Turion with X700 128Mb or centrino with X700 64Mb in an Acer?

Hi,
I am thinking about buying an Acer, but not sure which one:

Aspire 5021wlmi, with ATi X700 128Mb and a Turion (and a bit more memory)
or
Aspire 1691wlmi, with ATi X700 64Mb and a Centrino. I have found both for £750 from acernotebooks.co.uk.

Do any experienced users know if the sacrifice of the mobile-dedicated design of the Centrino is worth the increase in graphics power if i bought the 5021?

Thanks,
al.

 

I would seriously advise you to wait a week until i can give feedback on this:
http://www.comet.co.uk/comet/html/cache/320_253499.html

This is the 1691 with the 128mb x700, the BEST compremise of both the models you specified- the power saving design of centrino, and the power of the 128mb x700.

 

Cool - please let me know. I hope it isn't Currys being poor.

 

This is what I always say. The GPU is what sets the performance, it is the bottle neck for gfx performance. The CPU and memory is mute, the diffrences are very small. What you should look for is features. Turion 64 has 64-bit and SSE3. A centrino system will lack these features. The Turion 64 ML(35w) will get a fiew minutes shorter batterylife, but it's not like it's missing a bunch of features like the centrino does! Centrino is simply getting old, you can only run old gen. 32 bit windows and software on such a system. The resell value will be terrible in one year on a 32 bit only notebook. Obviously, my advice is go with a Turion 64 system if you have the chance.

 

buy your laptop from shop acer to find it just type acer aspire into google and it will be at the very top of the page, i would get the turon laptop cos i like playing games however if you want portability more go with the centrino, havind said that the batery life on turon laptops is very good and easly on par with the pentium m.
i would also go with the turon laptop better value for money, beter gaming perfomance and a batery life on par with the pentium m what more could you ask for?

 

Comet have the 5021 for only £649.99 but they say it only comes with a 64MB X600:
http://www.comet.co.uk/comet/html/cache/320_253529.html

 

For another approx 50 pounds, you get the all important 128mb X700, AND Centrino (high battery life, lots more than turion) in the link i specified.

It all depends on whether 64 bit is a want. Its not a necessity, as I can't see laptop's needing 64bit for a LONG while yet.

 

Yes, but is that just a typo on Comet's web page?

According to acer.co.uk the 1691WLMi should have a 64MB X600 but Comet says it is a 128MB X700 and the 5021WLMi should have a 128MB X700 but Comet says it is a 64MB X600!

So could Comet have mixed the specifications up?

 

Unlikely. But of course, the proof is in the pudding! I should be receiving that very laptop in a few days.

 

Cool - let us know if it is all as expected.

I am quite dubious of the Comet site as I have not found anywhere else selling those machines with the same specifications but it is not unknown for Acer to ship different specs of the same model. I hope you get what you are expecting!

 

Do you think if i rang Comet up, i could get some kind of confirmation? Or will it be one of those annoying "press 1 now" lines?

 

After pressing a few numbers 1's i got through to the Comet sales line - the person i spoke to sounded pretty sure that it came with a 128mb X700 card. I asked him to confirm that, and he went away for 3 minutes, and came back, and actually confirmed it. As a second reassurance, he said that the product specifications on the website are rarely ever wrong, and that the specifications are direct from the manufacturer.

 

Sounds promising - maybe Comet have got a weird batch of Acer notebooks.

Let us know when it arrives.

 

I hope so. I'm going to give Acer a ring tomorrow to double confirm. And when Macaba gets his, then that should set a few things straight too.

If this Laptop has the X700 128mb i'm going for it!

 

Just been trying to get through to Acer to confirm this. Their customer support is already worrying me, and i haven't bought an Acer yet. I rang their sales line, and held for 10 minutes listening to the worst tune ever - only to get an answer machine at the end, asking me to leave a message!

I'm awaiting a call now, but i won't hold my breath.

 

Acer didn't have a clue when i finally got in touch with them, so i took to the road in search of the Laptop in question.

I finally found this model not too far away after numerous phone calls, so i went to visit.

They had to go open a brand new Acer, its so new that they haven't had chance to put it on display. My eyes lit up when i saw it had the X700 according to a little ATI badge, but i was quickly saddened by the 64MB mark.

It appears that Comet messed up. Apparently they're going to change the specs on the Website. Sorry to be the bringer of bad news mate.

However, its still a great laptop at a great price. You'll be glad to know that the new model supports DDR2. You can send it back when it comes, complain a bit, and they might send you a higher model laptop as a replacement - but if i was you, I'd just bite the bullet, realize that the offer was too good to be true anyway, and enjoy your Acer. Its stunning.

