help deciding!

hi, guys. This is the first time I post here. I have been in this site for a while and decided to join and learn sth about notebooks.

Recently, I am planning on buying a laptop from HP or compaq. I am interested in L2000 and V2000Z. However, the sales rep. of HP said that these models are not good for the coming windows vista in terms of graphics. They recommand a r4000 or zv6000. What you guys think about?

I am not travelling a lot. But i need a 64 bit processor for future-proofing(All of the above model are AMD 64). I play three games: Microsoft flight simulator and FIFA soccer, Need for speed.

So my questions are:
1. Should I buy V2000Z(L2000) or r4000(zv6000) for better experience with coming vista?
2. Do these laptops create a lot of heat?
3. The Althon64 in r4000 andzv6000 is mobile version or desktop version?
4. Will These models do well with above mentioned three games?

Still have many ???s, but cant summrize at this moment, 4 questions for now first. Thanks in advance!

 

The sales rep is clueless. The L2000/V2000z have the same GPU as the R4000/zv6000, though the latter have dedicated video memory rather than shared so it is a little faster. The critical thing for Vista is to have DirectX9 hardware capability, which all the current HP AMD notebooks have. Buy whichever has the screen/size/weight you want.

Heat isn't too big of a problem, and can be reduced further by undervolting the CPU if you're so inclined. I'll let you dig up one of the threads about that.

The Athlon 64 in the R4000/zv6000 is the desktop version. FWIW, I get 3-4 hours of battery life from my zv5000z with a 12 cell battery. The L2000/V2000z will do quite a bit better.

I'm not sure how well those games will play. If you're serious about games, check out the Acer and MSI Turion notebooks with Radeon X700 GPUs. If you go with a configure-to-order HP notebook, be sure to select the 12 cell battery and Bluetooth options.

 

Thanks to brianstretch. This question may sound silly. Is there any difference between independent video card and dedicated video card? What you have mentioned "Radeon X700 GPUs" is a dedicated or independent card? I mean here we call a card in desktop "a independent video card".

I am very concern about the compatibility with vista. Did anyone here successfully run vista beta1 on these models? and can you get the aero glass effect?

how about the price of Acer and MSI turion notebook compare to HP/compaq?

 

Fifa 2005 runs smoothly with high settings on my L2000 (i have limited the video memory to 64 mb!). I have both l2000 and zv6000. The first one is really light, mobile notebook. I gets warm when working but not hot. It's temperatures when idle are about 45-50 for the processor and 40-45 for the HDD (these may go in the higher end and 1-2 degrees higher if the room temp is high!). If you are not travelling a lot you may find one of those coolers helpful. You will have to undervolt L2000/v2000z if you don't want the fan to turn on every 2-3 minutes.
As for the zv6000. This machine is big. I don't know for the compaq version but the Pavilion does look steady and strong. The processor is fast /3500+ on mine/, the video card is OK. It runs much cooler than the L2000 but keep in mind its much thicker; when pushing the cpu temp may go to 60 or probably even more, but when idle it's around 30 (I undervolt so it's 28!). The fan is always on but it's really quiet. The battery life is not that good if you play games but I'm able to watch two movies at one charge /undervolting helps!/, so I guess 3 hours at least.
One side note; if L2000/v2000z cannot run Windows Vista lot's of people will be very disappointed. I would personally be vey surprised because Microsoft wont' do good if they make an OP for higher-end notebooks. It's simply not profitable. Final spec for Vista will come at the earliest summer 06, so don't worry about it. If you want further info go to zazons' guide at http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=28207

 

Dedicated video card = independent video card. The zv6000/R4000 is unusual because it has an integrated GPU and dedicated memory.

The Radeon 200M is supposed to be Vista-ready and the AMD64 CPUs certainly are.

 

Thanks to all. Your information certainly helps.

