Hi all,
I'm actually an old timer on here (joined in 2001 or so), but I'm not active in overclocking much anymore. I may be looking for a laptop soon. Here's the background: Last time I built or bought a computer, core 2 duo was relatively current. The 4 core chips were out but weren't dominant by any means. That means that my experience with memory ended there, as well as my understanding of current interconnect standards.
Here's the current situation: I have an asus f3j laptop that I'm using as my main computer. It's about 6 or 7 years old. First thing I did was blow vista away on it and put xp pro on, which I'm still running. I put some more memory in it, and I think I probably put a 7200 rpm hard drive in it. It runs fine, but I'm back in college, going for an EE degree, and everyone around me (including all the school computers) is running windows 7 or 8. The machine's age combined with the fact that MS has quit supporting win xp has me thinking it might be about time to upgrade to a newer machine.
Here's where I need advice: I don't know what hardware I should be looking for. I no longer know the comparative performance of different processor families relative to each other. I don't even know which company (Intel or AMD) is ahead in the processor wars now. Last I was in it, the core 2 duo was mopping the floor with amd. I originally got in on this when the athlon was kicking the P3's ***. My first overclock was an athlon 750 in slot A configuration. Overclocking of those was done with goldfingers cards. (How many of you guys remember THOSE?)
I'm not a pc gamer. I want a machine with decent battery life that won't cost over about $500. I value snappiness highly-meaning, I like my machine to be responsive. I don't want to be in a situation where the machine is slow because of having a marginal amount of memory. I'm willing to add memory after the fact to prevent this from happening. Also, I'm not sure what version of windows 7 would be best for me. I think it'll turn out to be either home premium or pro.
If any of you guys can give me a general tutorial on what the current state of hardware is, I'd appreciate it. Specific things to look for or avoid in a laptop setting would also be nice.
I'm actually an old timer on here (joined in 2001 or so), but I'm not active in overclocking much anymore. I may be looking for a laptop soon. Here's the background: Last time I built or bought a computer, core 2 duo was relatively current. The 4 core chips were out but weren't dominant by any means. That means that my experience with memory ended there, as well as my understanding of current interconnect standards.
Here's the current situation: I have an asus f3j laptop that I'm using as my main computer. It's about 6 or 7 years old. First thing I did was blow vista away on it and put xp pro on, which I'm still running. I put some more memory in it, and I think I probably put a 7200 rpm hard drive in it. It runs fine, but I'm back in college, going for an EE degree, and everyone around me (including all the school computers) is running windows 7 or 8. The machine's age combined with the fact that MS has quit supporting win xp has me thinking it might be about time to upgrade to a newer machine.
Here's where I need advice: I don't know what hardware I should be looking for. I no longer know the comparative performance of different processor families relative to each other. I don't even know which company (Intel or AMD) is ahead in the processor wars now. Last I was in it, the core 2 duo was mopping the floor with amd. I originally got in on this when the athlon was kicking the P3's ***. My first overclock was an athlon 750 in slot A configuration. Overclocking of those was done with goldfingers cards. (How many of you guys remember THOSE?)
I'm not a pc gamer. I want a machine with decent battery life that won't cost over about $500. I value snappiness highly-meaning, I like my machine to be responsive. I don't want to be in a situation where the machine is slow because of having a marginal amount of memory. I'm willing to add memory after the fact to prevent this from happening. Also, I'm not sure what version of windows 7 would be best for me. I think it'll turn out to be either home premium or pro.
If any of you guys can give me a general tutorial on what the current state of hardware is, I'd appreciate it. Specific things to look for or avoid in a laptop setting would also be nice.