Notebook Questions

[Eeo]

Im in the market for a notebook and I am having trouble. What are the benefits to all the different CPUs. Pentium M? AMD 64 mobile vs the other AMDs. Pentium Centrino? Pentium 4? Ok I know what a P4 is but what are the differences between them and the others listed. I have only come up with the obvious such as Hz ratings and read things like "made specifically for your mobil needs" which doesnt tell me much. Can somone point me in the direction of an article or post a reply that explains the differences and benefits and negatives for each setup? Any others I should consider and why? Any advice on the other hardware such as hard drives and cd roms would be helpfull as well. Thanks in advance.



eeo
<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by eeo on 09/21/04 08:47 PM.</EM></FONT></P>

 

[Mr5oh]

Basically the difference is the type of chips, some or true mobile chips, some are basically desktop chips. Now this isn't how it works exactly, but it is the easiest way to explain it.

The mobile chips are easier on battery life, and produce less heat. The desktop processors have a little bit of a processing power edge.

The Pentium M is a mobile processor, the Centrino is also a mobile chip as well. They well draw less power, and produce less heat, however they are clocked a little slower generally, but there performance is still good.

As for the AMD, there still may be some AMD XP mobile chips floating around in newer laptops. Most of the better laptops at this point featuring AMD chips, are mainly AMD 64-bit chips. The 64-bit chips still feature the power of a regular chip, but use cool'n'quiet, to keep power consumption and heat to a reasonable amount. The cool'n'quiet on the 64-bit chips will slow the chip down when the processing power isn't needed. Mine typically sits around 750 mhz, sometimes when just taking notes it sits as low as 350 mhz, while playing a game it goes back up to the 2.0 ghz.

Really the power consumption of the "desktop" based chips isn't bad, and I would recommend going that route if you think you need the extra processing power. If your laptop is going to be used pretty much for internet, and word processing, a mobile chip is plenty.



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