to buy now... or to wait until the intel montevina chips come out

im looking at buying a laptop for college, and was looking at a thinkpad. However, with the push back of the montevina release date, and lenovo's sorta bad shipping reputation, im afraid that I wont get my laptop in time for college.

So i decided to go with the asus laptops, since the online providers (gentech, exotic, excaliber, etc) seem to have faster shipping...though correct me if i am wrong on this point.

thus, I am wondering - when the montevina comes out, will asus, or online suppliers, upgrade the processor inside the f8sn-c1, or the m50sv-a1, to a montevnia chip so that I should wait until then to buy? or will asus perhaps come out with totally brandnew laptops?

thanks for any replies

ps - any opinons on m50sv/f8sn-c1? heat comparisons and which is better for college?

pps - I kno some rep's from various online sellers browse these forums...any way to get this thread to their attention more quickly?

 

Montevina will be a bit better than the laptops now.If you are not ina hurry,wait for it.

 

yeah i would wait but i'm not sure if you'll get it by school though

 

so hwo soon after the montevina chips are out (july 15th) do you think asus or online vendors will have put them in their laptops?

also, does anyone know the name of a gentech/exoticpc/excaliber/asus representative so I can pm them?

 

The main difference between the current penryn and the montevina is the FSB speed. Penryn is 800mhz and montevina is 1066mhz.
Keep i mind that the montevinas launch date is delayed until July 14, and even when it's released then, Asus may not immediately implement these new CPUs, so you could be looking anywhere from aug to oct before the montevinas show up in Asus laptops.
My suggestion is, if you don't need a laptop now and possible go without one for a month or two during the semester, wait for the Montevinas. If not, then buy it now. At least if you buy now, you have time to play around with your new laptop and become familiar with it before school starts, and if anything happens, you still have time to return/replace it if you're not satisfied.

Edit: use name for gentech is "GenTechPC".

 

ok thx for the input...quick question: how does FSB speed affect the computer overall?

also, i thought montevnia was cooler running/more battery efficient.

while on the subject of battery life, does asus have any laptops with led screens?

 

In daily usage, probably not so that you'd notice except in tasks requiring high load (i.e. encoding video).

Only Asus models with LED are the ultraportable 11" and 12" models.

The Penryn chips are cooler than the SantaRosa cpus due to die shrink, and battery life is only slightly better - I don't remember seeing much about the Montevina chipset and battery/temp improvements.... that was the cpu update. When Nehalem is launched (with it's 32nm process) is when we'll likely see the next bump in temp/battery.

 

Nehalem will initially be based on a 45nm process, and it will be fully implemented next year in notebooks with the Calpella mobile chipset. I wouldn't expect the die shrink to 32nm until early to mid 2010.