Which One to get?

Well i have been thinking of buying the T60 for school next year and i have a question about the processor. The two configs i have been looking at are:

8744H3U
Intel® Core™2 Duo T5500 - 1660MHz
Genuine Windows Vista Business
15.4 WXGA TFT 1280x800
ATI Mobility Radeon X1400 HyperMemory (128MB)
2 GB RAM
120GB Hard Disk Drive, 5400rpm
9 Cell Lithium-Ion
No bluetooth
This is around $ 1900 Canadian with taxes

The other one is:
87445BU
Intel Core™2 Duo T7200 - 2000MHz
XP Pro
15.4 WSXGA+ TFT 1680x1050
ATI Mobility Radeon X1400 HyperMemory (128MB)
DDR2 667MHz
Memory[8]
2 GB RAM
120GB Hard Disk Drive, 5400rpm
6 Cell Lithium-Ion
Intregrated bluetooth.
This one comes down to $ 2200 canadian with taxes.

Now my question is, is the extra $300 worth is for a better processor, but older OS (i dunt really care about bluetooth). How much of a performance difference will i get from a T5500 than i would from the T7200, and is it worth it.

I will mainly be using the laptop for school work and some gaming. I may do some like autocad or programming in future. I want it to last around 4 years. At the moment im leaning towards the one with T5500.


BTW, one more question. I know the new santa rosa T61 is coming out. Has any pricing details been revealed and also will Lenovo still sell the T60, when the T61 comes out.

 

I would go with the faster CPU, it might be a bite up front but in two years you will probably be very glad you got the faster CPU. One other thing though, I would get 1 GB of ram and upgrade to 2GB yourself. Right now you can get 1GB sticks for around $50 so it might save you a little.

 

I don't think the CPU matter all that much. Only in CPU intensive tasks like encoding or crunching databases would the CPU have an effect. If you were buying a T40 three years ago, do you think it would matter much whether you got the 1.3 or 1.5GHz CPU now?

I personally would prefer option two for the WSXGA+ screen which will allow you to see more.

There will probably be more pricing information on the T61 when it is officially announced. They do tend to make it up north a little slower than here in the US.

 

You mentioned AutoCad. If that's really important, you should go for the T60p instead, though it's not one of the two configurations you listed. It has the FireGL workstation graphics for much better performance than the X1400 on OpenGL applications like AutoCad or other design packages.

 

Oh, autocad isnt THAT important LOL.

 

I d say instead of upgrading the CPU, which at 1600Mhz is more than capable of doing anything you would be doing, choose a hard drive which spins at 7200rpm. Its the best investment you can make, when you already have 2Gb of RAM and the T5500 CPU.

 

For Office, Internet and the like, hard drive speed is more beneficial the CPU speed.

 

I've been running Autocad, Inventor, and 3ds max on a 1.53 ghz athlon xp just fine, haha. So I know the 1.66 I ordered will be fine for me, and my ocassional use of said 3d apps...