Laptop performance is fast but...

[Philippine Mango]

So I purchased my dream laptop but because everyone always has a craze for the faster, I'm wondering if I should go and buy a 2.0GHZ Dothan for my laptop with the 1.7GHZ in there already as a replacement. I have 1GB of ram, 7200RPM drive, 64MB Radeon 9600 pro video card and was thinking that it would provide a very good performance boost but was also wondering if it was worth it. Also I wanted to know if there is anyone out there with a link to a processor roadmap for this platform (chipset with socket/pin out etc..) will last for before they max out on the speed. Should I wait until they have a 2.5GHZ dothan?

http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site.wss/quickPath.do?quickPathEntry=2379xx8
is my laptop. Thanks.

 

[Tarrant64]

2.0 ghz dothan should last you awhile.

Their performance compares to that of 3ghz Pentium 4's i believe.

 

[fbrdphreak]

AFAIK, the Dothan's will top out @ 2.1GHZ (which is currently available in only select systems). After that, they're moving to a whole new chipset with 533MHz FSB, Dual-Channel DDR (DDR2 maybe?), PCI-E?, & SATA support. --Drool--

 

[Connoisseur]

If you're thinking about a performance boost in gaming, I wouldn't count on it. The limiting factor in your system is the vid card. I know... I have an M6805 with the R9600 and 64megs of ram. I've seen the performance difference between systems which have an A64 3000+, 3200+ and 3400+ and it's negligible. Upgrading to a 2.0 dothan might speed up general usage (photoshop, multitasking etc.) but it won't improve gaming enough to be worth it. The vid card's the bottleneck with newer games (Doom 3, HL2, farcry etc.), not the processor. IMHO you should save your money for a better upgrade (like an Audigy 2 pcmcia card for much better sound) or wait a year or so for the dothan to drop in price.

 

[Philippine Mango]

Originally posted by: Connoisseur
If you're thinking about a performance boost in gaming, I wouldn't count on it. The limiting factor in your system is the vid card. I know... I have an M6805 with the R9600 and 64megs of ram. I've seen the performance difference between systems which have an A64 3000+, 3200+ and 3400+ and it's negligible. Upgrading to a 2.0 dothan might speed up general usage (photoshop, multitasking etc.) but it won't improve gaming enough to be worth it. The vid card's the bottleneck with newer games (Doom 3, HL2, farcry etc.), not the processor. IMHO you should save your money for a better upgrade (like an Audigy 2 pcmcia card for much better sound) or wait a year or so for the dothan to drop in price.

Good point, I probably should wait a year for the dothan to drop in price. Then I could also either sell my 1.7 on ebay or put it in my sister's laptop which currently has a banias 1.5ghz then possibly sell that one. I really want the 2.1ghz dothan question is will they have them available next year? Just wondering age wise when I should purchase a laptop processor (not too old and not too young).

 

[fbrdphreak]

Just an FYI, IIRC Dothan uses a diff chipset. Anyone know for sure?

 

[jvarszegi]

Outta curiosity, are you sure you can upgrade the processor in that laptop? It isn't soldered in or anything?

 

[jvarszegi]

Originally posted by: fbrdphreak
Just an FYI, IIRC Dothan uses a diff chipset. Anyone know for sure?

Nope. Doesn't he have a Dothan, anyway? I thought that the 7XX numbering wasn't applied to Banias chips.

 

[Justin216]

Dothan uses the same chipset....Sonoma is coming out soon and requires a new chipset

 

[fbrdphreak]

Yeah, he does have a Dothan. My bad

 

[Philippine Mango]

While I was on the phone with IBM ordering a laptop for my friend in newyork, I asked them if thier CPUs are socketed and they said yes.