Derrik Draven Posted March 31, 2005 Report Share Posted March 31, 2005 I'm going to be placing an order for my new laptop, this coming week. I've been wishy-washy, sittin on the fence, about actually coughing up the cash and buying one when, my tax return turned out to be better than I thought and, I can actually buy a new laptop. So, I'm wonderin what you guys feel is better, or not, when comparing an Athlon to a P4 (not mobile p4), for a gaming laptop? I like the cheaper price of the AMD, but is it better for gaming? Another question that's bugging me is, Microshaft will be bringing out their next operating system, in the not too distant future. Longhorn is supposedly going to be a 64 bit based system. The AMD's are 64 bit; the Pentium IV's are not. Is the AMD truly ready for the future or, is there some catch like the old Atari Jaguar not actually being 64 bit? You know, the AMD can't actually run Longhorn? I've definitely decided on going with a Sager laptop but, now all I need is a few opinions on whether or not there is any real issue, other than cost or 64 bit-ability, between the Athlon or Pentium. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kelley Posted March 31, 2005 Report Share Posted March 31, 2005 The AMD 64's are by far and away better for gaming and easier on the wallet then the Pentium 4. Don't be afraid of the Pentium M though, the new ones are very much the little speed demons. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
merlot Posted March 31, 2005 Report Share Posted March 31, 2005 I can not comment on the 64bit question, but I can tell you my expeirence with AMD (the 1GHz T-bird Athlon) was less than stellar due to the chipset made by VIA. I had more combatibility problems with that PC than any other. I always had to update drivers and any time I added a new component it would cause some type of conflict or not work at all. My Intel based system (CPU and chipset) has been rock solid for the past few years. I haven't had to reload Windows once and it keeps chugging along no matter what I throw at it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jon W H Posted March 31, 2005 Report Share Posted March 31, 2005 The AMD 64's are by far and away better for gaming and easier on the wallet then the Pentium 4. I'll second this. I have an eMachines laptop with an Athlon chip in it. It handles gaming rather well for the money I spent on it. In fact, I'm probably a life-long convert of Athlon from now on after having had only Intel powered computers in the past. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AlbertA Posted March 31, 2005 Report Share Posted March 31, 2005 I've put an Athlon on the last two desktops I built, much cheaper than Intel at the time...No problems at all.. I haven't followed recent trends, but AMD is still going strong... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
exile Posted March 31, 2005 Report Share Posted March 31, 2005 I had similar issues with my AMD 1.33 but since upgrading to the new Amd64 3500+ I haven't had one problem yet. It also runs ALOT COOLER than any P4 machine I've seen. Both were using VIA chipsets. I think VIA has fixed alot of their issues of the past and I haven't had an issue yet. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GreenMonkey Posted March 31, 2005 Report Share Posted March 31, 2005 I can not comment on the 64bit question, but I can tell you my expeirence with AMD (the 1GHz T-bird Athlon) was less than stellar due to the chipset made by VIA. I had more combatibility problems with that PC than any other. I always had to update drivers and any time I added a new component it would cause some type of conflict or not work at all. I will say, my athlon 750 & Via KT133 had some minor problems with drivers, compatibility with a Lucent Winmodem, etc. Mainly IRQ-type hassles (always resolved). Later I upgraded it to a 1.1 T-bird and gave it to my wife (just retired the system last month, she got an upgrade, my dad will get the 1.1ghz). But the problems with it went away when I moved to Windows XP. Only in Win98SE did I have driver problems, configuration problems, etc. Only problem I ever hit on it with WinXP was a problem with the 2X AGP slot not putting out enough voltage for a Ti4200 card (hard reboots). Apparently the ti4200 sucks a lot of power, more than the AGP slot on the board was originally designed for. Replaced with an ATI 9100 card instead, still works great. My wife was playing Sims2 on it until recently. Anyway, my input on Via products. But do the AMD laptops these days even have Via chipsets? As far as which one, AMD is better for gaming most likely and the Pentium chips are better for other stuff. 64-bit doesn't matter either way, especially on a laptop IMO. Even if you upgraded it to winXP 64bit, I doubt a laptop would see a lot of boost. The laptop's performance bottlenecks are in other places as I see it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Derrik Draven Posted April 2, 2005 Author Report Share Posted April 2, 2005 Thanks for the info guys. I think I'm going to get an amd. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kelley Posted April 2, 2005 Report Share Posted April 2, 2005 Thanks for the info guys. I think I'm going to get an amd. As you should. