Inspiron 1420 - 1.66 or 2.0 GHz??

Please give me some wisdom on this.

I ordered a Inspiron 1420. I plan to use this laptop for 4-5 years. I ordered already with the 1.66 GHz T5450 processor. Should I upgrade it to 2.0 GHz T7300? It has 4MB L2 instead of 2MB.

How much improvement does it really offer? Is it a good upgrade if im not going to play games?

My real question is --->

Which upgrade is more logical? 128MB NVIDIA® GeForce™ Go 8400M GS from Intel Integrated Graphics?
-OR-
2.0 GHz from 1.66 GHz? .... its because I would like to be able to play games like HL2 but its not a priority.

Please let me know quickly if you can.

 

in 5 yrs time, its probably not gonna matter much if u have the extra 340mhz.

either will probably be slow with windows 9001.2

 

graphics card is more logical.

 

upgrade video card, as you can not do that latter on.

 

^ i agree. video card can not be upgraded later on while the CPU will be able to be upgraded if you feel you need it.

 

If you want to play games you will need the dedicated video card. I think the processor is fine.

Make sure you have 2GB of RAM.

 

Thanks guys! That was fast, and helpful!

Yeah I ordered 2GB RAM. So, is this 1.66 CPU Santa Rosa? Or an older design? Its not on the list of Mobile Centrino processors on Dell's website. Thats why I thought maybe its better if I get the 2.0 GHz.

Now I think getting the nVidia card would be much better. I just need to know if 1.66 CPU is the latest Santa Rosa thing with new upgrades.

 

good choice. integrated cards are a no-no.

 

I just called and selected the nVidia card. Added the Travel Remote to my order too! (free accesory), Which apparently were denied to a lot of customers as I read in other posts here. Lucky me!

 

I would most definitley upgrade to a 2.0GHz simply because of the extra cache, which should make a significant difference.

 

not necessarily. some tests were done between an 2.0 ghz and a 1.8ghz processor and the difference in application was on average like 3.9% and at most 10%

 

I havn't heard of thoose test you mention, but since the difference in frequency is by itself more than 10% it sounds kinda fishy that the difference was on average 3.9% (given that the cache is doubled). All I can say is that based on the calculations i've done in my comp. architecture courses, the amount of cache can be, depending on the application, very crucial.

 

Maybe theoretically it should be more than 3.9% faster but the truth is not all aplications can utilize that. Photoshop may be one of those that can. So I decided I can spend a few more seconds per session in Photoshop if I must. I just don't think CAD$200 is justified for the jump to 2.0 GHz.