Should this be slower than my old desktop?

I got a new 1520 and found it considerably slower than my old desktop. I was wondering if laptops are just slower, or if it was because I'm running Vista Premium on the laptop compared with XP Home on the desktop. I've reformatted both hard drives recently as well.

Desktop specs

AMD Athlon 3200+ @ 2.20GHz
512MB RAM

Inspiron 1520

Core 2 Duo @ 2.0GHz
2GB RAM
HDD @ 7400RPM

 

No, laptops are not slower by nature, if anything there very comparable to desktops, especially the newer ones.

I got a similar setup, actually dead on to what you have, and even in Vista it runs circles around all the workstations in the office so theres more at work here :S...

Maybe a driver update might help, also update windows. Vista has some new patches that fix speed issues.

 

I'm actually wondering if it's a driver issue...I reformatted the hard drive and got most of the relevant drivers back on, but I don't know if I'm missing any.

Although I'm not sure it's any slower since I reinstalled vista...

 

The notion that laptops are slower is only due to laptop components costing more than their desktop counter parts. A laptop and a desktop with the same specs will perform at the same speed though. That laptop should be killing your desktop in performance in every way.

Some considerations:
- Vista is a bit of a resource hog, especially when you first start using it as it "learns" your usage habits, that could explain the speed even after a reformat
- Some laptops are underclocked and have power saving modes
- Windows is inherently slow with all the background processes, services etc. that are not needed for most users, this might help:
http://www.tweakhound.com/vista/index.htm

 

There is no way your notebook can be slower than that desktop, due to the amount of RAM and Core 2 Duo processor .

Slow how ? Windows load times, Program load times, games ??

 

Exactly, slow at what?

Windows Vista is going to take longer than XP to load. You want a reason? Check task manager, and see how much memory Vista is using, and how much memory XP uses. The one that uses the most is the one that's going to be slower at start up.

If applications run slower, then you have a problem.

 

what the heck does "slower" mean

 

laptop is slower because hard drive is slower than desktop drive,plus cpu is also slower due to thermal limitation.

 

NO. As far as the CPUs are concerned, a Core 2 Dual core @ 2GHz can beat an older Athlon (Single Core) @ 2.2Ghz hands down. CPU throttling in mobile processors generally comes in to play when CPU power is not needed; CPU overheating may also cause the CPU to switch to a lower speed but that happens very rarely, especially considering that this is a 15" notebook (has better thermal design due to it's size). Besides, general computing normally involves multitasking rather than running one or two CPU intensive applications , where Core 2s can perform much better.

As for the HDD, I can’t say for sure, since he has not given any description about the desktop. But guessing from other components I’m thinking its a year or two old 100~150GB HDD. In that case it won’t be any faster than new 2.5 HDD running at 7200RPM. Only newer more denser (>=300GB) 3.5 HDDs are considerably faster.

 

Well if you were asking for a stupid answer to the situation, you've likely found it reading the above quote.

The CPU clock down when not needed, saves power, but as soon as power is needed, it comes running, and clocks right back up.

And no, hard drives not slower by any means. Desk and laptops alike have 5400RPM and 7200RPM drives, hell, I just ordered a 10,000RPM drive for my laptop, so both those 'theories' are meaningless.

Run windows update, or I think you'll have to hunt for those new updates on Microsoft's site, they help performance great. SP1 will flush out all these issues.

 

don't compare C2D with AMD, that's not the point. i'm saying laptop CPU is slower than desktop cpu, because desktop cpu could have higher FSB (e.g 1333MHz) and higher frequency than laptop CPU. also if you compare same frequency desktop cpu and laptop cpu you could see desktop cpu faster.

 

LMFAO..Wow..

AMD Athlon XP 3200+ (2200 MHz, 11x200 MHz, 400MHz FSB, 512KB L2 Cache) "Barton", Socket 462

You're making yourself look foolish, his desktop has the named processor above. The laptop has a Core 2 Duo. Which runs at 2.0Ghz with 4mb cache, and 800mhz FSB and oh yea, it's a dual core, and a C2D runs 40% faster then anything before it. Everyones saying HIS desktop is a lot slower then his laptop, period. No one is said laptops are better then desktops or w.e you seem to be arguing.

And for the record, the FSB on desktops keeps going up because ram keeps going up. Ram runs at 1200mhz now, so not to bottle neck that, they OC the bus a little more, big woop. Truth is if you buy GOOD timing ram, you'll get a lot better performance then having such a high clocked stick of ram. Timing is everything. They just OC the hell out of everything because it's cheaper then producing low latency chips. So eat me.

BTW, it's cute you dropped the hard drive debate as soon as I intervened.

Maybe this will put a end to you're CPU rants..

 

desktop 7200 rpm hard drive has a benchmark in 80MB/s range while laptop 7200rpm is only 60MB/s.

 

trying to compare C2D with AMD single core is really nonsense.LMFAO. i was not referring to his desktop.

 

Then why DID YOU POST in this thread at all ? he was asking about HIS desktop and HIS notebook (Title : Should this be slower than my old desktop?), not general performance of notebook Vs Desktop CPUs.

About your HDD benchmark results: AGAIN you are comparing the latest very dense 3.5HDDs vs 2.5 HDDs; but looking at HIS desktop's other components I don't think he has very new high capacity SATA HDD, (most probably a 100~160GB IDE HDD) which wont be any faster than a new notebook disk.

Anyways, this has gone way off topic.. it also seems that the original poster has lost interest too... no point in continuing this any longer...

 

Thank you PhoenixFx for pointing out the same damn thing I'm trying to get into this guys head.. lol..

And for the record, after benchmarking my new 10k drive for my laptop..it rapes all the workstation machines in the office, and they're built with super raid array setups for capturing HD video feeds, so eat me.

 

again, when you compare something, you have to compare them in same class. if you compare 10k rpm laptop hard drive with 10k rpm desktop drive, the result is meaningful, otherwise it doesn't make sense. period.

 

yea..they the systems I compared to are single and dual 10K drive configurations.. Just barely tied with the dual, beat the hell out of the single. Although the massive 50 drive raid array will likely kick it's ass... but theres always round 2.. lol