JJPRO11
11-08-2006 13:01:41
ffactoryxx
11-08-2006 13:29:59
Go with the original Acer and save your $$$ by not upgrade anything on it. 1gb ram is fine. Also the gfx cards in those laptops are just your basic onboard chips. They won't allow for heavy gaming.
Sorry to rant but you are not going to see a difference in speed between the 64 and duo chip. Hell you wouldn't see a difference between a single core chip and the duo unless you do heavy heavy heavy editing and encoding and even then one will be a little faster than the other. These chips are such marketing ploys as most people think it will speed up their Internet surfing or help them in office based applications. NO NO NO!
dmorris68
11-08-2006 13:35:50
Acer makes some nice stuff for the price, but Toshiba is a better quality brand of laptop.
As far as CPU's, I don't want to steer you wrong since I'm not as literate on the current generation of mobile CPU's as I am on desktop CPU's, but until Intel released Conroe (which doesn't debut on mobile platforms until Core Duo 2), AMD was almost always the better choice. Now mind you I don't have much experience with Turion's, but I have tons of experience with their desktop CPU's, both single and dual core.
With L2 cache sizes, bigger is better and always makes a performance difference. However with Intel dual-core, I believe they still share the L2 between both cores, and thus have to serialize cache access so that both cores don't step on each other -- this introduces a performance hit, which is why Intel inflated the L2 in an effort to mitigate this penalty. AMD dual-cores have consistently outperformed Intel dual-cores (before Conroe) despite Intel's larger L2 due to the fact AMD L2 is dedicated per core, so if that Turion is built like the desktop parts, it should have 512KB per core.
On videocards, the Acer probably wins -- the ATI card (while still pretty weak) will likely be better for gaming than the Intel part. Not certain how much difference it would really be, though, and I'm too lazy to look it up for you. ;)
TruBrite is very nice if you like a super-bright LCD. However most of these remove the anti-glare coating from the LCD, so if you don't like the highly reflective glass-like LCD panels, you might not like the TruBrite. Best to go to the store and look at them first.
I didn't look at the rest of specs, but despite my pre-Conroe allegience to AMD, I think the Toshiba would win my vote on reputation alone. However you would probably be happy with either, and for the price difference the Acer is certainly no slouch. But if you intend to upgrade the Acer from 1GB to 2GB RAM, be advised that, depending on slot/module configuration, you may have to toss the existing RAM and buy the whole 2GB, which would eat away that $300 price difference (the Toshiba already comes with 2GB).
JJPRO11
12-08-2006 08:22:27
bump.. please guys... this is an important decision.. any more advice?
TFOAF
12-08-2006 09:44:52
Uh. AMD. D
AMD > Intel. )
Gigante
12-08-2006 10:01:19
AMD is not over intel for laptops, only desktops. You have to think about battery time.
TFOAF
12-08-2006 10:06:58
But the TL-50 is just ownage. D
I don't know. Then go with the Intel. Sorry, I was thinking Desktop PCs. ;)
Aurelius
12-08-2006 11:39:23
dmorris is right on as always
amd > intel for laptops (but like he said, difference isn't that noticeable)
intel > amd for desktops now that conroe is out
Allen626
12-08-2006 12:11:02
[quote744d7af622="dmorris68"]Acer makes some nice stuff for the price, but Toshiba is a better quality brand of laptop.
As far as CPU's, I don't want to steer you wrong since I'm not as literate on the current generation of mobile CPU's as I am on desktop CPU's, but until Intel released Conroe (which doesn't debut on mobile platforms until Core Duo 2), AMD was almost always the better choice. Now mind you I don't have much experience with Turion's, but I have tons of experience with their desktop CPU's, both single and dual core.
With L2 cache sizes, bigger is better and always makes a performance difference. However with Intel dual-core, I believe they still share the L2 between both cores, and thus have to serialize cache access so that both cores don't step on each other -- this introduces a performance hit, which is why Intel inflated the L2 in an effort to mitigate this penalty. AMD dual-cores have consistently outperformed Intel dual-cores (before Conroe) despite Intel's larger L2 due to the fact AMD L2 is dedicated per core, so if that Turion is built like the desktop parts, it should have 512KB per core.
On videocards, the Acer probably wins -- the ATI card (while still pretty weak) will likely be better for gaming than the Intel part. Not certain how much difference it would really be, though, and I'm too lazy to look it up for you. ;)
TruBrite is very nice if you like a super-bright LCD. However most of these remove the anti-glare coating from the LCD, so if you don't like the highly reflective glass-like LCD panels, you might not like the TruBrite. Best to go to the store and look at them first.
I didn't look at the rest of specs, but despite my pre-Conroe allegience to AMD, I think the Toshiba would win my vote on reputation alone. However you would probably be happy with either, and for the price difference the Acer is certainly no slouch. But if you intend to upgrade the Acer from 1GB to 2GB RAM, be advised that, depending on slot/module configuration, you may have to toss the existing RAM and buy the whole 2GB, which would eat away that $300 price difference (the Toshiba already comes with 2GB).[/quote744d7af622]
All thoose graphics cards are also probally shared memory with the system ram so look into that.