What's the Best Processors

Grumpy_Old_Duffer

I currently have a laptop, but whenever I want it the wife is using it, whenever she wants it I'm using it.

Therefore I'm considering buying another laptop, and I am looking at one for general Internet use and 'number-crunching' using EXCEL & ACCESS.

Looking at Advent 9415 Laptop available from Dixons & Currys (£349) which has an Intel Pentium Dual Core Processor T2330 (1.60 GHz, 533 MHz FSB, 1 MB Cache) or the FUJITSU SIEMENS AMILO PI-2515 from Comet(£400) with an Intel Core 2 Duo T5450 (0.667 Mhz, 1.66 GHz, 2Mb Cache).

Which would be the best processor for the 'Number-crunching'? Really want a laptop with 2048 Ram but don't understand which is the better Processor!!

tradetime

Of those two the FUJITSU SIEMENS has the "best" processor, it has a faster clock speed, bigger cache, and is a more expensive processor than the other one, but in truth it would likely be difficult for most of us to see any real difference in actual daily use

mjhmjh2

I'm often asked this question in my line of work (tech consultant), and to be honest for like for like prices the differences for normal non-geek people is not that great.

So some tips:

Try to get a laptop running XP if you can rather than Vista (Vista is great but will kill decent laptop performance).

The weakest point of speed for a laptop is normally the hard drive. If you have a machine with a low RAM memory then it uses the hard drive to store data instead of RAM temporarily, this causes the machine to go really slow, especially with large spreedsheets or databases. Get as much RAM as you can, think 1GB minimum now.

If everything else is better, check out a website such as www.crucial.com/uk for the price of an odd on memory module, it is normally very easy to fit, any techie mate can do it in five minutes for you. (I do it for people at work for free)

Pick a business brand name with good tech support, my favs are HP, IBM, Fujitsu-Siemens. Whilst the tech support is probably on a par with anything else, if anything does go majorly wrong you have a big name backup that will tend to just send you a new unit to get rid of you.

I personally do not like the pc shops own brands and smaller brand makes (I'm not mentioning names) I see these being brought to me to be repaired on an all too regular basis, yet I rarely see hardware failures on compaqs (now HP)

find something you like then check out online prices, and haggle with your local retailer, a few extra quid in a store is often worth it. They aren't technical and won't question a return later on compared to online shops you'll never get hold of.

Hope that is of use.

PROLIANT

For number crunching keep clear of AMD/Celeron type processors, at minimum go for a Pentium class dual core cpu and 1GB of RAM minimum, and as stated above go for XP and NOT vista, I spec laptops on a pretty frequent basis in my line of work as an IT Support Engineer so I get quite a mix of job requirements however my rule of thumb is to keep clear of non-Pentium class dual core cpu's, I have seen AMD/Celeron machines get launched across the table by directors because the are just not up to the job, and I don’t blame them either.

o_c99

Don't forget to look at other places to buy your laptop. Others on the internet include:

www.play.com
www.ebuyer.com
www.scan.co.uk

and many more!

You may be able to get a higher spec laptop for the same prices or less even.

mjhmjh2

PROLIANT wrote: »

For number crunching keep clear of AMD/Celeron type processors, at minimum go for a Pentium class dual core cpu and 1GB of RAM minimum, and as stated above go for XP and NOT vista, I spec laptops on a pretty frequent basis in my line of work as an IT Support Engineer so I get quite a mix of job requirements however my rule of thumb is to keep clear of non-Pentium class dual core cpu's, I have seen AMD/Celeron machines get launched across the table by directors because the are just not up to the job, and I don’t blame them either.

I have to disagree with Proliant on his/her Intel vs AMD post. Certainly at certain points in time AMD has been faster than Intel and vice versa, prices have juggled around accordingly. the tendancy has been for AMD to be the cheaper *, and when integrated into devices has tended to be by cheaper suppliers who may not ice the cake on the software pacakges loaded onto them often slowing down their performance. A badly configured PC with low memory can be totally crippled.

*and faster than Intel for a good period of time. Intel presently had the upper hand on perfomance though when I last checked

I designed a single build 'image' that goes onto all of our company machines, be they notebook, dekstop, single core, dual core, hyperthread or whatever, and the performance difference for number crunching between makers of CPU is minimial for a given spec.

At the price point you are looking at £400 sub, you won't find a great deal of difference, and probably nothing that you will notice when comparing a decent brand laptop.

I would agree though that a celeron is going to be slower than a centrino. It's a different family of process though. If yuo can go for the centrino, although I'm not sure what price point they kick in at.

hubris

People in the know do not group "AMD" with "Celeron". AMD is a manufacturer of computing processors, and Celeron is a class of processors made by Intel. The top-end AMD processors are generally on par with (sometimes more powerful than) the top-end Intel processors. They are also generally cheaper.

PROLIANT

hubris wrote: »

People in the know do not group "AMD" with "Celeron". AMD is a manufacturer of computing processors, and Celeron is a class of processors made by Intel. The top-end AMD processors are generally on par with (sometimes more powerful than) the top-end Intel processors. They are also generally cheaper.

Em..not exactly, the IP of all Intel designs cannot be reverse engineered by any chip manufacturer including AMD, and therefore does not resemble in design nor performance, as for Celeron they are not a Pentium class CPU and are aimed at the basic/low end market user like I said in my other posts I deal with a multitude of hardware on a daily basis both at work and home, I spec hardware from general admin users to 3D AutoCAD Inventor packages, the only processors on the market at the moment capable of providing the required data throughput and stability are Pentium class dual core CPU's, when AMD sort their technology out and supersede Intel, I will consider trying them.

jje_2

For at least a year since the introduction of the Intel Dual Core . AMD dont get a look in they are not cheaper and range from inferior to vastly inferior to Intels products range . Even the latest core from AMD is a total failure .
Sadly AMD have nothing going for them right now .

jje

frogman_2

...:rolleyes:

AMD has had long and fairly complicated relationship with Intel. Up until the 386, AMD were licensed as a second-source by Intel. AMD did, in fact, 'reverse engineer' the 386 and the 486 (producing higher clock speeds than Intel). I could bore you silly with the whole story but the main points are;

1. AMD is a credible manufacturer of CPUs.
2. In the server space, they are very close to Intel and on desktop models, I'd say they were 'competitive'.
3. They have been behind Intel on the mobile platforms and that is what is hurting at the moment and probably for a while.

BTW, no-one talks of 'Pentium' class anymore; it was launched over 15 years ago...

BillScarab

One point to note is that Centrino is not a type of processor, although it's a commonly made mistake. All it means is that the CPU, Motherboard chipset and wireless interface meet some arbitary specifications laid down by Intel. Essentially it means that the above components in a laptop must be made by Inte, personally I wouldn't pay any attention to it.

At the moment Intel CPU's are performing better than AMD for home users in laptops and desktops although there are some bargains to be had with AMD CPU's if you knwo what you are looking for. In the past though AMD trounced Intel and maybe they will again in the future.