AM2 with DDR2 worth the wait?

Hi everybody. As you might know, AMD recently announced that their new AM2 socket, which supports DDR2 RAM, will be out by 6/6/06. I was just about to purchase the HP DV5000z (AMD Turion 64 ML-34) with single-channel DDR RAM (1gb) when I received this news.

What do you guys think? Should I hold out several months for DDR2 to take advantage of higher mhz and lower power consumption? Or would the power saving and performance boost be too small to really matter? And would there be a large price hike for DDR2 by HP?

I'm looking to invest in a laptop that'll last me 3+ years while doing basic office tasks, surfing the web, photo/video work and very light gaming.

Thanks in advance for the help, and great forum, btw. I've learnt a lot from everyone.

 

I think if you do not need a laptop rightways, it is okay.
I think, it depends mainly on if you need Dual-Core 64 bit or not, rather than DDR2 RAM. Ofcourse it is going to be Dual channel, and little less power for memory than currentl generation, but main advantage I think is Dual-Core 64Bit cpu.

 

I agree with Chinna, the only reason to wait is either to get the dual core or the 65nm chips(the first batch of AM2 chips is expected to be 90nm and 65nm would probably arrive in early '07). DDR2 is OK for future upgradability but performance wise I dont expect it to be big jump over DDR. Also there wont be any proce hike for DDR2 as they are currently using those on their intel based systems and DDR2 is cheaper to manufacture anyways, so it will be cheaper for sometime to come.

For the uses you list the Turion should be plenty and should last the the whole 3 yrs you are expecting.

 

yeah, for my present and near-future needs, the dual core processor is probably a bit overkill. I'll just get the relatively "future-proofed" dv5000z and sit back comfortably and watch the whole dual core/64-bit/Vista growing pains go by. Then it'll be time to drop another crapload of money on an improved laptop. Sound like a plan?

 

The question is when the AM2 socket is coming available for notebooks.... I haven't heard about it will, yet...

 

Except for maybe 12lb DTR laptops, AM2 won't show because S1 is AMD's upcoming mobile socket.

 

According to the Dailytech and the laptoplogic article, they have a dual core proc with 35W TDP and low voltages. So they might be releasing the mobile versions along with the desktop versions.