p8400 or t9400

Hello, I am planning on purchasing the m50vm series notebook but I cannot decide whether I should shell out the extra $150 dollars for the better CPU, every other component is the same.

Can anyone tell me if the upgrade is worth it?

Oh yea and I am a university student studying Engineering.

Thanks in advanced!

 

T9400 is not worth $150 more than P8400 period. That's more like the difference between P8400 and P9500.
In reality, the T9400 is about $100 more..
However, the performance difference is not small depending on what you are doing. Unless you really need it, stick to the P8400 or if you can get a P8600. Note that the T9400 drains your battery and runs hotter.

 

If you like to run benchmarks like I do? Then yea. If you actually use to be productive? No they will work the same. Save your $150.

 

I'd go with the P8400. In 95% of the scenarios, performance will be identical, and in the other 5%, performance will be similar. The P8400 saves you $150 and gets you better battery life. Definitely worth it, imho.

 

Thanks everyone for you opinions, I was thinking similar also, BUT would I be missing much on the extra 3mb of cache on the t9400?

for engineering I will run visual C++...dunno if that helps and yea..plus if the p8400 runs cooler, I would be able to overclock more wouldn't I ...

 

You really cannot count on OCing a notebook processor.

Anyway, save the money and get the P8400. You'll enjoy a better battery life and cooler notebook.

Also, there should be minimal performance impacts from the smaller cache.