Core Duo on M1710 ?

hi guys..

I'm thinking of buying an M1710, but I wanna know something about it first..

the CPU is still Core Duo.. would you guys suggest me to take the Core Duo instead of looking another with Core 2 Duo? is there a really big difference between Core Duo and Core 2 Duo?

I've read from other resources that even if it's Core Duo, we can later upgrade it to a Core 2 Duo CPU because it uses the same mobo..
is that statement true?

any suggestions would be appreciated..

Thanks in advance.

 

1. The performance increase between Core Duo and Core 2 Duo is roughly 8% ? But you lose some battery life.
The only advantage a Core 2 Duo is 64 bit capability.

2. Yes you can upgrade from Core Duo to Core 2 Duo, although it'll 99.9% void the Dell warranty.

 

The M1710 only comes with Core 2 Duo and that's what I think you would want anyways if your going to buy a notebook in the M1710s category. The T7200, T7400, and T7600 Core 2 Processors available on the M1710 were the latest and greatest up until Santa Rosa. They are something like 33% faster than the old Core Duos (But that is probably over optimistic hype from intel and in reality the difference it probably closer to what the preivous poster said) and have 64bit Achitecture which is at the moment not a significant thing since most of the manufactures are shipping 32-bit version of Vista. Here is a link the the M1710s home page: http://i.dell.com/img.aspx?p=3oPc7z...aWDnA4tZzIKr32huluPnB41g5wI77eD/pvsIN/+zr3Q==

I get the feeling that maybe you are talking about buying a used machine. In that case, as was said before, you can upgrade the processor. But you will risk voiding your warrenty which you may regret later should any trouble arrise with the machine.

-Niki

 

You won't void your warranty by upgrading the CPU, but obviously, Dell won't cover a CPU you bought yourself, only the rest of the system.

If you get a good deal on a CoreDuo, it's cerrtainly worth it.

 

how about the performance of T7200 2ghz and T7600 2.33ghz?
are they a really big difference?
the price difference seems a lot, but I don't know about the performance..

 

Dell's site lists the difference between CoreDuo and Core2Duo at 12%. By that, a 2.00 GHz Core2Duo would perform as well as a 2.25 GHz Core Duo.

I second kiseki_o_o's question, but my guess is it's not worth the quite significant price increase.

 

does anyone know when I wanna upgrade the processor on m1710, do I have to do things like applying AS5 and stuffs, or is it just plug and go?

 

Upgrading a processor is not an easy procedure. You have to partially disasemble the notebook, remove the heatsink for the processor, remove the processor, install the new processor, and then apply a new layer of thermal compound, and finally reasemble the notebook. You will void your warranty is anything should happen to the other parts, which prevent the notebook from working.

The difference of a Core Duo and Core 2 Duo processor is around 10%. But that is only the case in processor dependant applications, such as video editing or encoding. Games are limited by the graphics in most cases, so performance is normally unaffected. Also, a 10% performance difference is generally only true for comparisons between T2X00 and T7X00 processors. The lower clocked and lesser cache processors in the Core 2 Duo range, don't a 10% performance increase, but closer to around 5%.

 

oh.. I mean from the same T7000 series.. say I currently have a T7200 and someday I wanna upgrade it to T7600..
or is it the same procedures?

 

Oh, sorry . In that case, the same procedure applies. However, the T7200 was one of the best selling processors, because it had the best price to performance ratio. Upgrading to a T7600 would cost a lot of money, and again, the performance difference would only be noticible in processor inteinsive applications. For the average user, the upgrade wouldn't offer all that much.

 

yeah the price is exactly what's in my thought.. a $600 more isn't a small amount of money
I still don't have any idea about the performance worth of a $600 more for 0.33Mhz speed, but I also think it wouldn't make so much difference though..

 

Personally, I would not go for it. Its too much money, which won't result in a performance increase. Even upgrading to the T7400 is pointless, because its also expensiv, and offers no performance increase, unless you are using processor dependant applications. Even then, the increase is minimal, and certainly not worth the price tag.

 

I'll stick to the t7200 then..
thanks for the inputs..