MAJOR difference between 1.7Ghz and 2.0Ghz!?!?

Hi, I've been looking at the Sony S5XP/B for a while now, but its £1419, now thats a lot of money, but right this moment I've found a cheaper model called Sony S5M/S for £1019 (a whopping £400 cheaper!) that has a 1.7Ghz processor compared to the S5XP's 2.0Ghz one.

Theres a small difference between size of RAM (easily upgradable), but other than that it's exactly the same, same video card, etc.

What shall I do? I am a college goer who wants to use the laptop for gaming on the train, and also for writing in class, so basically it needs to be powerful, but does 0.3Ghz make the much difference?

 

I would go with the lesser model, assuming it's a 1.73GHz with the newer Sonoma chipset (533MHz FSB) - the older 1.7GHz with a 400Mhz FSB would already be a bit outdated.

 

Thank you, can you expand on your reply?

 

i wouldnt pay 400 bux for 300 mhz, thats rediculous. But overall 1500 is an "ok" price, 1000 is better though

 

Get the slower CPU and spend your cash upgrading to a faster hard drive as you will get the biggest boost there. Hard drives are the weak link in the perfromance chain on a notebook. You'd only notice a difference in the CPUs if you are really pushing it. If you are just surfing or burning discs there is zero difference. Good Luck.

 

get a 1.73.

 

Will it affect gaming badly?

 

If gaming is a priority the faster CPU would give a noticible gain IMHO. I would not consider the 1.73 whin I could have the 2 GHZ with at least a 5400 RPM HD. What kind of GPU are you talkin? Frankly though with the Dual Cores right around the corner I am waiting. If I had to have a laptop for school I would get a used one on the cheap and wait for dual core.

http://www.channelregister.co.uk/2005/12/06/dual-core_notebook_race/

http://www.physorg.com/news8711.html

Sure that's one big hulking brick of a laptop at a premium price but when other manufacturers get on the DC bandwagon I know I will want one perhaps 14" and under.

 

Hi, This is my first post on this forum, but I'm having the same problem as you as I try to decide which one to spend my cash on.

The way I look at it is that the 1.73 is cheaper but when you add up everything else you get with the 2.00 model like the extra RAM and larger hard drive then the 2.00 looks like good value.

One of my concerns is that the 2.00 will drain the battery a lot quicker.

 

In my opinion, 2.0 Ghz and 1.7 Ghz have little difference in power consumption. Usually, CPU will operate at lowest speed which will increase if required.

 

The person who started this thread stated that all other components are the same, except for the CPU. Obviously in your case getting a 1.73GHz Pentium-M with less RAM and a slower hard drive will be more noticeably slower than a 2.0GHz Pentium-M with more RAM and a faster hard drive. There shouldn't be a big difference in battery life stepping up to the 2.0GHz.