sz owners w/2.1Ghz processor-questions

I was thinking about upgrading from my 1.8 to a 2.1ghz cpu. Can yoou check a few things for me.
1) when running in dynamic mode, your CPU goes from 2.1 to 1Ghz? or does it go to a different number? My 1.8 goes to 1Ghz.
2) what are your 3dmark 05/06 scores? Just curious on the difference in speed increase would be. *and dont tell me there wont be because its a GPU bottleneck* The 7400 has headroom

 

All Core Duo drop down to 1 Ghz as the lowest speed when in dynamic mode.

As for 3Dmark 05/06, I don't know, never ran that before.

 

can you run them? They are pretty much a simple(impressive if you never saw it before) benchmark for testing the system.
You can get them from www.guru3d.com and goto the downloads area. or goto www.downloads.com and you can get them from there too

 

anybody? Nobody bought the exspensive 2.1Ghzz?

 

i was told quite assuredly in this forum that you couldn't tell the difference. when i was shopping for the sz i could have bought the 2.1. some people thought a 7200 rpm drive would make a bigger difference.

 

It depends on what you do with your laptop. A good portion of people will not be able to discern the difference between a 1.86 and 2.16 GHz CPU.

However if you do things that are CPU limited (not GPU), it is more noticeable.

And yes it is generally better to upgrade the hard drive to 7200 RPM then the CPU.

@starstreak,
I'll try to run it one of these days soon. Been really busy and using laptop for work/school. It should ease up by end of the week. I have run 3Dmark a long time ago on an old computer, but I try not to install unnecessary things.

 

I have a 2.16, and didn'tnotice much difference between my 1.8ghz SZ. Not that I did much with it other than play computer games.

 

someone on the forum said that 7200 rpm wouldn't effect battery life. is that true?

 

Neilk2350- Yes, 7200rpm is a better choice. I did that on my Dell XPS2. Well worth it.

 

but not on your sz?

 

The 100gb hd in the sony is a good size. Unless I spend the $$ for a 100gb 7200rpm and I find out its easy to remove the current HD i'll leave that alone. At least the processor is very easy to remove. Heck, its right there on the bottem. Hehe, lucky must stores have it stuck so you cant lift it, I would see how easy it would be to remove the chip.

 

My SZ is 2.16GHz with 2G RAM

 

In my opinion, Merom is your good choice,EM64T and SSE4

 

That's freaking awesome Where can I buy the 2.16GHz processor?

 

OK old posting but I'm still waiting for someone with a 2.16 to run a 3dmark 05/06 on it. Now that the core due 2 is out, teh core due should drop. I'm trying to see what little improvement it will do on the laptop. I have my scores posted, please post yours.

 

My 2.16 came stock from Sony Japan since it could be customized. The T2600 was never an option on US models (stupid Sony).

 

right, but I can get the chip of the net and put it into my model.
Btw, could you please run those benchmark? You can get them at www.guru3d.com

 

I have T2600 (2.16GHZ) and T2400 (1.83GHZ). I can give you the results of T2600 and T2400 in super pi as reference. For 1M calculation, T2600 costs 27 sec and T2400 costs 33 sec. For Merom T7400 (2.16GHZ), it costs 24 sec (from another post by merom owner).

No doubt, T7400 is faster than T2600. Though, you can bid T2600 around 220~260 dollors and T7400 is around 380 dollors. Besides, more than one owners have reported that merom is very hot in full load. It's over 90 degree !
http://forum.notebookreview.com/archive/index.php?t-57927.html

I bet unless we can get bios update from sony or we cannot solve the temperature problem of merom. That's why I gave up to upgrade from T2400 to T7400. I decided to spend less and upgraded to T2600. It's about 10%~15% slower but highest temperature I got on T2600 is around 66 degree in a long heavy load computation. It's much acceptable than 90 degree.

 

and thats the reason why I'm trying to see if would suit paying $300+ to get the 2.1 chip. But since most of the reason why I would get it is for my gaming, I wanted to see the 3dmark. I cant believe the one review I saw that said the 2.1 was slower than my 1.8 in the 3dmarks.

 

I'm running a 2.16 in my SZ2VP.

With one gig of RAM, I got a 3D mark score of around 1850 (if I remember correctly)

It's in my review at:

http://www.notebookreview.com/default.asp?newsID=3049&review=VAIO+SZ2

 

Some people want to upgrade to Merom in order to run Vista 64bit rather than the need for speed.

 

?
Why would you want to run 64 bit applications if it wasn't because of the speed in the first place?

 

Because the upgradation to Merom should not give you much difference in terms of the speed. But Merom is capable of running 64bit.

 

Too bad Sony wont update the bios(so far) to support the Mermon.

 

You guess or is official statement by SONY???

 

Its a guess. As of right now, most company and Sony in the past wont update bios with newer processors unless they are using the same MB design as the old ones.
In other words, if it costs them money to update an older design to accept new features, they would rather put that money into the new computer and refine that one.
Only thing saving us is that Sony is still using the same design as the the sz for most of their model upgrades so MAYBE the MB is the same. we'll see.
Untill they fix the power issues with the mermon(sp) in the sz160, i'm not buying it as its stuck on full power.

 

so it doesnt work for sure? cause i thought i remember seeing someone that made it work for their sz260, prior to the bios upgrade in july.