Is the upgrade from T7100 to T7300 worth $75

Im trying to work on customizing my HP laptop and need to stay within $1250.

Things I do

Play games
Occasionally burn cd's and maybe a DVD
Downloading a lot of stuff
internet, word
View Pictures and movies


Nothing to crazy like encoding stuff all the time and editing.

 

yes because not only are you getting .2 ghz upgrade, you are gaining 2 MB of cache.

 

yep, def worth it
for cache!

 

If I didnt get that I could get 120gb hard drive and a 12 cell battery instead.

 

Yes, it's worth it. The T7300 has double the L2 cache, which alone gives it 10-15% more horsepower. Add the extra clock speed, and the T7300 is in a new class compared to the T7100. Drawing an analogy to the previous generation of Core 2 Duo's, the T7200 was the best "bang for buck" processor, meaning it had the best performance to price ratio. I'd say the T7300 is the new T7200 in the Santa Rosa lineup, although others think the T7500 is the better deal.

If you need a 12-cell battery, go to eBay.com and check out the wide selection of HP 12-cell batteries. You can find a 12-cell battery easily for under $75.

 

how about a 7300 to a 7500 for 50 haha

 

I'd do it

 

Last I checked the catche only gave a very small increase in performance... benchmarks show it real world doesnt.

This is based on desktop chips and can post numerous benchmarks to proove it, so maybe the moble chips are diffrent?

Will sombody post proof of this huge increase in performance you speak of???

 

Extra cache always gives an advantage. It depends on the application, but in general, it's a 10-15% boost.

Just go search for comparisons between the T5600 and T7200, or E6400 and E6600.

 

I have in well over 100 diffrent threads on varous computer expert forums.

We also have a very very extensive test of benchmarks the catch made small diffrences in superpi for example wich is a cpu only test and very picky about small things like ram latency even. But in app load times, and games it made no diffrence.

 

There are many CPU intensive games that would definitely benefit from higher clocks as well as larger cache. Oblivion and Supreme Commander for example both displayed noticeable benefits from the CD 1.6Ghz -->C2D 2.00Ghz jump, so I have little doubt it would be the same here. The question is by how much and whether the extra .2Ghz and 2MB cache is worth the $75 purchase price. It was worth it in the CD vs C2D comparison because of the slightly improved architecture as well as EM64T (64 bit computing) and virtualization tech in the C2D.

 

First link: http://techreport.com/reviews/2006q3/e6300-vs-sff/index.x?pg=17

lots of benches there, and written in the conclusion the 2mb vs 4mb didnt matter and you wont miss it.

Second Link: http://forums.bit-tech.net/showthread.php?t=118345

Then you can go to guru3d.com and go the the benchmarks section. You will notice over and over that the clock speed is all thats effecting the results the cache is not making a big diffrence.

Due to the large price diffrence when these cpu's came out, I say nearly 80% of the enthusiast community got the lower clocked cpu's with 2mb of cache and overclocked them to save money.

Now that the prices are so low getting a e6600 is not a big deal and infact is the cpu I plan to put in my Asus C90.

Clock speeds make a diffrence, the cache not so much. Thats what im trying to make clear.

So for the threads question itself if this upgrade justifys the money, I say yes it does. You get the cache increase but also the higher clock speed.

As Gator said there is other things to keep in mind aswell since this is not just a cache/speed upgrade its a totally diffrent revision of the cpu.

 

A 7300 is a totally different revision of the 7100?

 

A 7300 and a 7100 are the same chip, but one is clocked higher.

 

I was going off of that, guess I lost track of the OP

 

For whatever reason it seems like its costing me $30 extra for my config now. It looks like the upgrade prices have stayed the same and the base price as well. Damn, that means I probably forgot to add some upgrade last time in the price but thought I did and was getting a good deal. Might not be able to go with the 7300 now. I mean will I notice an actual difference?

 

My take on this is.. if I were tight on the money.. I'd do the CPU/GPU upgrades because they cannot be upgraded later.

HDD's, memory and batteries can always be purchased after the fact at usually better prices than what the original mfg sells it to you for.

The thing that still kills me is that Dell (and possibly other vendors) charges so much more for 2GB @ 667Mhz ram as opposed to the 2GB @ 533 Mhz ram when you can find it elsewhere for so much cheaper.

My 0.02 cents.

 

wat grfx card are u getting?

 

Nvidia 8400GS