Intel T6500 vs P7350

Hello,

Since my laptop of several years has finally decided to call it quits (I suspect motherboard failure or some sort of power failure), I've decided to start shopping for a new one.

One set of laptops in particular have caught my eye - the Sony Vaio NW series. They have two models available from the Sony site, the NW 180J and the NW 130J. The 180 is about $150 more expensive, with a few differences: it has a blu ray player (which I won't use), a slightly larger hard drive (I have several external ones already, space isn't an issue), and a different CPU.

The 180 has an Intel P7350, which has a clock speed of 2.0GHz, a front side bus speed of 1066 MHz, and a L2 cache size of 3MB. The 130 has an Intel T6500, which has a clock speed of 2.1GHz, a front side bus speed of 800 MHz, and a L2 cache size of 2MB.

Both are dual core with a 64-bit instruction set.

I intend to use the laptop to play some games (though I'm not a hardcore PC gamer). I will also be doing a lot of programming on it, so being able to handle an IDE plus a browser is important, primarily IntelliJ IDEA, which can be pretty intense on resources sometimes.

I am curious to know how big a difference a slightly slower clock speed but faster bus speed and larger cache will make, and if it's worth the extra money just for that difference. Also, as a purely aesthetic note, the 180 only comes in silver, which I don't like that much.

As a point of reference, here are the Intel pages for the two processors:
P7350 : http://ark.intel.com/Product.aspx?id=36750&code=p7350

T6500 : http://ark.intel.com/Product.aspx?id=39311&code=t6500

Thanks for your help.

edit:
Here is a cnet side-by-side comparison of the two laptops, just for reference:
http://reviews.cnet.com/4504-4_7-0.html?id=33705760&id=33705746&&tag=boxcoco

I'd go with the one with a clock speed of 2.0Ghz since a drop of 100Mhz isn't going to be enough to have adverse consequences because you do have a higher FSB speed and more cache.

didn't realize your comparison link... the 180 should still play games better though -- since it has a better CPU

+1 for the P7350...As others have pointed out, the clock difference is easily compensated by the extra cache and FSB...And like cjl pointed out, has a lower TDP too...