G51vx-Q: for those that know CPUs. QX9300/T9900

I'm down to the following CPUs. I currently have a T7700(2.4Ghz) in my G1. In the new G51 that I'm configuring, there's almost a $400 difference in getting the Quard Core. Besides games, I do photo editing and photoshop does use the extra cores.
I don't know how much of a OVERALL improvement I will see. Since I have a home computer that I use as primary, this laptop would be more for on-the-go.
Would the T9900 be noticably faster in every day use, and in games, then the QX9300?

Note: I have considered the P9700 2.8Ghz dualcore for less wattage and cheaper price. But I figured overall a 400Mhz is a bigger improvement to the 3.06GHz than that of battery time and compairing to the 2.53 Quad core I might as well as spend the $$ and look at the upper CPU speeds.

Intel® QX9300 45nm "Montevina" Core™2 Quad 2.53GHz w/12MB L2 On-die cache - 1066MHz FSB

Intel® T9900 45nm "Montevina" Core™2 Duo 3.06GHz w/6MB L2 On-die cache - 1066MHz FSB 35 watt

 

Damn straight 400GHz is a bigger improvement.

 

Lol. You beat me to my proofing. I meant 400Mhz. But I'm sure you knew that.

 

Always go with the quad core. Games ran fine on my old 2.0 C2D, and with a 2.53 GHz quad-core you'll be punting around tasks like nothing.

 

I saw your sig. Whats the difference between the X9100 and T9900? Or is it that the T9900 came out after you bought the X9100?

 

No, I did not know that. I was under the assumption that you were talking about the CPU in Bender's brain from Futurama.

As for your dilemma, I'd also say go for the quad, whether it be the QX9300 or the Q9000.

 

Wow. Really? 2.00/2.26/2.53 Quads you would recomend over the Dual 3.06? I didn't think there was that many software that used the quads that well over the 3.06 dualcore. I mean 2.53quad vs 3.06dual, I would guess maybe a few seconds in processing time, but if everyday use... you're saying I would see the quadcore 2Ghz beat my T7700 2.4Ghz by enough that I should consider even the stock quad?

update: If you're serious on even getting the 2Ghz quad over any of the dual-core, I could save $500+ which I could uses in getting a better harddrive or something. Like ordering a SSD for the main harddrive and upgrading the secondary to something larger. What I don't want to find out is when not gaming, the overall usefullness of the laptop goes down because of a slower CPU.

 

Quads will future proof you even more.

Also, the odds are that the T9900 are the best of the dual core chips manufactured and thus won't have as much overclocking potential as the QX9300

 

In any multi-threaded applications you can see the Quads will outperform any Dual Core CPUs regardless of the speeds the Dual cores run at. The Quads will highly benefit from workstation applications when you're rendering 3D scenes from 3Ds Max, Maya, Sketchup Vray, media encoding and other multi-threaded supported apps.

At times even some photoshop functions like Photomerge, HDR Rendering, and certain fliters and from RAW to JPEG conversions you shot with your camera, you can see the difference.

I have seen a stock Q9000 murdering an X9100 @ 3.32GHz at rendering scenes and intensive CPU calculations - once again, depending on the application you use, will benefit from it. Clock speed isn't everything.

So ask yourself, if you use any applications that is coded to span on multi-threaded/cores.

On the sidenote, most of the stuff I do will benefit from Quads. My X9000 is long ancient thing now.

 

I really don't want to OC the laptop. But matters most is getting a computer which I don't need to upgrade over year(yeah,right.) The G1 I had lasted till now. But the GPU is really showing it's age. I can't play my Fallout3 with high settings or in my native screen resolution. At least with the 260 GPU I should be able to play in 1200x1080 with settings on medium and still be better than what I'm getting now.

And now CPU thoughts, I know the newer CPU are faster than my T7700 running about the same clock. I just don't know enough to tell if a 2.0Ghz quad is noticably faster than lets say a 2.8dual core or something.

 

Hmm when not gaming, I'm in photoshop or reading emails. Not doing too much what you're doing like 3d rendering.

Oh hey, do you know if photoshop 7 can use the 260GPU to calculate? I know it uses my 280gtx on my home system, but it doesn't recognize the older GPU I have in my G1.

 

quads are more future proof but prices for them are a bit too high, especially for the qx9300. i say go with a p9700 or t9900 for now and wait til the prices for quads go down. if you really want a quad that badly, i say look into a q9100 or q9200. you can get those between $200-$280 on ebay.

 

Erm, don't you mean enabling GPU acceleration in CS4 right? yep, there's a fix for it. I made a guide here:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=387030

Not so popular unfortunately. But it helps; apparently CS4 doesn't seem to recognize my 8800M GTX SLI cards, so I enabled this fix and it works on my end. I predict it should work for your case too. Let me know if you need more help.

I don't use Photoshop 7 unfortunately. But I thought of giving a shot.

 

Thanks, I'll try it. Yes, GPU accelleration. Although that sounds strange being it doesn't really do graphical speedup per say.

 

Well, it uses the GPU...

...to accelerate rendering.

 

I do a lot of photoshop as well. I'm definitely going with the quad g51vx. One big reason I chose this unit. Also for multitasking between several adobe apps. Should run aftereffects reeaaal nice!

I plan on upgrading to a qx9300 down the road when prices go down. Remember you can easily OC the cpu using the asus utility to 2.3mhz somewhere I think.

I'm a just about to pull the trigger on this!

 

+1 that worked.