Am I making a mistake?

Hi, I have a question regarding whether or not I should sell my current notebook for another. I have had a compaq 8510w notebook for roughly 2 months or so, however I was under the impression that it had an expresscard slot and of course it does not. I really need one for an audio card i am very reluctant to sell, so I thought I would see what I can sell this laptop for so i can get another better equipped one. I was looking specifically at the pavilion dv9760ei. My question is whether I am making a mistake or not? I have been told that my current laptop is better than any pavilion and that there have been many reported problems with pavilion notebooks, but maybe those are just rumours? Here are the specs:

8510w (GC114EA):

8510w, Intel Core 2 Duo T7700 (2.4G), 2048MB DDRII 667MHz 1 DIMM, 120 GB 7200rpm, LightScribe DVD+/-RW DL SuperMulti - Fixed, 15.4 WUXGA WVA, NVIDIA Quadro FX 570M 256MB, 802.11a/b/g, BT, FBR, Windows Vista Business, 3-3-0

dv9760ei:

Intel® Core™ 2 Duo processor T8300 (2.40 GHz), 2048 MB (2 x 1024 MB), 500 GB (2 x 250 GB), 17" WXGA BV, NVIDIA® GeForce™ 8600M GS (512 MB dedicated), Intel PRO/Wireless 3945ABG, BT, Windows Vista Home Prem, Works 8, Lightscribe, Remote, Webcam, 1-1-0

 

Well you have a business grade notebook which probably will have better build quality then a pavilon. I believe your notebook has a PC card slot.. just get one of these: http://reviews.cnet.com/sound-cards/creative-sound-blaster-audigy/4505-9334_7-31156120.html

Your better off selling your old sound card on Ebay then your notebook and you will probably be money ahead and end up with a nicer notebook. Pavilions are nice but the build quality is not as good as your workstation business machine.

 

No the 8510w doesn't come with an express card slot. I don't think it's worth getting a whole new laptop for a sound card. It seems like a bad idea to get a new laptop that isn't as good as the 8510w for a 100ish sound card that you could re-sell/trade in. It's like selling a BMW for a Scion because you have tires that only fit the Scion. Yeah, bad analogue, but you get the picture.

 

What is it about this audio card that makes you not want to sell it?

 

Well I guess it's just because i had been waiting for months for it to come out in my country and then when it did and i found that it actually didnt work with my laptop...it was slightly infuriating

Hmmmm, maybe I will get the audigy. I wonder whether there is much support for vista tho? Also, will the pavilion really be that much worse than the workstation? It has slightly better specs right? It'd be nice to be able to game on an nvidia 8 series

 

Yeah I know creative has been bad in vista driver support. From their site they are saying beta driver support for vista:

Minimum System Requirements
Intel® Pentium® III, Mobile Pentium® III, Pentium M, Celeron - 1.2 GHz, or equivalent AMD® processor
Intel, AMD or 100% compatible motherboard chipset
Microsoft® Windows® Vista™ (Beta drivers available from us.creative.com)
Windows XP (SP2), or Window 2000 (SP4)
256 MB RAM
600 MB of free hard disk space
Available Type II CardBus slot (PCMCIA slot)
Headphones or external speakers (Audio will not play through built-in notebook speakers)


There was an individual that was providing alternative drivers that may apply to this card... You may have read about him in the news since Creative was giving him grief for copywrite infringement which quickly became a PR nightmare for creative and they ended up backing off since those drivers were pretty good and many people used them.

When I say the pavillon is worse it does not mean so much in performance as in build quality. Your 8510W is more durable and stronger build wise. The 8600m gs is a decent card but its not as good as a GT card. The 8xx cards along with vista and gaming is not as good as it could be. I think the deep level of DRM built into vista takes away from the gaming experience. DX 10 is sort of crappy at this point. A bigger boost for you 8510 might be to put XP on it. I know that model can be configured with XP so their should be good driver support for it. What I am saying is that if you are going to trade up to a new system because of the gpu you might consider something that offers a GT card to make it worth your while. But then again, the Pavillon will give you a HDMI output that could be important to you and would be a better reason to switch IMO if that is something you need.

Also your current system has a higher resolution wuxga then what the dv9760ei offers at wxga + Also the dv9760ei is a 17 inch system.. bigger screen. As for your current graphics card that is a pretty decent gaming card from what I read. Probably as good or better then the GS card.. Only thing that might slow it down is the high wuxga native resolution you have.. probably want to run games at a lower resolution. Good luck in whatever your do. Just saying that system you have now is pretty sweet and loaded up. It already has a hi resolution, good video card, fast processor and great build quality. If if were me, I'd put XP on that bad boy since that is probably what will run best on it and the audigy card will do better as well.

 

Thnx for the advice!

 

i noticed that this wasnt mentioned, but the quadro fx 570m is actually a 8600gt, except it is certified for workstation apps like cad.
in terms of specs, if you go from the 8501w to the dv9xxx, that is one steep downgrade, just to satify the audio cards needs... just get the audigy (even though creative is being jerks about releasing working drivers for vista

 

get a docking station with an expess slot ? thatswhat i did for my avermedia hc 80

 

got the docking station

 

Don't sell it.

Because since you already bought it couple of months ago, there is no point to sell it now and get a so call "newer" Penryn. The current Penryn is still running on the Santa Rosa platform, imo I think this is the worst time to get the Penryn, cause we're in a transition phase atm. By the 3Q/4Q of this year, the new platform for Penryn will be rolling out, and this is when you can use Penryn's full potential. If you didn't have a notebook and needed one, sure why not, but since you already bought it, you'll lose money for selling the current one, then you'll have to pay extra for the new one.

I agree with HI DesertNM, sell your old sound card instead.