Questions on configurations for the hp dv9000t

I had a few questions on the different configuration options for this model that I was hoping people could chime in on. I'm posting in this forum since it's less about the model I want and more about individual component questions.

I'm trying to stick with a good balance of power, battery life, and speed. I don't expect to get the best of all three, especially with the more powerful components, but maybe I'm wrong on that (new to notebook components):

256 vs 512 mb nvidia geforce go 7600 - I've heard from some people that the 512 is unneccessary since the card won't make that much use of it and it's more of a gimick from nvidia with this model. Is there a noticeable enough difference with the increased videocard memory to warrant the extra 120 bucks or so?

Processor speed - I already know I want to go with the core 2 duo over the basic duo that comes standard. What I don't know is what speed to go with. I haven't followed processor speeds in a while now and I know that now more than in the past, ghz speed is supposedely not that huge a deal. I'm coming from an xp 3000+ desktop so I'm figuring that these dual cores will be faster, even at a baseline 1.66 ghz. But I'm not sure if I should consider dumping more into this to get it at or near the 2.0 ghz cap they offer.

Hard drive - Having 120 gb filled up real easily on my desktop, this one kind of makes me more cautious than the other components. It comes stock with the 160 gb 5400 dual HD's, but I keep thinking a 100 gig 7200 HD would be better. Is there a noticeable difference between 5400 and 7200? I never thought I'd want less storage for quicker access but I could see this making data streaming in apps and games noticeable enough to affect my enjoyment.

I should note that I'm planning on using this with a Vista OS. Thanks for any input.

 

Video card: you will feel the difference with very demanding games. Unfortunately, if those demanding games fill up your video memory, they will also want a faster GPU chip, so you'll gain something but still the real bottleneck is that 7600 is a middle-range video card.
CPU - I would get something in between 1.6 and 2.0 (t5600, that is). The faster CPU would certainly be better but the marginal returns over 1.8ghz in terms of performance are pretty small, unlike the price difference however!
HDD: dv9000t supports two HDDs. So, why don't you get the 7200 rpm drive (faster startup, faster programs loading, etc), then purchase from HP the bracket needed for the installation of a second HDD (I'm afraid they won't give it with teh laptop if you only buy one HDD) and find a large hard drive yourself.
7200rpm is definately better than 5400 rpm.
No problems with Vista for this laptop.

 

Cool, thanks for the info. So it sounds like for the videocard, it's safe to stick with 256 megs, because if a game needed 512 megs anyways, it'd probably want a faster GPU to take advantage of everything.

CPU, I'm guessing a 1.8 is the best of both worlds. Still relatively affordable, but noticeable gains.

HDD's, I realize they support two hard drives, but I thought I could only get the two they're specifying (like the dual, 80's). What about if I just bought an external HD to plug in for data if I needed it? The only other concern I had with having dual hard drives that are on all the time is power consumption and more weight. At least with the external I can turn it off and detach possibly?

Thanks again.

 

I have the HP 9000t, with a Core 2 Duo 1.66 (T5500), the 256MB 7600 and dual 80 GB HDDs.

I bought this one preconfigured from a big box store, but if I hadn't I think I would have gone with the Core 2 Duo 2.0 GHz (T7200). I think the jump in price is reasonable up until that point. If you go for the next processor up (T7400?), the jump in price was pretty substantial. Actually, I just went to the website to verify my processor numbers and it looks like the T7200 is the fastest they have for configuration. I think you'll be pleased with either one.

Like you said, I've heard the 512 7600 is kind of a waste. I don't play any hardcore graphics-intensive games, but it seems to do fine on the ones I've played.

HDDs - Like I said, mine was a preconfig, so I didn't have a choice. I was under the impression that I was going to get a 7200 RPM no matter what. In the end, I didn't. Like Vassil said, you can always upgrade. I just bought an external 300GB to increase my overall space. You could always get the dual 5400 RPMs and then upgrade the OS one at a later date if you thought disk access was too slow. I may do it in the future, but right now, it's not a priority.

 

The 512MB version is not worth paying for. It's a marketing gimmick, this card is not powerful enough to use that memory and you're not gonna see a difference...


What will you be doing on that notebook?

 

Thanks for the info everyone. This has all helped greatly!

 

I have had a dv9000t for about three months and I love it. The WSXGA screen is perfect for me. Text is not too small and games look fine. I got the Zalman ZM-NC1000 notebook cooler and it is great. It lowered my CPU and HDD temps 11 degrees at idle and at full load. It's expensive=$55 plus shipping, but worth every penny. My computer has been on for several hours and right now typing this post my CPU is 21 degrees and the HDD is 32 degrees.