T400 - Options to boost Web browsing, video, office apps speed?

Looking to buy T400. 90% of my work is reviewing Web sites and business videos (how-to stuff, not the fun stuff . When I'm looking at a Web site, I need to check all elements -- the links, attachments, PDFs, all the pages. So I'm trying to move thru the site as fast as I can, viewing all the pages and links. Lots of opening and closing pages! But no Photoshop, high-end grapics work or gaming on the T400.

Will any of these options speed things up?

1. 3 or 4mb. ram vs. 2mb.?

2. T9400 (2.53 GHz 6MB L2 cache) vs. P8600 (2.40 GHz 3MB L2 cache) processor? (Does the 6MB L2 cache make a big difference?)

3. 7200 RPM drive vs. 5400 RPM drive?

4. Is Windows XP quicker than Vista?


Thanks for any advice you can share!

 

1) Probably. Firefox or IE with lots of tabs open tend to use serious amounts of RAM. Especially if you use Vista, 2 GB (not MB ) is the bare minimum. I'd suggest getting 4 GB, it's quite cheap nowadays.

2) Unlikely. Take the P8600 for better price and lower power usage (i.e. more battery life and less fan noise).

3) 7200 rpm should increase your boot/hibernate/shutdown time, and time to launch applications, but while using applications it won't be a major factor.

4) Nowadays, not really. And if you buy a new system, Vista is advised, as it has more current drivers.

 

The most important thing by far is for you to get the FASTEST INTERNET CONNECTION AVAILABLE. For the most part, your work will be slowed down by your connection before your computer.

Additionally, if you don't like TrackPoints, make sure you get yourself a quality optical mouse. Also, the forward/back buttons on the keyboard are your friends.

A dock and/or a large external monitor is also a good choice.

2GB is minimum for Vista, 3 or 4GB is preferred (easiest is to get Vista 32-Bit with a 1GB DIMM, and add a 2GB DIMM yourself to go to 3GB). If you are running XP 2GB should be adequate.

P8600 (or even P8400) will be fine [it will also run cooler and do better on battery]. Integrated graphics should also be adequate, but because the T400 is switchable there is no downside to getting the ATI card.

You may also want to consider using Chrome or IE8 instead of Firefox. I love Firefox, but it can be a memory hog (I've put it over 800MB) and will only use a single core. Conversely, Chrome (and I believe IE8) runs each tab as a separate process, so it can more effectively use both cores.

 

Wow Jon, I didn't know that, I'll download Chrome since I don't like IE.

 

there are privacy concerns with chrome

 

Another thing that can really speed things up is defragging your hard drive. I would recommend downloading Auslogic's free disk defrag tool. If your hard drive has a high degree of fragmentation, this could be the biggest speed improvement possible.

About on par with defragging, I'd say bumping your RAM to 3GB plus would be the best option. Then a 7200RPM hard drive.

 

Bleh that was because they used the license agreement from some other properties and just copied and pasted....

Chrome still isn't perfect though. Ridiculously fast though.

 

The principle concern I would have with Chrome, is that it can play a little weird with some sites. As a result it may have rendering errors that wouldn't appear in IE/Firefox. As a result, it may not be the best choice for someone that has to check the way a website will work for most users (I believe Chrome has <2% of the market).

 

Yup, Ive had issues with it. I don't use it primarily. And chrome has passed opera in market share .

 

Good point. I'm typically using Firefox and IE (and sometimes Safari on the Mac). A lot of Web designers try to optimize their sites to work well on all the major browsers -- but some don't!