athlon64 notebook

[Ademica]

I am looking for a good athlon64 laptop...i had the emachine laptop for about a week, but after replacing 3 of them for bad screens i've decided to look elsewhere. I was looking at hypersonic pc, but i saw that cyperbower notebook http://www.cyberpowersystem.com/high...648000.asp?v=d is cheaper. the only drawback is that it only comes w/ ddr333 memory instead of ddr400, and i read that it is picky w/ memory so upgrading mem might be difficult and expensive. is the performance hit that large for the slower mem? what do you guys think I should do. I'll be using the notebook for video encoding and gaming. is it worth the extra money for the hypersonic pc or should i just buy the cyperpower and upgrade mem later?

[sideman]

Whichever laptop you get, I recommend getting the IBM/Hitachi 60gb, 7200 rpm, 7K60 HD. It's a serious improvement over the old 4200 or 5400 rpm models. The difference in the memory configs you mention are IMHO pretty minor, but worth attention.

If you want a reference to look at when it comes to top-of-the-line laptop performance checkout the Dell XPS or the Alienware Area 51M. Big $$$$ tho, but serious performance...not that I would ever own an Intel equiped laptop...but...you know.......just ...uhh...for comparison.....

[Ademica]

yeah, i'd def. going w/ the faster hard drive. yeah i looked at the alienware stuff, but i'm not ready to shell out that much cash. thanks for the input....I think i'll just go for the cyperpower laptop w/ the slower memory, and upgrade it a few months from now.

[disinvent]

i read today [cant find article] that hp is ready with a 64bit laptop... might give them a try... and im sure the compaq name would not be too far behind.

[Thwack]

http://www.shopping.hp.com/cgi-bin/h...start_home.jsp

HP and Compaq both already have AMD64 notebooks available.

[John C]

I just recieved the Compaq R3000 yesterday. I spec'd it with 3200 AMD64, 512 Dimm in a single slot, cdrw/dvd-rom drive, 60gig HD, extra 12-cell battery. Total came to $1543 shipped. I had a 10% off coupon code that I found at 3dGamesman.
Pretty happy with it so far. Wifi works great. Nice quality feel to the whole unit.
So far I would recommend it.

[alocaster]

I would be very interested to know your new laptops performance and fan use. I had to return my emachine because the fan ran every 2 min under full power desktop mode. Could you tell me what the hp will do


Thanks Rob

[John C]

Originally posted by alocaster on 03-19-2004 at 08:19 AM
I would be very interested to know your new laptops performance and fan use. I had to return my emachine because the fan ran every 2 min under full power desktop mode. Could you tell me what the hp will do


Thanks Rob

It has a fan?
I havent noticed at all. Gets a mite hot on the lap though.
It also doesnt have the reported bug the emachines has with the CPU throttling to 800 under batt power. The Compaq throttles down from 2gig to around 1.6 under batt, depending on needs, of course.

[alocaster]

Is it possible to change the HD, and does it have a VGA output?
How is the construction, what screen and wifi did you order/opinions?

Rob

[alocaster]

Why the compaq over the HP?

Rob

[John C]

Originally posted by alocaster on 03-19-2004 at 05:39 PM
Why the compaq over the HP?

Rob

10% off coupon code. HP/Compaq same thing now anyway.
Yep, has VGA output. Geforce 440 w/64meg non-shared.
It has 802.11b/g wireless
10/100 LAN
Bluetooth.
I am not a huge Compaq fan, but construction is very nice and solid. Oh yeah, got spare battery at 1/2 price also. And I upgraded to the 12-cell li-on batts.
It has the 15.4" WXGA screen.
Not sure on changing the HD, but I dont see why not. They dont offer anything more than 4200rpm drives.