Why Core Duo?

I had an interesting opportunity at work to compare a brand new T43 2686 P750 1,86ghz (with 7200 rpm 60-gig drive and 1-gig of PC2-4200) and a brand new T60 1951C2U T2400 1.83 core duo (with 5400rpm drive and 512mb of pc2-5300). Both of these were out of the box, as shipped, so same applications loaded on them essentially.

The T43 was beating the pants off the T60, when powering up or opening an application. I wish I'd run/compared a virus scan, but there wasn't one activated on them yet. Regardless, the core duo machine seemed sluggish compared to the T43. Neither of these were high end (p) machines. Price-wise the T60 costs hundreds more currently.

So why do i want a core duo?? Wouldn't i rather have more Ram, a faster HD, and more $$$ in the bank for my next upgade in 2007 (which will have vista on it... i think it's a lot easier to migrate to a new OS using 2 machines, rather than migrating the OS on only one machine)

 

Also, toshiba seems to claim that core duo actually uses more battery, not less.
Judging by how toshiba has dropped its battery life expectancy on its newer core duo models (down to only 2.5 hours)

 

Boot time and application load time has almost nothing to do with CPU type or speed. Those two operations are highly dependent upon hard drive speed. Not all 5400 RPM drives are the same...not even identical units.

Basically, the Core Duo CPUs allow you to multitask better. So if you're running a couple of processes at the same time you'll see the most benefit. If all you're doing is word processing, surfing, etc. you'll see little benefit at all.

 

As you have noticed the CPU is only part of the performance equation. There are applications virus scanning or Photoshop where the Core Duo is significantly faster.

 

This comparison would be more enlightening if you had a T60 with a 7200 rpm hard drive and 1 GB RAM. A Core Duo coupled with 512 MB RAM is like a Ferrari engine in a car with stone wheels.

 

I've read the SysMarks, 3Dmarks, etc... and i'm well aware that a core duo platform hase multitasking advanatages for power users that comprises less than 1% of laptop owners.

My point is that ppl are buying $2000+ T2500 core duo T60's with 512mb and 5400rmp drives and in some cases XGA and no bluetooth... when for half as much they could buy a sale T43 that will have more features and (for how they use it) outperform the expensive T60

 

It's not really far to Core Duo to use a biased comparison like that. Core Duo has almost nothing to do with the speed of programs starting up, unless your hard drive is so fast that the processor somehow becomes the main bottleneck.

 

My wife has an R43 for work and she will never notice the difference, so I agree in theory to SkiBunny, though the "1% of laptop owners" is a statistic that comes out of SkiBunny's rear. Even people that aren't power users that just use a lot of applications at the same time will get a boost. On another note, I have a T2400 w/ 1GB RAM and 7200rpm drive that I like very much, but I can't imagine castrating it with 512MB RAM. That 512 is a single stick and bare minimum size wise. 1GB in dual channel config would help greatly, even 512 in dual channel config would help.

 

Ditto. The Thinkvantage software takes up something like, what, 200MB? And I don't recommend to anyone to use XP in general with under 512MB. I'm currently using 1GB (one stick), and if the price on appropriate 1GB sticks ever goes down, I'm probably going to upgrade.

 

NewEgg.com is where I got my 2nd stick (had to have dual channel) for $50 I think. Way cheaper, never upgrade from the OEM.