How is the E1705 with a "mild" set up?

Unfortunately my mom is being cheaper then I thought she would be. I can only spend up to ~ $1,325. I have 2 set ups that im looking at...

#1)
*Core Solo 1.66GHz
*1GB RAM
*100GB 5400
*CD burner
*9 Cell batt.
*Nvidia 7800 Go

$1,333 (With $500 coupon, Current deals, S&H, and Tax)


#2)
*Core Duo 1.66GHz
*1GB RAM
*60GB 5400
*DVD Burner
*6 Cell Batt.
*Nvidia 7800 Go

$1,318 (With $500 coupon, Current deals, S&H, and Tax)

The first set up would be nice because then I would get the HDD with more room (+ the 8MB buffer), and it would also have longer battery life. However, the second set up would be nice for the DVD burner, and the dual core would be *very* nice.

Question Part-> I'm just unsure of the 5400 60GB. Is that going to be really slow? I noticed it only has a 2MB buffer... which is kind of shifty. Also with the 7800Go+ 6 cell, what kind of battery life does it get?

 

Personally if you are looking at cost I would go with number 1 and reduce the hard drive and put one in aftermarket from www.newegg.com

It should be great.

The battery life on a 6-cell with my I9300 with the specs in my sig I get about 2 hours in non-demanding apps.

 

I would actually go with number 2. If you going to spend money on the E1705, you might as well get dual core. Just my 2 cents.

 

Go for the dual core. Just like SG said, you are spending the big bucks, so why not go dual.

 

Like stated above, get #2 and upgrade the HD later. Also, I just checked dell, and with the $500 coupon, I built the same system for $1,318 but with the faster 1.83ghz Duo.

 

^Was that before or after Tax and Handling?

 

Man....I didn't even see number 1 is a single core....I change my opinion, go with number 2.

Man I feel stupid now.

 

I rarely offer an advice for this but NO !!!!

dont go for the 1.6 its too slow espcially if you gonna game with the 7800 , you must pick up at least 2 duo .

instead skimp on accs -> battery -> hd -> memory . You can add those later yourself at a by buying them at newegg ( memory most important ) and it will even cost you less then upgrading with dell .

I know bc I have 6800 + 1.6 and the new games like BF2 run 100% cpu ...

 

What about option #3. You spend $25 more and use the $650 off $1999 and get an extra $150 to spend to increase the system specs. Also use fatwallet.com and get a 3% rebate. So if you spend $1349 from dell after the coupon, then after the fatwallet you get back the price is only $1310. My 2 cents.

 

^It would be more then $25 to use the $650 coupon. It is like an extra $150. If you read carefully, I said my price was AFTER tax and S&H. The total after using the $650 coupon is $1,447.66

Yes I realize it is worth it to spend the extra money. I could upgrade to the 1.83GHz, 9 cell, and 100GB HDD for an extra $150.

But what can I say... My mom is dumb and can't justify spending "freakin fifteen hundred dollars on a laptop"... Even though its one of the most benifical things she could do for me, seeing as the career I want relies heavily on computers. -_-)#

 

Yeah, most parents are that way. Believe me, I know. Some that are computer saavy would know it is worth it though.

 

Yah... It's so annoying. I might be able to convice her to spend a little more. I will just have to make it sound amazing.

"Mom, with the 100GB HDD alone the computer is 70% more powerful then if it has the 60 GB!!! And just think how stong it will be with 3 more cells and an extra 170 MHz! OH MY GOD! What a deal!!!11!"

 

Just tell her that a computer is an investment. You might as well get the best of your money now. Considering that some of the parts in a laptop are non-upgradable. Tell her it will save her in the long run.

Just don't tell her I said it!

 

Ahaha... I think I did say something like that. She was like...

"Well if its just going to get outdated eventually, why not get the cheap one (compaq v4000T)." I told her because that one will get outdated much quicker. And then she was like "Well then why are we even getting one?"

Lmfao... her logic is so dumb. I mean you have to buy something when you can afford it (which is right now for us).

 

Exactly...tell her that why spend $1200 on something that will be completely outdated for high-end applications in 6-months compared to 3-4 years if you spend (whatever your setup costs). If we used that logic you would have to spend another $1200 in 6months to a year.

 

Is this for school? Have you priced it through the educational side of the Dell site?

I also agree with "if your not gettng the Duo, why get this model?"

But what are you planning on using it for? What applications are you planning on running on? If you cannot get the Duo or don't really need it, then get a 6000.

Is the software you plan on running multi-threated? Do you run alot of programs at the same time? Maybe I missed it but I have not seen where you state what you plan on using this for? If I did miss it sorry.

 

Dell's education site, my school anyways, has the E7105 starting at a ridiculously high price, and you can't use the coupons there. $1307 @ edu vs. $1127 @ home office for the E1705 duo base 1.66 system.

 

Honestly, I don't think spending hundreds of dollars for marginal performance benefit is worth it. Why not just go for the 7800 and cheapest dual core with 1-2 gigs of RAM from newegg? If you plan to go mobile, upgrade the battery as well.

Look at Dell outlet/craigslist for deals too.

 

I've been looking at the higher priced units, so the education site seems cheaper when the price range get one 20% discount then another 12% for education. total discount at this level was aroung $950 when both discounts were combined. but I have not priced one for myself at the lower end. I've been looking closer to 2500 after the discounts.

 

One thing to remember is that the duo processors are more or less just 2 processors in one can so if you run something which is single threaded a higher speed solo might actually end up being faster than a slower duo. I don't know about games my guess is that they are NOT single threaded so would benefit from the duo part but for alot of other things it might actually be slower.

I have developed some muti-threaded applications and when the extra threads run all the time it makes a big difference. Another way to look at it is if you get some bogus program which is single threaded it can never get the computer more than half busy no matter what it does. Windows cannot split a single thread of execution so the other processor is always generally sitting there waiting for something to do. The computer will seem much peppier than a similar speed single processor computer.

I know this don't help but for what it is worth. Also 100gb of disk space is alot unless you plan to encode videos. Also with the DVD burner you can remove things from your computer which you want but don't change and read this from the dvd when needed. Also don't forget that you can also compress seldomly used directorys on the HD.