about to spend cash...

[cameron-NSE/Mood Deluxe]

easy now krusties,

im about to go full on and by a new laptop and would love to hear from anyone here...

from my research it seems that many laptops have either Intel Centrino, or M processors....and the speeds on these chips seems slow on paper...compared to a Pentuim 4...

Is there something i don't know about other Intel processors?
I am under the assumption that i want a P4 but ive only seen a few models...what is the difference and should i consider these strange Intel chips?

cheers cam

 

[Faction]

Go for a Centrino. No question. Clock speed may be low, but the work differently to P4 chips and my Centrino 1.7GHz laptop is roughly on a par with a 2.8GHz P4. In addition, their power consumption is much lower than the P4, which means much quieter operation as there's less heat to dissipate, and battery life kicks the shit out of any P4 you care to name. Occasionally at gigs I get earth-loop problems with my soundcard, and generally cure it by unplugging the laptop from the mains. I have absolutely no fear about running the laptop off the battery for the whole set. They're also thinner and lighter than the P4.

My advice to you would be to go for at least a 2GHz Centrino. You won't regret it. I got mine from http://www.nusystems.co.uk - this is the one I have: http://www.nusystems.co.uk/buy.asp?p=0&g=57&b=11

Good luck!

 

[Speakafreaka]

There is an article (and round up) of laptops in this months FM magazine, which you'll probably find useful before you part with your hard earned.

 

[Monkey Do]

Centrino has some trickery to enable it to perform faster calculations with lower power consumption than the equivalent P4 and has integrated wifi networking.

Centrino benchmarks higher than faster clock speed P4's, the only benchmark I could find rated a 1.6Ghz Centrino as outperforming a 2.66Ghz P4 on similar systems but I'm sure google will turn up more specifics on what you are thinking about buying (the processor isn't the be all and end all of PC/Notebook performance). This site might help:

http://www.notebookforums.com/forumdisplay.php?f=107

 

[cameron-NSE/Mood Deluxe]

aha!
was hoping you'd show up Col!

so basically if im used to a p4 3.2ghz then roughly speaking a centrino 2ghz would be comparable? thats what i was wondering...so it actually works differently, not SLOWER?

what is the fastest centrino speed?
ill check out those links now...

the other thing im slghtly worried about is that all the sofware SX3, Live 4, Komplete 2 etc all reccomend p4's.....but maybe thats just outdated or something...


thanks Colin,

 

[cameron-NSE/Mood Deluxe]

kay...
Colin,,,me thinks im gonna cramp yer style and get the same machine as you...
only thing is i really wanted a 17inch screen and 2 gigs RAM...but i know i can live with 15inch and 1 gig....
and what say you on hard disk speed...ive always been told that 7200 is the only way to go but nu systems biggest disks are 5400..and i want a big drive!

the only other thing to suss out is whether they can sort me USA friendly power and plugs...

x
cam

 

[cameron-NSE/Mood Deluxe]

oh and whats the difference between Centrino and Celliron?

 

[Faction]

That'll be you, me and Andrew all on the same machine!

I'm very happy with mine. Nusystems go up to 2.1GHz, the current fastest (I think) and the CL-56 chassis will handle 2GB RAM (although this means the memory speed goes down to 333MHz). Personally I think for audio you need to prioritse HDD speed over size, but that's a choice you have to make for youself.

There are Centrino laptops with a 17" screen, but most of the ones I've seen are based on the Clevo chassis which has the firewire port on the front edge of the laptop. Ask Andrew what a shit idea that is if you've got a firewire soundcard...

 

[Faction]

oh and whats the difference between Centrino and Celliron?

Celeron = no
Centrino = yes

That's all you need to know.

 

[cameron-NSE/Mood Deluxe]

gotcha.

thanx and il let ya know how it goes...

btw Heart of Gold is my fave track on ....Reactor...( also a big fan of Niel Youngs song of the same name!)
x
cam

 

[CariFairy]

i need a cheap pc

less than 350 but as good as possible


how can it be done

 

[Monkey Do]

...ive always been told that 7200 is the only way to go but nu systems biggest disks are 5400..and i want a big drive!

That refers to the spin speed of the drive, you really want to make sure that you get one with 7200 as hard drive is the main bottleneck in laptops and 7200 is noticably a lot faster when it comes to data access.

If your machine of choice will only come with a 5400 then you can pick up a name brand 7200 60gb for about 100 quid - I'd recommend spending the extra especially if you are going to be working with big multimedia files.

 

[Monkey Do]

i need a cheap pc

less than 350 but as good as possible


how can it be done

Best bet is Dell Outlet (Refurbished) http://www1.euro.dell.com/content/default.aspx?c=uk&l=en&s=dfh

or second hand from the paper

 

[CariFairy]

what about ebay there are people offering to build them very cheaply

 

[CariFairy]

its for my 18th birthday on monday and my parents are giving a bit towards it so i can afford a total of about 300 to 380 if its worth it....

meeeh

 

[makdaddy]

i need a cheap pc

less than 350 but as good as possible


how can it be done

this.. is £178 plus vat http://www.ebuyer.com/customer/products/index.html?action=c2hvd19wcm9kdWN0X292ZXJ2aWV3&product_uid=86864

and this is £104 plus vat http://www.ebuyer.com/customer/products/index.html?rb=9558599156&action=c2hvd19wcm9kdWN0X292ZXJ2aWV3&product_uid=62804

cheap as chips that, although it does depend on what you need it for cari.

 

[Full Lotus]

Wot Colin said, I bought a notebook from NuSystems, a 2GB Pentium-m dothan processor with 60GB 7200 rpm hard drive. It flies I tell ya

 

[norty303]

Celeron = no
Centrino = yes

That's all you need to know.

Not quite. That is the case with desktop chips but with the Celeron-M the main difference is the missing functionality relating to power saving rather than outright performance as its based on the Pentium 4 core anyway. They don't make life easier for us by producing Celeron, Mobile Celeron and Celeron M chips which are all different.

 

[JPsychodelicacy]

Aye, but the Pentium M/Centrino has the power saving, the optimisations *and* the cache that the Celeron M is lacking.

J.

 

[CariFairy]

i'm getting one built for me by this dude from ebay

AMD sempron 2800+

200GB Hard Drive

1GB RAM

128 Graphics

And its going to be pink

all within price range.

Woohoo