If we look at the price of these four models, HP(dv6000 and L2000) is more expensive than compaq(V2000Z and r4000). But as we all know, L2000 and V2000z is the same, zv6000 and r4000 is also the same. What makes the price different, the brand? The appearance? or performence? I think i will go for compaq, because i think the performence is the same between these two brands. What do you think?

To Vassil 98, if zv6000/r4000 has an additional 128M dedicated card, the video quality should much better than L2000/V2000z with only shared GPU. Did you run any heavy game on two of them and compare the video quality. Please share your experience.

Flight simulator is an important game to me. I cant live without this game. Currently I play FS 2004 on my desktop with a 64M GPU, and it is pretty laggy(8-12fps at the SFO airport and 30 fps in the sky). I am wonderring if r4000 or v2000z can do it better? Anybody with experience on this game?

Sorry for so many questions. But I am learning by asking a lot of Qs, isn't it?

 

No problem for the questions, that's the place to ask them.
I was able to play Battle Field 2 on zv6000 but I only have 512 ram on it so it ran on low settings. It would still go on medium but with some lag. Anyway, I didn't like it; it's nowhere near BF1942 /which runs flawlessly of course on both machines/. I didn't try BF2 on L2000 but I think the zv6000 is better in handling graphics. The dedicated memory is better no doubt. On both laptops I play Fifa05 and BF1942 and although I have no problems whatsoever with L2000, I can feel zv6000 is handling the games faster /especially Fifa 2005/.

I don't know for the flight simulator, I don't have it. Yet, I do have AOE3, which I still haven't tried but I can do it tonight and see how it runs on the L2000. I will not be able to test it on the zv6000 but if it runs ok tonight it will run super ok on the pavilion.

 

Thanks Vassil 98, please try AOE3 and tell me how many fps you got. There is no doubt zv6000 is stronger in graphic.

 

So I tried AOE3. This game is big and heavy (check it's requirements). I didn't play it long, but from what I saw the graphics is nice and demanding (the game however was too much like AOE2 ).

So I limited the video card to 64 mb, the minimum for the game, and it was OK at 800x600. I enabled some of the disabled options and the quality did not deteriorate. The framerate, however, was from 10-12 fps. This is low and I was surprized to see it because I did not notice that much of a lag. Probably because there's not much movement around but I even played a battle and the game ran OK. I mean it was totally playable (don't forget I have 512 mb ram, 64 of it transferred to video)

Then I pushed the GPU to 128 mb,thus significantly reducing the availble RAM for Windows. The game did run smoother....but at times. I mean: the frame rate dropped to 9-10-11 but it maxed at 15 occasionally. I explain this illogical result with the lack of memory. It seems that if I upgrade to 1gb /which is pending/ I will get better results. The game appeared to have more power in it when the video memory was 128mb and as if something was holding it back exactly when it was accelerating.

One other thing I noticed, was that with 128mb it became more playable on 1024x768 /med settings/ than it was with only half the memory. I'm almost sure I'll be able to run it ok at Med on zv6000 but I don't carry this thing around with me so it'll be in a while

The conclusion: 1gb ram minimum. I'm interested if we can make Chinna_n run this thing. His v2000z is a bit more powerful and suited for the purpose . Anyway, AOE3 appears to be the max of ATI Radeon x200; I don't know how it compares to your flight simulator but as far as I know Microsoft Flight Simulator 2004 has lower requirements for the video card and processor /32mb and 1.2 GHz vs 64mb and 1.4 GHz/. I think you won't have problems with it as long as you have at least 512 mb RAM for the Operating System alone.

 

Thanks.

I think I need to get a r4000 or zv6000 since I am not travelling a lot. And I hope the dedicated card will get me a better performance in FS 2004. So how can I compare these two things? I mean so far I know they are same in specifications. Is there any differences that I dont know? r4000 is cheaper than zv6000, maybe zv6000 has better build quality?

 

If you want to game, perhaps the HP dv4000 or Compaq v4000t with the x700 card would be a better choice. With the exception of trim and colors, the dv6000 and r4000 are the same notebook.