Skip Clarksdale, wait for Arrandale?

I've been a bit out of touch with this forum but now started reading again since my D620 is getting slooow and I'll soon be in the market for a new notebook.

I've did a quick search and to my surprise found nothing on Clarksfield vs. Arrandale. So let me throw out the question:

What's a good time to buy a new notebook?

I vaguely remember Anand Lal Shimpi saying something to the effect that the end of this year/early next year is going to be a good time to buy a new laptop. I kinda agree but am not 100% on top of current developments. My thinking goes that Clarksfield is a very powerful but its TDP is really high. Arrandale promises to be quite powerful, too, with much lower power consumption and heat dissipation due to being dual-core and 32nm.

Any thoughts from people here? Is the upper-mainstream (and possibly even enthusiast) buyer better off waiting for Arrandale?

 

Of course you want to skip Clarkdale and wait for Arrandale. The former is a desktop part while the latter is notebook part.

Just kidding, I assume you mean Clarksfield. Arrandale will be slower performance wise than Clarksfield though.

 

doh. fixed post. will do another search now. it is admittedly a possibility that my search produced no hits since I used "clarksdale," not clarksfield in the search

 

Isn't Arrandale going to be dual core + IGP + lower TDP? If so, I think whether or not you are interested in Clarksfield depends on usage. If you want a quad and don't worry so much about battery life, then Clarksfield is going to be a better choice.

There was a big discussion/argument in another thread on this subforum about which would be quicker in single and dual core operation at full turbo boost - not sure what the conclusion was, but it reminded me of the current C2D vs C2Q debates.

Personally, I'd prefer the extra versatility of a quad, but it also depends on Arrandale's pricing and perhaps just how agressive it's Turbo Boost will be (for instance, do you just get a max of + 1-2X while running both cores?). Then again, I rarely run on battery with a high performance laptop.

 

The power consumption on Clarksfield vs. Arrandale is skewed by the fact that one has an option for IGP while the other doesn't. Of course Arrandale will be lower because of that. GPUs are a HUGE portion of power.

But I assume if you use same GPU between them the power differences won't be big as you think(Arrandale will still be lower). I'm pretty sure they can get smaller form factors with Clarksfield, the manufacturers just don't want to do that. With a low end like mobility Radeon HD 4350 the battery life might be not too bad either.

If you use a high end GPU, you are pretty much screwed either way. Think of it, does 1.5 hours vs 1.2 hours battery life going to matter for you? Arrandale will be cheaper(and slower CPU wise) though.

 

I'd say buy the machine you need, when you need it. Forget about targeting a specific cpu or chipset generation.

The odds are better in 'vegas than they are trying to out-guess Microsoft, Intel, and the market.

 

Yea I agree. Unless you are sure you can wait till that point and isn't going to change your mind. Maybe by that time you'll wait for Calpella Refresh.