dv2000t w/ C2D/nvidia7200 vs. dv2000z w/ TurionX2/6150

Anyone think the $250 difference is worth it? Best Buy has dropped the dv2000z w/ 120GB drive and Turion TL-50 down to $750 ( http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?skuId=8032274&type=product&id=1157067574196). The lowest I can find the dv2000 w/ Core2Duo and nVidia 7200 is $1000 or so.

It'll be used mostly for J2EE/.Net software development and the occasional game/video while on the road (although I'd hope it'd survive a Vista install if I stick 2GB of memory in it).

I think the Asus A8Js (C2D 7200 w/ nvidia 7600) would be nice, but not twice as much nice. I can probably chuck the old laptop and get a new one next year instead instead of spend that much

 

i'd take the C2D for programming...I'm guessing it has more power to get those builds done faster. Any time you want to game on a laptop you'll want to try to get the strongest in your budget.

Why don't you post from the FAQs, list the games you want, and then we can help you more.

 

The TL50 is the 256KBx2 L2 cache version, which isn't the best choice for program compilations. All the other TX2's have 512KBx2 L2 cache, which is about right for an AMD chip (Intel chips need far more L2 cache to compensate for their lack of an integrated memory controller and HyperTransport).

I'd take a look at the configure-to-order dv2000z's on hp.com. That'll let you configure goodies like Bluetooth and the much better TL56 CPU.

Java reacts very well to AMD64 architecture. Sun went AMD for a good reason. You'll want to get 64-bit Vista when it and a 64-bit Sun JRE for Vista are released. 2GB RAM is strongly recommended for Vista, doubly so for a Java programmer, but I'm not positive that HP is putting DDR2-667 RAM in the dv2000z series like they should (the dv6000z and dv9000z gets it AFAIK). RAM is easy to upgrade later though. I recommend sticking with Crucial memory for aftermarket upgrades.

 

I'd guess F.E.A.R. would be the most resource intensive. Far Cry and Q3A should be easy enough; they work fine on my HTPC box which uses an Asus 6150 board.

The HP dv2000 series seems to be the best optimization of what I'm after for around $1K or less...14" screen, 4hrs of battery life (w/ the bigger battery), 5lbs or so, widescreen, good keyboard. I wish it had the higher res 1440x900 display from the Asus AJ8s because it's a bit better for programming, but that doesn't look like it'll be offered as an option. I'm puzzled as to why there aren't any Turion TL-60's in the market to at least get closer to the C2D T7200 speeds offered in the dv2000t.

I know the C2D does a lot better w/ H.264 media decoding, but I doubt it's fast enough to display H.264 content even w/ the 7200Go chip's PureVideo support, but I'm hoping someone might know for sure

Only other obvious choice at this time is the Dell Latitude D620 w/ C2D T7200, 7200 rpm drive and nVidia 110M (whatever that is) and the 1440x900 display, but I hate Dells because they croak as soon as they go out of warranty ;-)