Last computer question lol

aquaria

aquaria

Member
I have asked before about two totally different laptops, but these are the two that i am choosing between. Both are the same price. Which would you choose. Thanks
I am officially torn between:
AlienWare- Aurora m9700
with:
AMD Turion™ 64 Mobile ML40 2.2GHz 800MHz FSB 1MB L2 Cache
1GB Dual Channel DDR SO-DIMM at 400MHz - 2 x 512MB
80GB Serial ATA 1.5Gb/s 7,200 RPM w/ NCQ & 8MB Cache
256MB NVidia® GeForce™ Go 7900 GS
Integrated Bluetooth® Device
Internal 802.11b/g WiFi Card
Website- http://www.alienware.com/product_det...de=SKU-DEFAULT
OR
Dell- XPS M1710
with:
Intel® Core™ 2 Duo T7200 (2.00GHz, 4MB L2 Cache, 667 MHz FSB)
1GB DDR2 SDRAM at 667MHZ, 2 DIMM
80GB 7200rpm SATA Hard Drive
256MB NVIDIA® GeForce™ Go 7900 GS
Intel PRO/Wireless 3945a/g
Website- http://www.dell.com/content/products...=19&l=en&s=dhs
 
zman1

zman1

Active Member
You really worked on a good comparison! Do you have a preference between AMD or Intel? I like the DELL for product support, that would be my pick on these two very like product configurations.
 
aquaria

aquaria

Member
I have heard that the dell has very good support. lol I no the systems are the same almost. I really would like the amd 2.2 over the intel 2.0 but rally the dell ram makes up for it.
Thanks
 
zman1

zman1

Active Member
The L2 cache on the Intel is better. Also, the Alien has a larger cache on the HD and bus speed. I think either would be a good choice on performance...
 
eaglewonj

eaglewonj

Member
Well I have an M1710, higher spec, but still. I like it. Its a solid laptop. Now that Dell owns alienware the differences may start to fade out, but dell does have good tech support to begin with and XPS's get their own number to call with tech's only for XPS's What screen will yours have? I have a 1920x1200 resolution but it has the 7900 GTX vid card.
 
zman1

zman1

Active Member
Keeps data or prefetches data in cache memory which is faster than always going to the HD read and write or inter-processor operations for L2. It potentially speeds up these different activities by not burdening for redundant data operations. Bigger is better
 
aquaria

aquaria

Member
which ever laptop I choose I think I will go with a 1920x1200.
and in regards to the cache will the 1mb be much worse than the 4mb?
 
zman1

zman1

Active Member
Amount of Video RAM and refresh rate will have an impact on display performance. I didn't look at resolution sorry, but they both are using the same chipset and Video Ram. The only thing that may be different is the panel itself so refresh and res. could be different. (the cache question - I think either would be fine - better than the 512k low end versions)
I run two of the NVidia GeForce 7900 GS PCI-E adapters with 3 monitors on my desktop.
 
shogun323

shogun323

Active Member
Originally Posted by zman1
Keeps data or prefetches data in cache memory which is faster than always going to the HD read and write or inter-processor operations for L2. It potentially speeds up these different activities by not burdening for redundant data operations. Bigger is better
Very well explained zman.
I honestly don't think there is a wrong answer on which one you pick. Both are great and powerful systems. In most cases, these specs are an overkill for day to day use unless you are doing some video editing or gaming in which case I wouldnt buy a laptop. As Zman mentioned, Dell has great support and Alienware is a highly regarded manufacturer in the gaming community. Good Luck!!
 
aquaria

aquaria

Member
thanks
one last question,
The only real differences i see that could make the difference is the ddr memory in the alienware and the ddr2 memory in the dell, will this make a big difference?
thanks again
 
zman1

zman1

Active Member
Shogun is absolutely right about day-to-day use.
If you are going to be gaming with it you may want to get an external 19" monitor. Viewsonic makes some fast flat panels (2ms), I went with an LG 4ms 1400:1 contrast for my main display on a Desktop I put together. The only gaming I do is Flight Simulator and FS10 is a huge resource hog, I also play an online multi-player game Runescape, which is not a resource hog.
The primary reason I upgraded was for Photo editing, I save my digital pictures taken out as 3872x2592 (which is about 53"x36" printed) I feel this allows me a to crop and/or reduce the pictures to whatever size from the original and not lose quality as you do when trying to enlarge a smaller image. Images at this size on my older system were agonizingly slow to load in the gallery or edits. The reason I am bringing this up is Hard Drive real-estate could be an issue with this method. I got a 320GB SATA3 8 MB cache not the fastest drive on the market, but it's not a slug either. I use it to work on the images and then back them up to a USB drive. The USB drive is a WesternDigital workbook. If your going to be doing Photo Editing you may want to get something to backup with and keep the 80 GB HD free space. You can also back your system up to these drives as well.
 
gmidd

gmidd

Member
Originally Posted by aquaria
anyway, i think i might go with the alienware for the gaming sake.
thanks everyone
Yeah, I was going to ask what you wanted it for. If its more for gaming then the Alienware is the one to go with, since they are build specifically for gaming.
 
aquaria

aquaria

Member
the only other thing that I was still thinking about is that the alien dosent have a duo core processor, the AMD it has is a solo.
the dell on the other hand has the duo, I was just thinking how much of a difference it would make?
thanks
 
eaglewonj

eaglewonj

Member
I have core duo on my m1710. It matters, it helps, its wonderful. You can see it when you watch performance, the two cores share the load and CPU load always seems to stay low because there are two. It doesn't matter much for work, but for multitasking and multithreaded programs it will.
 
aquaria

aquaria

Member
I have been told the same thing lol I was really leaning towards the alien but I might reconsider. The duo core seems more practical, but would the solo AMD 2.2 ghz be able to pull its weight against it?, or is the duo just that much better?
thanks
 
eaglewonj

eaglewonj

Member
Not sure, I have had both AMD and Intel and neither has dissapointed me. I can truly only speak for the config i have which is an:
M1710 with intel core duo (2.16 mhz) with 2 gigs of ram, a 7200 rpm 100 gig HDD and geforce go 7900 GTX vid card with 512 MB onboard vid memory. I use it for gaming and it handles well for a laptop. Just remember it is not a desktop, so at some point even the alienware will succumb to its platform. If i'm not mistaken can't that alienware have dual vid cards and HDD's? Still a shame they got rid of the dual core AMD's, if it still had that it would be a no brainer!
 
aquaria

aquaria

Member
yea it has dual vid memory. Tell me about it lol, I wish they dident get rid of the duo. Then life would be just that much more simple.
thanks again
 
aquaria

aquaria

Member
Ok, i have officially decided to go with alienware lol (i took forever sry)
i figured i would upgrade some of the feats
what is faster:
a 2.4 ghz process. with 1 gb of RAM
OR
a 2.2 ghz process. with 2 gb of RAM
Thanks again
 
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