Does Hard Drive size and Processor affect battery life?

Buying a laptop, and battery life is important to me.
Choice is between:
2Ghz & 160 or 250GB
or
2.4Ghz & 320GB
Price isn't really an issue, just wondering if it those factors will affect performance much.

For example:

- Intel® Centrino® Processor Technology - Intel® Core™2 Duo Processor T8300 (2.4GHz/ 800 FSB/ 3MB Cache)
- 350GB 5400RPM SATA Hard Drive

VS.

- Intel® Centrino® Processor Technology - Intel® Core™ 2 Duo Processor T7250 (2.0GHz/ 800 FSB/ 2MB Cache)
- 160GB 5400RPM SATA Hard Drive


(I put this question to yahoo answers but I thought I'd be better with you guys and gals - who probably actually know something not just answering questions for the sake of it. Thanks .,.,)

 

The T8300 is more energy efficient processor based on a 45nm process technology.
The T8300 will run faster, cooler, and use less power than the T7250.
as far as the harddrives go, any 5400rpm high density drive is fine.
The 320gb 5400rpm drive actually will consume slightly less power than the 160gb and 250gb drives, and it is much faster.
Refer to this chart for maximum power usage by the harddrives: (you can see that the 320gb drive uses less power than the 250gb and 160gb drives.) (The drives you suggested are highlighted in red)
http://www23.tomshardware.com/storage25.html?modelx=33&model1=1083&model2=845&chart=157

I would get a 250-320Gb 5400rpm drive and the T8300.
When you get your laptop, download CPU Rightmark, or Notebook Hardware Control.
These programs will allow you to undervolt your processor.
Undervolting will help restrict the amount of power which your processor can use, resulting in lower power consumption, identical performance, and about 20 more minutes of batter life.
Undervolting does not decrease performance at all.

K-TRON

 

Go with the T8300. This is the latest Penryn processors which run cooler and use less power also faster than the T7xxx merom range

 

Processor will to some extent, though not as much as you would guess at first since your processor will throttle down and use less power when demand is lower.

As for harddrive, the size does not matter (how many times have we heard that one guys?), but the rotational speed does (hmm, even that sounds perverted for some reason). A faster spinning drive (7200 rpm) consumes more power than a slower (5400 rpm)

edit---oops, didn't notice it was a penryn--mea culpa...what those guys said

 

So does that mean this would be even better and more efficient?:

Intel® Centrino® Processor Technology - Intel® Core™2 Duo Processor T9300 ( 2.5GHz/ 800 FSB/ 6MB Cache)

 

No, that processor is not more efficient power wise. It has a higher clock speed and uses the same 45nm process.
The T9300 will use more power than the T8300, and probably run as hot as the less efficient T7250 processors.
The T9300 will be a bit faster because it has double the cache, but were talking 3-5% performance boost.
But you will only notice this performance boost when youre running ver cpu intensive processes. 95% of the time you are using your system, you will not need 100% cpu power.

K-TRON

 

From what I've seen many of the high-end laptops have much smaller processors like 1.6GHz to keep energy consumption low.
Even some of the real fancy-pants notebooks that cost over 3k have tiny little processors.

 

Man those are good answers!! Thanks a lot. All my superficial research wouldn't have uncovered that useful info.

The laptop I'm thinking of getting is the Dell XPS 1330.
I don't really want a Dell - I'd rather just about anything else - but in terms of value for money i just can't find better. It's quite annoying.

I'm just trying to decide how to set it up. Sounds like the
- Intel® Centrino® Processor Technology - Intel® Core™2 Duo Processor T8300 (2.4GHz/ 800 FSB/ 3MB Cache)
- 350GB 5400RPM SATA Hard Drive
is the one to get.

Any other suggestions?

Thanks again.

 

Yes, that is the laptop to get.
Check out teh coupon section on NBR, and look at the dell part. There is usually a nice coupon code posted there.

My fancy laptop cost over 7k, and the processor alone in my system uses about 3 x the power of any new laptop.
AMD server power is the way to go
I get all of 47 minutes of battery on a 16 cell 196watthour battery
Unfortunately power has its tradeoffs of power inefficiency.

K-TRON

 

I wonder if Core 2 Duo ULV model would even save more power. The Low Voltage ULV model doesn't use fan at all which would considerably save power.

 

I'm so glad I found this thread!

I'm thinking about buying a Dell M1330, and had in mind a T7250 (320GB-5400rpm). After reading this, I think I'm gonna spend $100 more and go with the T8300.

Thanks!!