7900GS bottlenecked?

If I get a Dell Inspiron E1705 with a 7900GS in it, will it be bottlenecked by an Intel Core Duo T2250 (1.73 Ghz) or a Core 2 Duo T5200 (1.60 Ghz)? Is it worth spending the extra $200 for a Core 2 Duo T7200 (2.00 Ghz)?

 

For what, games? I can't imagine either of the cheaper chips being a bottleneck for anything really!

 

Well, the T2250 and T5200 are only 32bit chips. I personally think it's worth it to have more CPU power, because more games are starting to get better AI, more physics effects, etc. and will start using more CPU power. I'd go with the T7200 if I were you, but that's just me. Get at least one of the T5500's or something worthwhile. Otherwise your bottleneck will end up being the CPU in some cases on new games.

 

The processors you named can form a bottleneck, the 7900GS isn't the bottleneck. If you want a feature ready laptop, I would consider the T7200.

Charlie

 

I agree with pitabred, but what about your ram and HD. How much ran are you getting and what speed hard drive, they will be much bigger bottle necks than your cpu (if only picking from the 2 you said) ever will.

 

Come on people, $200 for 400MHzper core and another 2MB cache? Is it REALLy worth that much?

I'd say no but then I'm not made of money. If you have the cash and want to play FEAR etc. it might help a bit.

 

That's why I suggested the T5500/T5600. It's faster than the two processors he listed, and it's got the faster bus. He may not be made of money, but then he should save a bit more and get a better solution for what he wants. You don't say "I'm gonna build a doghouse" and buy a file for the job, rather than a saw. Even if it's cheaper, it just won't do what you want very well.

 

The T5200 is the budget version of the Core 2 Duo and is 64-bit.

I do agree though that it would be to your benefit if you went to a T5500/T5600 - you are going to want a bit more power considering you have such a powerful video card. Now if you had an X1400, then I would say just stick to the T5200/T2250, because the CPU doesn't matter a whole lot there because of the relatively weak (compared to the Go7900GS) GPU.

 

Of course the T7200 would give you a slight increase in performance. It's quite likely that you may not notice the difference though. If I were buying a notebook today I'd opt for the T7200, but I tend to go for premium configurations.

I like the idea of setting the floor at T5500/T5600. That makes a lot of sense and they shouldn't cost much more than the CPUs you were originally mentioning.