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Derrik Draven Posted April 3, 2005 Author Report Share Posted April 3, 2005 Don't be afraid of the Pentium M though, the new ones are very much the little speed demons. Gig - you sure aren't kidding on that one! After endless surfing for laptop info, I ran across a few reviews of the new Dell XPS Gen 2, with the 2.13ghz Pentium M and a Nvidia 6800 ultra w/256mb. SHIT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :eh This thing smokes just about every system thrown at it. I was amazed at how bad it trounced full blown Pentium IV systems. I just don't have 3 grand to dump on the Dell, or I would. Full stop. :rock Thanks again for da info. :tu Only real nit-pick that I have for the new Dells, your's included, is the fact that with all that beautiful keyboard real estate, that the 17" monitors afford, why the hell Dell didn't include a keyboard with a numeric keypad, is beyond me. Small nitpick. For those that can't type worth a shit, it doesn't matter at all but, I can type pretty well and, I know how to use a numeric pad. I HATE having to use the numbers across the top. Still, very small nitpick and, since those new Dells are such ass kicking systems, it would definitely NOT be a deal breaker for me. Why didn't you go with the XPS 2? Simply the cash reason? I can certainly understand that one. Part of me wants to hold out and see if they come down in the price at bit or, add a numeric pad later or, bump up the ghz rating a notch or 2. Still, you can wait forever in pc's. They just keep getting better and better. Gotta jump sometime and, I'm tired of just educating myself and would rather start some serious pc gaming. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kelley Posted April 3, 2005 Report Share Posted April 3, 2005 Why didn't you go with the XPS 2? Simply the cash reason? I can certainly understand that one. My new job bought the notebook for me and I had a strict budget of $2500.00 or less and Dell just couldn't get the cost of the XPS2 down. I got them down to one dollar over my budget on a fully decked out i9300 though and that is why I bought it, if they complain over $1 I can pay for it out of my own pocket. In comparison the XPS2 was about $700 more fully decked out. Plus I just couldn't imagine the XPS2 in the middle of a board meeting with all its neon lights :lmfao Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Derrik Draven Posted April 3, 2005 Author Report Share Posted April 3, 2005 Gig - did you ever get a ship date from Dell? I know in your other thread you mentioned that the date disappeared. Just wondering if Dell's having trouble getting their newest stuff out. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kelley Posted April 4, 2005 Report Share Posted April 4, 2005 no ship date, but I'm promised from my account manager that I will have it Monday. We just got this guy as an account rep and this laptop is our first order with him. So far I'm very unimpressed with his ability to get things done compared to our old guy. I have a bid out there right now for about 20 servers and a SAN and I had to threaten the Dell rep to not let him bid on it unless I got some answers about my laptop. But to answer your question, no I don't think Dell is having issues, for instance check notebookforums.com people are ordering and recieving their XPS2s and 9300s in about 1 - 1 1/2 weeks tops. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Derrik Draven Posted April 4, 2005 Author Report Share Posted April 4, 2005 Hope it works out for ya. BTW - what's a "san"? Secure area network? Just a guess...it's a new acronym for me. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mike-D Posted April 5, 2005 Report Share Posted April 5, 2005 BTW - what's a "san"? Secure area network? I guess he's referring to Storage Area Network. In that case servers and clients don't store files themselves. Everything is stored on the SAN. When you put a couple new hard drives in the SAN all servers can access the new space automatically. So, without going into too many details, it's more than just a simple file server. Usually is used when the stored files are sensitive (fast, central backup etc.). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GreenMonkey Posted April 5, 2005 Report Share Posted April 5, 2005 Yeah, a quick explanation of a SAN is like a big ass black box appliance full of disks that can be networked to be used by multiple systems (or sometimes shared between a cluster of systems). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
merlot Posted April 6, 2005 Report Share Posted April 6, 2005 Gig - you sure aren't kidding on that one! After endless surfing for laptop info' date=' I ran across a few reviews of the new Dell XPS Gen 2, with the 2.13ghz Pentium M and a Nvidia 6800 ultra w/256mb. SHIT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :eh This thing smokes just about every system thrown at it. I was amazed at how bad it trounced full blown Pentium IV systems. [/quote'] If memory serves correctly, the Pentium M is actually based on the Pentium III, which is faster than the P4 clock for clock. I believe Intel's design group in Isreal did the work. Just call me Cliff Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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