Laptop celeron vs. Duron vs. P3

[Dickie111]

Hi, I'm trying to get a laptop for a friend and she does not want to pay too much, I found three laptops that are configured similarly but there are some differences, she is going to use it for school, internet and mostly office suite.
1. Celeron 900, 128mb, cdrw/dvd, 14.1 tft, 15Gyg hd, 1150$
2. Duron 900, 128mb, dvd, 15 tft, 15Gyg hd, 1050$
3. P3 900, 128mb, cdrw/dvd, 14.1 tft, 15Gyg hd, 1250$

Does one of them stand out more than the other and how can I figure out the overall performance advantage from one to the other.
How much faster are they from each other?

Thanks!

 

[dionx]

i'd clearly take off the celeron system off the list. for $100 more, the P3 is much better. if you don't need the CD-RW, get the duron system. if yuo need it, get the P3 system. everything else is pretty much negligible.

 

[dionx]

in terms of raw speed, the duron may be faster than the P3 because of the bigger bus (200 vs 100), but the P3 may have better instructions. i personally wouldnt have cpu be the deciding factor of a laptop but rather the form factor like weight and size.

 

[Dickie111]

I think that she wants the writer, if not the duron is the clear winner, but how much faster is the p3 from the celeron, is it worth 100$?

 

[dionx]

<< I think that she wants the writer, if not the duron is the clear winner, but how much faster is the p3 from the celeron, is it worth 100$? >>



i think its worth it because you cant upgrade the cpu in the future.

 

[Dickie111]

How much faster is a p3 900 than a celeron 900? Price is the number one priority?

 

[apoppin]

Is the PIII CPU a Mobility (.13 Micron) or the older .18 micron? It makes quite a bit of difference in performance and battery life.

I think it is the older one but the P3 - anyway - will give better performance over the Celeron. I'd count out the Duron - CD-RW/DVD-ROM is a nice feature it doesn't have.

And what about Graphics? Separate video card or shared?

 

[Mingon]

I think you'll find both intels are based on the .18 micron die size and as such both produce around the same heat (31 watts). I would choose the p3 for 2 reasons, (1) the p3 has speedstep which will save battery life on the move and (2) the celeron are around 150mhz slower than the equivalent p3(the P3 should match the celeron when speedstepping @1.3v / 700mhz). I have 2 laptops a 600mhz celeron and a 500mhz pIII and the celeron is very slow and compared to the pIII has problem decoding divx films. If it was my choice I would go for the Duron, and then chuck an XP in their but please dont buy the celeron to save $100.


info for the pIII here and the celeron here

 

[CraigRT]

In a laptop, the most important thing is battery life and power usage, because of this, I'd probably get the Celeron, the low memory, and the fact that notebook hard drives are slow, makes it almost silly to buy an AMD CPU for a notebook because it draws more power, and the extra speed seriously will not be noticed.. also, i don't know about other people, but i've noticed that Celerons do a really good job in office apps.

 

[EricHagen]

I would like to point out that laptops drives are slow and processor speeds are only marginally important.

The SINGLE most IMPORTANT aspect thing to make a laptop run FAST is to have 256MB of memory. Whether you buy one of these on the list and upgrade it yourself, or you buy one already shipping with 256MB, I think that (especially with Windows XP) this amount of memory is ESSENTIAL to the perception of having a fast computer.

The difference between 128MB and 256MB is probably much more noticable than the difference between a Celeron/Duron/P3 unless you do something rediculous like play games on your laptop, which isn't a very common activity for most laptop owners.

That said, I like the 15" screen with the Duron. The difference between 15" and 14.1" is amazing as that extra inch adds something like 60% to the actual area of the screen.

I would shop around a bit more. I think you could find systems with a better combination of hardware you want.
My vote in a laptop would be to make sure it has the CD-RW, a 15" screen AND 256MB of memory.

In my opinion, The CPU is not the important factor in a laptop, the screen IS.

Eric

 

[Shack70]

1. Celeron 900, 128mb, cdrw/dvd, 14.1 tft, 15Gyg hd, 1150$
This would be my last pick. It's going to be the slowest of the 3 systems.

2. Duron 900, 128mb, dvd, 15 tft, 15Gyg hd, 1050$
This would be my 2nd choice. The duron beats out the celeron in terms of speed and it has a 15" screen but no CDRW.

3. P3 900, 128mb, cdrw/dvd, 14.1 tft, 15Gyg hd, 1250$
This would be my 1st choice and will prob. be the fastest of the 3 system.

I would look at what kind of video each has. #3 with a nvidia mobile geforce would be sweet!

 

[Mingon]

<< makes it almost silly to buy an AMD CPU for a notebook because it draws more power >>



This is a bad assumption, the mobile duron's are pased on the morgan core and as such use less power (1.4 vcore as well iirc) but the duron has powernow which is an advanced speedstep allowing much greater control of cpu mhz / vcore.
The celeron will in reality have the lowest battery life as it draws similar power to the p3 but cannot adjust its speed / vcore.
Another thing to consider is the form factor of the hard drive, if it has room for a 12.5mm drive this is useful for the nice 5400rpm hard drives, Like the 32gb one I have squeezed into my tiny vaio !

 

[Dickie111]

Thanks a lot for all the input, all these three laptops are Sonys and they all have shared video memory, and the p3 is not the speedstep but the mobile.

Later.

 

[Mingon]

The mobile P3 is the speedstep, the only P3 you will see in a laptop that doesnt use speedstep is in a cheaper makes that are using a desktop cpu. If they are all sony machines then the P3 is probably the one to go for, for 100 dollars the increase in performance will add to its usable lifetime. Personaly speaking I would avoid the larger screen size if it uses the same resolution as the smaller screens as it starts to look blocky when you are looking at it on your lap.

 

[Barnaby W. Füi]

definitely the duron cus of the 15" screen...the duron will outperfom the p3 in general, and the screen is a huge factor for a lappy.

but if she wants cdrw alot then i guess it's out of the picture, then i'd go for the p3, maybe the celery if i was really low on cash.

 

[wyvrn]

The shared memory is probably going to suck, not just in games but doing video playback and setting resolution rates as well. If you can find a lappy with at least 8MB dedicated video memory, you will be much more satisfied with it the results. Shared video memory SUCKS.

My pick: Duron and add the cdrw if she wants it, that would still be best bang for your buck since the PIII system costs $200 more to begin with, and the Duron is very comparable to the PIII. 256 MB memory is an excellent suggestion, it limits the swap file in most common apps which will reduce the chance that your slow hard disk speed will hurt performance. 512 Mb of RAM would be even better in the long run, if you can afford it. Plus the 15" screen is a SERIOUS advantage over the other two models. Screen size is probably 40% of the total value of a laptop, in my opinion (dedicated video memory means higher resolutions).

 

[thomsbrain]

duron's probably the best value for price/performance, but the P3/Celeron may be easier on batteries since they run cooler.