Re: [OT] New laptop - AMD or Intel

[Jim Noble <yahoo-groups@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Keith Doxey wrote:
> Looking to finally buy a new laptop but am sooooo confused by all the
> diferent processor options.
> Most seem to be offering Intel Processors but I cant figure out which
are
> which. I am guessing that generally the higher the number the better
the
> processor but some machine I saw today had higher processor numbers
but
> lower clock speeds. Would the higher porocessor still be faster ?
>

A change of processor number might indicate a different front side bus
speed. The latest mobile cpus are 800Mhz (and some 667Mhz). The previous
ones were 667MHz or 533Mhz. As to which will be fastest, that depends on
what you're doing :-) cpu intensive stuff would probably run
(marginally) faster on the quicker cpu, but shoving data around may be
quicker on a cpu with a higher front side bus speed.

This may help:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Intel_Core_2_microprocessors#Mobile_processors

I'd avoid the ones with only 2Mb of L2 cache if you can. Having 4Mb L2
seems to make a fair bit of difference for day-to-day stuff IME (YMMV).
(The same probably holds true for the Penryn based 3Mb/6Mb L2 cache
cpus...)

Jim


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