 

Do you know if this affects the 5021WLMi as well (as the specs are different)?

I have read a number of reports of people getting the X700 instead of the X600 on Acer laptops recently, makes you wonder if Acer just put in whatever they have to hand when they build the things. Still as long as you get the spec on the Acer website or better you cannot complain!

 

Unsure about the 5021 mate.

I think at the Comet 1691 is the newest model of that laptop - hence the X700 64MB. Higher laptops in the 16xx series will come with 128mb X700's.

 

I got it, you were right Dex, tis beautiful.

Feeling disconcerted, i ran 3dmark 2001, it got 15956 out the box, which i was pleased at, so i'll stick with it. Runs like the mutts nutts this does.

 

Tried any games on it then?

GTA San Andreas ?

Glad you like it - i'll go ahead and buy one. It does have a X700 [64mb] in though, right? I don't think VRAM is too important anyway, the DDR2 should make up for it

 

I'm installing BF1942 C, and will be installing Far Cry, will tell you how it goes.

It is the 64mb version aye. I have theories about why it is so, but never mind.

 

Theories ? Hehe

You should try BF2, never mind 1942! It says minimum is 128mb, but i bet it'll still run regardless. 64mb of X700 has to be better than the lowest supported card that has 128mb, surely

Hopefully I'll order it in the morning - did you select free delivery? How long did it take?

 

hey guys, I have 5024 with X700 but after maybe 10% while loading in BF2, it just kikcs me into the windows, out from the game and over.....

;(

 

I must say, i almost bought a 5024 today - it had 50 pounds off due to one dead pixel 12 cm from the left, and 3 cm down. The dead pixel was red, and i don't think i could have lived with it. However, the main reason for buying a 5024 would have been for BF2!

I've now managed to get my head around that game, most (reasonable) games with (reasonable) developers behind them will have 64mb cards as the minimum spec, so the 1691 should fit my needs perfectly. As for your problem, i would suggest trying some of the ATI drivers REDFROG seems to be raving about !

Macaba, if you can get back to my previous questions as soon as you can, that'll be Acer!

 

I didn't get it delivered, I collected it from the store.

 

Thats lucky then

I ordered mine today, should be here for Wednesday Canne wait!

Did Far Cry run smoothly then?

 

So how did the games go? Can u play Battlefield 2? How bout Farcy at native?

thinking bout getting this lappy next week.Hope to hear from gamers who have this laptop soon!

 

Well, I don't have a 5020, but I do have an Acer travelmate 4400. It has the 64MB X700. I have been able to run Far Cry at native (1280x800) with everything up pretty high. I have the environment on "Very High", water on "Ultra high", texture on "Medium", antistrophic filtering/antiailasing off, and everything else on high. It runs beautifully, the X700 does a wonderful job of rendering the shadows, water, and reflections. Now, normally its smooth with these settings, however, in really intense battles, it can get a little jittery, but that's understandable.

DOOM3 runs awesome at "High" quality at 1024x768, a shame there is no widescreen option

HL2/CS:S I have no problem running at native with 8X AF and everything on their highest values.

HALO runs great, except leave the "Specular" and put the texture quality on medium for playable performance. I ran it at native res.

Have not tried BF2, but I will download the demo and let you know.....

 

i have an acer 1691 with x700 64mb. doom3 doesn't run so good and i know the reason. 64mb x700 has 64bit memory bus and x700 128mb model has 128bit memory bus. 2x32mb chip vs. 4x32mb chip...

 

the 64mb x700 has a 128 bit bus.

I run it quite well at XGA on high. Maybe its your RAM?

 

how much you get in 3dmark03&05?
i got:

3dmark03: 4100
3dmark05: 1400

 

I have a 5021 with X700 128Mb and I got

3dMark05 - 1900

 

Yup, the 64 MB version is the budget version with cheaper 64 bit RAM. This is why it gets ~1000 less 3DMark05 points.

Most of the newer games run OK, but they are pretty close to avg FPS of 30, and this means frequent drops below 24 FPS. This is on the low side of playable for most people.

 

I get ~5600 in 03
I get ~1700 in 05 (this is very low)

Most 128 MB x700 or 128 MB Go 6600 parts get 2400-2500 pts in 3DMark05.

 

Yes - 1900 is a little low for a 128MB X700. Try installing the latest ATi Catalyst Mobility 5.9 drivers - get them at Driverheaven . Let us know what you get with those drivers!

 

So, what about the x700 and BF2?!? Anyone running it? I have a travelmate 8104 on the way (2Ghz, 1GB DDR2 and 128MB x700)....would love to know if it'll run BF2 or not....