality: The quality of whitebox systems is actually higher than the big names because the big names beat the motherboard and case manufacturers to death. Believe it or not, there are only five or six laptop (e.g., chassis and motherboard) manufacturers in the world, and all the laptop brands (including Apple) buy components from those manufacturers.