Turion 1.8GHz or 2.2 GHz for Dell 1521

Hi

I am new to the forums, and new to the world of laptops!

I will be purchasing a Dell Inspiron 1521 in the next few days. There are a few upgrade options I have.

1. Upgrade the current Turion from 1.8GHz/1MB to 2.2GHz/1MB ($150)

2. Upgrade the current 160G HD from 5400 RPM to 7200 RPM ($130)

The memory is 2GB Shared Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 667 MHz, 2Dimm on both computer options.

The base price before taxes and before any upgrade is $899 ... so I don't want to waste unnecessary money on upgrades that won't really make much difference.

I will be moving overseas, so the laptop is primarily to stay in touch with my family, surf the net, download stuff, edit photos .... but this is a computer I plan on having with me for the next 5 to 10 years at least! I just want it to be fast ... but if the 1.8 GHz is fast enough, then I won't bother with the upgrade.

I went into my desktop settings and my current computer is 2.8 GHz. So how much slower will it be if I don't do any upgrades?

I'm really confused.

 

You would get a noticable performance boost with the hard drive upgrade. Since you aren't encoding, or doing other intensive cpu task, you shouldn't notice the difference between 1.8 and 2.2

As for your laptop, it shouldn't be slower than your desktop.

 

$150 for an extra 400MHz is a bit of a ripoff. Only really worth it if you do a lof of cpu intensive work like encoding, compiling or handing large images in photoshop.

I would also say for your usage the HDD upgrade is not necessary.

Lastly, 5-10 years for one laptop is completely unrealistic. Very few laptops (or even desktops) last beyond four without a major fault occuring and the ones that do are usually too outdated to use effectively after five or six years. The best plan is to buy something inexpensive and buy a new laptop every 2-3 years.

I'd say for your use the upgrades are not necessary.

 

These will increase the cost by 31% and I doubt it will increase the performance by that much.

the tasks you mention require neither of these and therfore you may see no real world increase except maybe faster boot up times.

With technology it is hard to tell into the future even 5 years, look back 5 years to see what I mean, 10 years with your thinking you would be running Windows 95 on a Pll 300Mhz and starting to look into buying a new computer. So save the money put it in the bank and in 5 years you could probably buy better. In 5 years we might all be running 64-bit OS with Quad cores and 8GB RAM.

If your 2.8Ghz P4 either one of these CPU's will be faster, it is not all about clock speed, and you have two strapped together so expect better performance!

Those upgrades will do little to nothing to future proof.

 

I forgot to comment on your desktop question. Your laptop should be quicker cpu wise than your desktop. As baddogboxer says, the Turion X2 is dual core, effectively two cpus in one so you get much more practical power. You'll also get DDR2 ram over your desktop's DDR.

 

Thanks a lot for your advice. I will just stick to the basics.

 

It's a nice set up!
You did not ask but if you can go to to 2Ghz for $50 I would consider that for all the reasons you were thinking of, look at my sig, I have almost what you are going to buy but 1.6Ghz CPU and slower RAM and it is fast!!

 

why not grab a vostro?? at 599 you get a core 2 duo at 800mhz... 120 gb driver and for maybe 50$ (after rebates) you can easily upgrade the ram yourself to go to 2gb so for 650 you have a c2d 800mhz (santa rosa) 2gb ram and a nvidia gpu... imo the core 2' stomp the turions.. just a suggestion..or for about 600 you could get the same with a turion dual core..