SU7300 vs SP9300 vs Core2Duo (2.4ghz)

Alright, so I'm trying to track down the perfect laptop for myself. I'm currently a little interested by the Core i3 Sony Vaio S-Series, it's a nice laptop, plenty powerful, and gets okay battery life.

In another thread I posted, someone said that a CULV SU7300 would be on a par performance wise to the (last gen) Core2Duo processor found in the base model white MacBook.

Is this true? The SP9300 found in the HP DM3 looks rather nice as well, considering the decent price and battery life that it can get.

Basically, what's a good processor in terms of power consumption that also gets decent performance? How's that for an open-ended question

 

Decent performance is a relative term. What are you using the machine for? If it's not anything more than basic computing than none of those CPUs will really show a difference amongst each other in terms of performance so I'd just take the one that yields the best battery life

 

I don't do any demanding gaming these days, but I thrash my computer with multi-tasking. I reguarly make my E4400 lock up on my desktop (lack of RAM has something to do with it as well though).

I completely understand that "fast" is a relative term. Basically, I feel that the CULV's in my experience were just not fast enough for having WMP, Outlook '07, Chrome (with about 5-10 tabs), OneNote and other assorted apps open and switching between them.

*shrugs

 

As long as you have enough ram, running wmp, outlook 07, chrome, onenote and many more won't be a problem even for a culv processor.

 

I have a P4 at work and I'm basically running most of those things >.>

Well I have FF and IE8 with about 6-8 tabs each, WMP, MSE scanning, Outlook 2010, Office Communicator, Acronis True Image and a few other apps open and I'm swapping between them.

 

I can vouch for battery life and performance is very good on the road using standard apps or viewing 720p video using the SU7300@1700mhz

Check out the UL30vt; around $700 if you can find them at Amazon. The Acers have a few Timelines that may interest you, check out the user forums.

 

I have used notebooks with both CPUs (two review notebooks with the SU7300 and my HP ProBook has the SP9300) - in general usage (MS Office, web browsing, watching videos) I have not seen any differences between them.

For running many applications, as noted a decent amount of RAM (4GB) helps more than anything. Also, make sure you have a high-performance 7200RPM hard drive (Western Digital or Hitachi, NOT Seagate).

Just because a lot of applications are "running" at the same time does not mean they are taking up CPU time.

The only way you would see a difference between CPUs is if you are running applications that need a lot of CPU time (80%+). In that case yes, an upgraded CPU would help. Otherwise, no.

Edit: regarding the comment that the SU7300 would be on par with the last-gen C2D in the MacBook - no, that is inaccurate. A 2.0GHz Core 2 Duo (I think that's what the MacBook had) is much faster than the SU7300.

Edit2: note that the SU7300 will provide better battery life than a SP9300.

 

That's wrong. Core 2 Duos can be compared on clockspeed. For example: 2.0Ghz is basically twice as fast as 1.0GHz.

SU7300 is Core 2 Duo.

Keep in mind that the difference will only be noticed during CPU intensive tasks.

Edit: like Charles said.

 

On a really rough note, you can expect 1 hour of runtime for each battery cell on a SP series processor. Hope that helps.

(Yeah, I'm ignoring exact calculations of voltages, actual capacity of each cell, etc etc, just really rough calc)

 

Eh . . . I can't talk much about that review here since it was on another site I am associated with. I will refer you to Phil's review - he can link that for you. He was able to run real-life tests unlike myself and found the 7200.4 to trail both the Western Digital Black and Hitachi 7K500 by a significant margin. Synthetic benchmarks are not always indicative of real-world usage (as I found out).

My HP ProBook came with a Seagate 7200.4 and I just recently upgraded it to a Hitachi 7K500. In comparison I find the 7200.4 to be lacking in the quality department - see my post here:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/har...cal-harddrive.html?postid=6115403#post6115403

 

13" Asus UL30VT has turbo33 (33% overclock) of its SU7300-1.3 to 1.73. NBR users extending that further with setfsb to get it up to a stable 1.9Ghz. That would be similar CPU performance to the 2Ghz Macbook performance while providing great battery life.

For best performance/power consumption, consider a ULV i-core CPU with their more efficient 32nm design, eg: i7-640LM. Units containing those CPUs are hitting the market now. Though be prepared to pay for the latest tech.

 

i would wait and consider how well the new core i5 , i7 ULV processors do.. they seem to be much better options than any of the above although slightly more expensive.

 

Performance wise yes, but power consumption has been disappointing so far, as far as I know.

 

I agree. My company HP ProBook has the i7 640UM and it doesn't get near the battery life I was expecting, but it does have good thermal management.