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    Better upgrade?

    Discussion in 'VAIO / Sony' started by yellowhouse, Mar 13, 2005.

  1. yellowhouse

    yellowhouse Notebook Enthusiast

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    I'm considering getting a FS550 -- what would boost performance more:

    1) Upgrade to FS570 with 1 gig ram and 100 gig hd or
    2) Stay with 512 ram and install a 7200 rpm hd?

    I'll use the machine for Office apps, FrontPage and light photo editing (no gaming).

    Thanks
     
    yellowhouse, Mar 13, 2005
    #1
  2. OwcA

    OwcA Notebook Enthusiast

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    1) if need be, you can always set up a RAM-drive.

    EDIT: and a 5k4 rpm drive uses less power and gives away less heat. Two big pulses for mobile use.
     
    OwcA, Mar 14, 2005
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  3. miston

    miston Notebook Enthusiast

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    I would go with Option 1, as the 1 gig of ram will boost speed when you have Word, Photoshop, a web browser, your email client, AND a bit torrent window open AT THE SAME TIME.

    For your uses the 7200 hardrive would really only speed things up dramatically when your opening a BIG photoshop file.

    But once the file is open the 1 gig ram would really help speed things up when multi-tasking.

    Then again Sony only ships a 4000 RPM drive, correct? So you would see a pretty big performance gain with a 7200 RPM drive. But like OwcA said, the 7200 RPM drive would be hotter and use significantly more power.

    I would go with 1 Gig of ram, which you would eventually upgrade anyways. If the speed of the 100 gig 4000 RPM drive seems to slow, you could always upgrade later.

    Do you REALLY need 100 Gigs? Unless your d/l DVDs I really don't see you needing more than 60 gigs.
     
    miston, Mar 14, 2005
    #3
  4. ZaZ

    ZaZ Super Model Super Moderator

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    The power consumption difference between a 5400 and a 7200 is marginal. I would opt for option two especially if the 100GB drive is 4200. It is going to make your system much faster overall. If you can get it with 256MB of memory then add a 512MB stick after purchase. Usually the cheapest route. Good Luck






    I know things, things that could get me killed


    Thinkpad T41:
    * 1.6Ghz Pentium M * 768Mb Memory * 40Gb Hitachi 7200RPM * Panasonic UJ-845-B DVD+RW *
     
    ZaZ, Mar 15, 2005
    #4