HP Athlon vs Turion

I'm pretty much settled on buying a notebook with a 64 bit chip and have been going around and around trying to decide between an Athlon and a Turion equiped machine. I like the better battery life and lower weight of the Turion, but I wonder if I'd notice significant reduction in performance between a machine with Turion 64 Ml-30 and an Athlon 3500+. I'd buy either machine with 1GB of RAM, a 60 G HD @ 5400 RPM, the 128MB video card, XP Pro and the bigger battery. I understand the Turion uses shared video memory, but I called the pre-purchase support line and the guys at ATI assured me that the XPRESS 200M will handle the 3D demands of Call Of Duty. I'll be doing alot of traveling during part of the year, doing online communication, doing some gaming, burning/playing CD's, digital photo storage and watching movies on DVD. I'd also be doing some low demand office type tasks, maintaining case records and that sort of thing. I'm not by any stretch technically savvy so any thoughts on this would be apprecated.

 

I think the Turion will suit you just fine.

 

Yeah, especially since you mentioned some travel, the lighter weight of the Turion notebooks will be useful. The Turion ML30 might be close in performance with an Athlon64 2800+/3000+. For the uses you mentioned, the Turion ML30 should be able to handle them.

 

Ditto the above, though I'd try to get a ML34 or ML37 just because they're there. 1GB RAM and the 5400RPM HD are more important though.

 

well , turion is good but what about cpu speed ? I think that athlon is more speed than any turion, isn't it? Because i need performance because of my job. What are your advices?

 

Well, higher end Athlon64's outperform theTurion as there are no Turions running at 2.4GHz, but if you are comparing 3000+ Athlon64, then there are equivalent Turions.

 

But would a Turion be more expensive than an Athlon?

 

Well, I think a Turion might be more expensive, but it depends on the notebook. The Turion would probably be a bit more expensive, since it has to consume less power and still perform well. Also, Turions are typically used in thin-and-light notebook, and the smaller case makes them more expensive.

 

People talk about how Athlon has a 64 bit chip, I'm not quite sure what that means. Is it worth the extra money?

 

It means that when Microsoft Vista comes out and people buy the 64-bit edition and ignore the 32-bit edition, you'll be able to run it. Or you can run 64-bit Linux today, or 64-bit Solaris, or 64-bit WinXP, but Microsoft-land won't go seriously 64-bit until Vista from the looks of things (much to my annoyance). AMD chips get a nice performance boost from 64-bit mode (doubles the number of available registers, x86 is a register-starved architecture). If you run Linux it makes no sense at all to buy a 32-bit-only CPU.

Basically, it's all about options. With AMD you have the option of running a 64-bit OS and applications on a notebook. With Intel you don't.

 

well...windows is releasing a new OS that supports 64-bit processors...so the athlon chip computer will be future-proof...and as more and more programs become 64-bit...the athlon chip computer can utilize those programs

 

Oh ok well thanks. Will haveing 2.4 GHz instead of the 2.2 that I was going to get help me for the future?

 

It'll help a little but it's not critical. If you're going to do CPU-intensive work and can spare the cash by all means get the faster chip. I generally pick whatever I think the price/performance sweet spot is and that's a very subjective judgement. RAM and a fast HD take priority though.

 

yup..i agree...but since i'm a gamer...i make the GPU the #1 priority

 

With the exception of the Celeron/Sempron, you'll be fine with pretty much any modern CPU. The GPU is what's important.

Example: I had an Athlon 64 3400+ DTR in my last laptop, but it was coupled with a 64MB GF4 Go - great CPU, but didn't help the graphics any.

Now I have a Turion 64 1.6GHz, coupled with a Mobility Radeon X700 - slower CPU, but the graphics are worlds better - the GPU makes all the difference

 

So you like the graphics function of your Turion. Are you doing any 3D gaming? I play some Call of Duty and am concerned about a Turion with no dedicated RAM (I'm looking at HP/Compaqs because I want to buy a machine with XP Pro and MS Office... I can't find that combo with Acer) and how well it will handle those demands.