AMD Turion X2 ZM-85 2.4GHz

AMD Turion X2 Ultra Dual-Core Mobile Processor ZM-85, 2.3 Ghz, Level 2 cache 2 MB (I think BUS SPEED is 3600Mhz)- is this a good CPU for heavy use (e.g music production programs)? In comparison to Intel, what intel processor would equal this power?

 

There is no laptop AMD processor that is good for heavy use -- the Turion X2 Ultras are the best they have, but they're still third-rate. It partially depends on exactly what you want to do, but the one clocked at 2.3 GHz is comparable to Intel's T6500 and P7350 (the latter is somewhat better). They're pretty cheap though.

If you want something better (but more expensive), go with Intel's P8XXX series and if that's not good enough, the P/T/Q9XXX is the best you can get (but it is priced accordingly).

 

I have it and with about 10 tabs being browsed, HWMonitor, CPU-Z, and GPU-Z open in the background, and music playing I haven't noticed a difference between the P8600 and the ZM-85

 

As a long time admirer of AMD, and owner of the Athlon XP when it came out, it pains me to say that AMD is getting completely owned by Intel at this time

The top dual core Intel is almost on a par with the top quad-core AMD's. They are that far off the pace, unfortunately

 

Thanks for the replies. Im looking at some new laptop, abaddon i think its like yours and it's a good price - but with an AMD and I have never used AMD before, I just wondered if there was a big difference. I will be using it for music production programs so i need it to be fast. abaddon what do you use your laptop for? would you recommend it for audio programs?

It's just this laptop has all the features - good sized hard drive, 8gb max ram, but it's the cpu i wasnt sure about - I dont want to buy a third rate cpu when I am going to need a good one for my programs. I will look P8XXX intel series like you said althernai, any other recommendations? My budget will probably be around £550-650 thats around $916-1083.

 

The OP described his uses for such a powerful CPU; namely multimedia editing. This is very different from the everyday usage you've mentioned. For music production, you'll want to follow Althernai's recommendations.

 

So you're saying a P7350 is not good for heavy use? HA! HA! HA! HA! HA! HA!!!!!!!!!!!

 

How heavy is the music production program? What type of audio encoding are you doing, at what frequencies & quality and with how many instruments?

While Audio encoding is pretty CPU intensive, depending on how heavy it is, you can manage with a mid-range CPU.

 

Yes. It is adequate for normal usage and most games (though the number in which you will be CPU-bound is increasing), but for things like audio and video encoding, compiling, etc., the system is always CPU-bound and the price of a cheap processor is wasted time. Every task that takes an hour on a P7350 will only take 50 minutes on a P8600, around 40 minutes on a P9700 (hard to say exactly because the effect of the extra cache is application dependent) and only 30 minutes on a Q9000.

That said, all of the CPUs will eventually get the job done -- it's just a matter of how much your time is worth to you.

 

Yeah agreed, theres nothing wrong with AMD at this time, its really down to your task.

 

My lappy is pretty much like Abbadon's, but with the 2.2GHz CPU.

AFAIK, some of the video encoding is taken care of in Hardware by the HD4650 1GDDR3 GPU if I'm not mistaking.
Also, the artist's edition of the HP DV6z comes with bundled music creation software...

Might be good for the OP.
Anyhow, I always find funny when people are talking heavy multitasking with laptop. You can get an Overclockable Intel Quad+powerful gaming card setup for under $1000( which could be used to encode also). So that could be an option...a desktop and a cheap portable lappy...

 

People just need to get their facts straight. Multitasking is not directly related to the CPU. Only CPU intensive programs are related to the CPU. I could run 50 internet tabs, a music player, a game(not too CPU intensive) and 2 IM programs and I still wouldn't need some high end dual or quad core. Multitasking is dependent on RAM in general because honestly, if you wanted to do hard CPU heavy stuff, you wouldn't want any other processes running at the same time to minimize your CPU load.

Anyhow, a desktop might be an idea. One thing I can think of is that when doing audio, you'd want decent audio output to hear whatever you're recording or encoding and laptops have generally crappy audio.

 

I have all the music software I need, I mainly use reason 4, cubase with vsts like reaktor, and acid pro. With reason i think its CPU power you need - you are opening one program but loading many samples, with cubase it would be good cpu and good ram because I open cubase to load in external vsts.

I know you can get good quality desktops for music for cheaper, but I need something portable. I already have a desktop for this purpose, but I need a better laptop to take it around with me. Right now I'm using a laptop with intel pentium dual cpu t2390 1.86ghz and 2gb ram. It is just about good enough, although i sometimes get problems with the cpu ( i think) not being able to handle all the devices I use in reason and it stops the audio output due to overload. Cubase with vsts I sometimes have problems with too.

The audio is fine I connect it to an audio interface or a mixer and from their use speakers, or just good headphones. I just need a more powerful laptop mainly for these tasks, and as I found a good priced laptop with 500gb hdd, 8gb ram and the turion cpu I wanted to know if the amd was up to the task - I want a big difference from my current cpu, otherwise theres no point of me buying a new laptop. What im looking for is lots of ram, a big hdd and a fast cpu - I take it the amd is not in this category?

 

I haven't really seen any benchmarks of Cubase. I usually don't worry about the hard drive that a laptop is offered with, because I will replace it with one I actually like instead.

The Turion Ultra ZM-xx series is about to be replaced with the Mxxx series. These are supposed to be up to 42% faster at the same clock speed. If you can wait about a month for these to hit the US market (assuming you're in the US) it'd be worth checking these new models out.