which video? what HDD?

[NZL_ALX]

hey,
iv been thinkin about getting a laptop lately and have been looking at quite a few different ones from a few different manufactureres i decided intel centrino would be the best processor becoz i would like some battery life.

the one i am looking at here: http://www.asus.com/products/notebook/m6series/m6000n/m6000n_overview.htm
can come with either mobility radeon 9600 or 9700 (both 64MB VRAM) what is the difference between these two graphics cards which is better because i would like to play some games.

i was also thinking i would get a 7200RPM 60 gig 8MB cache ATA-133 instead of the 5400RPM 80gig (unknown cache) ATA-100 just because of the speed difference would this boost performance much i dont care about the space i jst want the performance wondering if its worth it though im considering an external Hdd USB 2.0 or Firewire around 200Gig so thats why i dont mind about size.

btw i would probably end up installing 1GIG ram and possibly getting the 2Ghz processor for this laptop...

any help would be great thanks,
Alex

[CL56]

Asus actually makes some awesome laptops, i would go with the 9700. 9600 and the 9700 have the same chip, but the 9700 uses the low-K, so it runs cooler and requires less battery and also comes with a higher core speed. As for the hard drive either one will work great. if you want speed and don't care about losing 20G then it is worth it.

[NZL_ALX]

so there is no performance difference between those 2 drives? as i said i dnt care about size im jst wondering weather thers much difference between them performance wise and see wheather i shud spend 300NZD gettin a new drive?

[mtb856]

If you have the 9600 and get a gig of ram for your laptop (this is with a 1.6M), it'll play Half Life 2 on low graphics...... so it'll handle any other game out there at playable FPS as well.

I'm not that knowledgeable about HDD's, and I didn't feel like spending the extra 100 bucks to get one with a higher speed, so I just went with the 30gig 4200rpm drive..... it works.

[ozzlo]

i've never seen a speed difference between my lappy's 5400 and a 7200 drive. i just don notice. i always use hybernation instead of turning off so bootup is alway snappy.

[mtb856]

Yeah, Hibernation rocks..... I love not having to wait for Windows to get loaded into memory for like 1 minute.

[CL56]

If it was my choice i would go for the cheaper of the 2 HDDs and the 9700

[ozzlo]

^^^^ yea but the mobility 9700 is just a 9600xt in disguise it's only got 4 pipes also.

i would just get the 9600 and oc it ;)

[NZL_ALX]

ok thanks il jst leave the 80 gig in there then and can ya get 1GIG DDR 400 for a laptop is there any difference in performance ova DDR333?

[ozzlo]

the price of ram gets pretty steep past 512mb.... dell charges between $300 and $600 extera bucks for 1gb over 512mb, and $1200 for 2gb all figures ddr 333

hey the latest chipset just cameout which is 533mhz and ddr2 and pci express if ya want performance and future upgrades you might wanna check out the new stuff comin out over te next few weeks.

my lappy has 333 and combined with a 1.6 it's like a perfect combo. i would say ddr400 would only be useful with 533mhz bus and 2.0 or above p-m. remember that the dothlan core has 2 megs of l2 which means it can prefetch more stuff at once from ram. which means having faster ram can have less of a performance increase. (it will still make a perforemance increase just a smaller one).

[mtb856]

You usually have to stay with the speed that's in the laptop when you buy it..... I don't know if many of them support faster ram than what's in them right now.

That said..... I got a 256 stick on my Dell b/c I wanted to save money. Newegg's got some Kingston SODIMM for like 80 bucks for a 512 stick, so I got 768 for only 80 bucks...... or if you want a gig, then it goes to 160, but it's still cheaper than Dell's memory.

Their warranty isn't voided if you install the memory either....... there's some small print that says the warranty is void only if you install it incorrectly and the laptop fails. If you install the memory correctly, then the warranty still holds.

[SB911]

I am posting from my ASUS L5800GA, 3ghz intel.... 9600 pro 128mb dedicated, 2 x 512 pc3200 kingston, i think the HD rpm is 5400... its not 7200 anyways. Battery life sucks but its my gaming machine. Doom3, Farcry.... not sure on settings but I am very happy with ASUS so far. Just shy of 11,000 with 3dmark2001se

[NZL_ALX]

cool thnks for all ur help ill take this one thanks :)