AMD or Pentium, Laptop Versions

[lndnny]

Which would you choose in a laptop?

-a Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4 630 w/HT Technology, 3.0GHz with 800MHz front- side bus or

-a AMD Turion(TM) 64 ML-40 (2.2GHz/1MB L2 Cache)

Yes, I do know that the pentium will eat the batteries.

[Tristan Lall]

Between those two, the AMD. But look into the Pentium M; it won't do 3 GHz, but what it does with 2.26 GHz is much more impressive than a Pentium 4.

Do you need a 64-bit processor? If so, why?

Edit: Now that I think of it, does Intel even have a 3 GHz Pentium 4-M? I don't think so...I'd wager that that's a desktop processor—which means that heat and battery life are going to be huge issues.

[lukevanoort]

I haven't dealt much with the Turion specifically, but the Pentium M is easily the best processor Intel has ever made. I write this post on a Pentium M 1.6 Ghz laptop and I regularly run Unreal Tournament at 1680 x 1050 pixels with maxed settings with no gimpping. Mind you, it also has a 128 MB nVidia GeForce Go FX 5650 but that little processor performs. My brother runs FBI level security shreds, multiple anti-malware programs, SETI@home, and video compressors in the background on his Pentium M 1.73 Ghz. It may not have the numbers, but it is amazing, the power management is exceptional, my laptop gets four hour battery life, get this, playing Freelancer, absolutely astounding. So my opinion, Intel Pentium M for laptops, AMD for desktops.

[Cory]

one rule of thumb is to multiply the clock speed of a Pentium M processor by 1.5-1.7, and you'll get the clock speed of an equivalent P4.

I don't know much about the Turion line, but I have a 2.0 ghz Dothan processor in my laptop, and it's great.

I only wish I had waited for Sonoma, though.

[Pat Fairbank]

Be warned that there is a difference between the Pentium-M and the Pentium 4-M. The Pentium 4-M is essentially a Pentium 4 with basic power management, and it does come in speeds of up to 3.2 GHz (I think), but still uses a lot of battery power. The Pentium-M is excellent on battery life, and as Cory said is more powerful than its clock speed indicates, mostly because it has a very large amount of L2 cache (up to 2 Mb).

As for the original question, I would go with the Pentium, because while the AMD might be a better processor in desktops, I've known AMDs to have stability issues in laptops. They also tend to overheat more easily, which is not a good thing in a laptop.

[Andy A.]

For what its worth, my last computer was an HP laptop with an AMD CPU.

I loved and beat the snot out of that computer at the same time. It took a lot of abuse, but I never had any heat related problems. It eventually died when the inverter for the screen died a rather nosy death. It wasn't worth the cost of replacing after 2-3 years of hard life.

The two CPU's are close enough in performance that you might be better off deciding based on other factors, like weight, software package etc. If those are the same regardless of CPU, the Intel sounds like the slight edge.

-Andy A.

[Wetzel]

Buying a laptop now, I would expect to have Vista on it with full 64-bit support and programs in two years and on. That makes the 64 more attractive to me for a longer useful life.

Between the two processors, the Turion will have much better battery life then the Pentium 4. The P4 will crunch numbers fast, but will act as a space heater while doing so.

I did my research this summer, and went with a Turion. I wanted portability and enjoy having five and a half hours on a charge. I can watch 2 DVDs, so long as they are not Harry Potter.

Wetzel