T6400 vs. P8600 for $150

Hey all, I'm looking into a Dell Studio 14z and the big customization point I'm fighting with is the CPU. The upgrade to the P8600 is fairly steep, and I'm not sure if it's worth it.

In terms of my uses, this is not the most powerful machine, so I won't be doing any serious gaming. I do a lot of multitasking, some data crunching, streaming, and probably HD video playback, and I am a speed freak when it comes to loading times. It seems obvious to go up in CPU speed, maybe, but I'm also about to start grad school and therefore looking to keep some money in my pocket.

The other relevant specs are 3GB DDR3 RAM on a 900p display with a 9400M video card.

Thoughts? Will I notice the difference in speed? What about battery life? Is it worth the price point?

 

I'm a fan of the P series processors, but the T6400 is fine for your needs. My wife has the T6400 in her laptop and it runs smooth as buttah. You can always change the processor out later if you find it lacking. The P8600 would probably give you better battery life by a bit.

 

Of course, you can always compensate for the T6400's TDP by undervolting.

 

Having a P processor is great, less heat, more battery life and same performance .

 

There will obviously be some difference in speed and battery life, but I don't think there's a $150 difference. The only time where there would be a noticeable difference is probably during your data crunching - the P8600 would be faster and would give you more battery time, since it has a lower TDP.

If anything, I would suggest sticking with the T6400 and later investing in an SSD - since the hard drive is the bottleneck for application loading and during boot, an SSD would significantly boost those times, more so than an upgrade in processor.

 

I was pretty upset when HP wanted to charge me $150 to go from a T6400 to a P8600, I knew the obvious advantages the "P" series chip had in terms of better performance and less power usage, but definitely not worth $150. In my case, I went with Lenovo who offered the P8400 as the base option on the T400 unlike HP which offered a more expensive system and offered the T6400 as a upgrade option after some crappy "Pentium" chip which in turn made the upgrade to the "P" series chip actually cost $200 and was the final deal breaker for me.

 

You need to put a lot of value on battery run time to justify the extra $150 (the P series has lower idle power consumption as well as lower maximum power). Cooler operation is another benefit but both models of CPU can be undervolted if heat and fan noise become an issue.

You can't blame the notebook manufacturer for the big price difference. Those margins tend to follow the Intel pricing differentials.

John

 

HP also starts at a lower price...

 

Not with student discounts, and I compared both HP and Lenovo, I would have had to pay about $800 for a similar system compared to the one I ordered in my sig for $696.

 

wow, that's a bargain! congrats.
back to topic, unless you spend alot of time running the cpu to the MAX, the difference in tdp and processing power is not worth 150 dollar imo. undervolting further diminishes the marginal gains.

 

This is great advice, thanks all. I think I'll pocket the money and go with the T6400.

 

To the contrary, I think spending the extra $150 would be worth it to get the P8600 upgrade. I have this cpu and my laptop always runs cool and quiet. That and you get a lot more battery life. You can also undervolt a P8600 remember?

 

On idle, P vs. T processors have very little difference in power consumption (hence very little battery life difference), especially when both are undervolted.

 

Correction: If you read the Intel data sheets then you will find that the P series draw lower currents (ie less power) in the various sleep modes. This is the main factor in getting more battery time.

However, as I've said previously, you need to give a lot of value to this lower power consumption in order to pay an extra $150.

John