Laptop computers - which processor is best?

[Mano]

I'm thinking about getting a laptop computer so I can more easily bring work home (I am a programmer). Is there a site that anyone knows of that has benchmarks for all the different processors (Centrino, Pentium 4, Celeron, Pentium M, Athelon, etc.) that are now available for laptops, or do you all have any specific reccomendations? I am most concerned about performance - I will most likely almost always have the thing plugged in, so battery life and weight are not that big of concerns to me.

[BusterStacks]

Pentium 4 if weight and battery life are not big issues.

[ThaSaltCracka]

I have an AMD athlon XP-M, and it works well for me.

[mikeyp]

Id go for an Athlon or a Pentium M....


It seems sorta weird to me how you are a programmer and don't know much about laptops...

[ThaSaltCracka]

lol, for real.

[astroglide]

thinkpads are the cream of the crop for pc laptops. for cpu reviews hit anandtech.com.

[Popinjay]

P4 with Hyperthreading is the fastest, Centrino is the best with weight and battery life factored in

[Blarg]

This is the best resource I've found for detailed laptop info: www.notebookforums.com (http://www.notebookforums.com)

Also there is www.notebookreview.com (http://www.notebookreview.com)

There are also standard web sites you can check for reviews and tests like anandtech.com, tomshardware, sharkyextreme.com, maximumpc.com, pcmagonline.com, cnet.com, etc.

I'd get a Pentium M processor. These are the "mobile" processors Intel makes. That means that they're made to get much more battery life and draw lower power than regular chips of either Intel or AMD. They can get over 4 hours, sometimes over five hours, in a laptop, whereas other chips get between 1 and 2 hours, often much closer to 1 hour.

There is a premium being charged for the top of the line Pentium-M processors, like the 2.0. That premium drops steadily. At this point the 1.7 or 1.8's are far cheaper than the 2.0's but only have a little less power. The 1.7's and 1.8's have both been tested to have about the power of a regular Pentium 3.0 cpu, and indeed are sometimes more powerful, as they have 4 times the on-chip cache. These chips can easily run the latest graphics-intensive games like Doom3 and run them very well. These chips even tend to run less hot than regular Pentiums in laptops. which run exceedingly hot and are very short-lived, generally barely busting an hour's worth of use. When it comes to heat, though, laptops often get hot, so a lapdesk, or even sticking a couple of pencils under the laptop to elevate the bottom slightly and improve air circulation, is often a good idea.

All in all, by far the best laptop chip out there.

You might want to wait a bit until PCI Expess becomes more common in laptops before you buy, as with PCI Express notebooks, you will get worlds more future-proofing. This is because video cards are one of the first things to get outdated in a computer, and they have with almost no exceptions been soldered into the motherboards of laptops. PCI Express laptops are replacing that ugly old tradition with consumer-swappable video cards, with common interfaces so that different vendors will also be a choice in a laptop's initial build or eventual upgrade.

For what it's worth, I'd buy a Sager. They are a tremendous bang for the buck, and many of their resellers have extremely good reputations -- much better than the big names do. There are a number of good Sager builders, two of the most respected being PCTorque.com and discountlaptops.com. They both have great dead-pixel policies, which is a real worry with laptops, and great warranty policies, which are very important with laptops, as they are built to tight tolerances and just a little something wrong with your cooling or whatever can screw your laptop up and make you very sorry if you don't have a great extended warranty. They also have a long history of great ratings at resellerratings.com, and I've read a lot of things about extraordinary customer service with both of them.

If you want to see a sample of a new PCI Express notebook, here's a link: http://www.discountlaptops.com/index.php?section=configurator&regular_model_id=10 47&model_id=1053

Note that it does come with the less than ideal regular Pentium chip, so you will have short battery life, especially with that monster video card in it. Also, the screen resolution is just a little too small to fit 4 tables perfectly, but is certainly enough to fit them well.

Ideally, I'd want a Pentium M chip done in PCI Express, but until then, if I wanted the mobility that long battery life affords and the best cpu around(but unfortunately no PCI Express), I'd choose what's probably still the best laptop around, the 3790: http://www.discountlaptops.com/index.php?section=specs&model_id=1003&category_id= 2&category_theme=c1

Note that you can get several screen sizes, including 1920x1200, which easily fits 4 tables with room to spare.

There are very close equivalents of these two models at many other manufacturers; these were just examples. There are actually less than a handful of laptop manufacturers; they just make computers that others rebrand, from the small specialty shops like PCTorque to the monsters like Toshiba. Therefore, you'll be seeing, when you look at Sager builders, for instance, computers that all come from the same place and are assembled or partially assembled at many other places.

Check out that first link I put in this post; you'll find a lot of real notebook fanatics who have tested the daylights out of their laptops, and owned and compare multiple laptops. There are some very extensive reviews of different models and manufacturers there. Don't be afraid to go back a few pages, either. There is some really great info there from people who spent an enormous amount of time testing and tinkering with their machines.

[adios]

[ QUOTE ]
It seems sorta weird to me how you are a programmer and don't know much about laptops...

[/ QUOTE ]

Not necessarily. He asked about processors and which is best for a notebook. Why should a software guy be expected to know that? What the difference between an Athlon and a Pentium M?

[mikeyp]

He is working with computers all day so I figured he would probably have a better idea than most. It wasnt meant to be a degrading remark. It just an observation

[NLSoldier]

Since you say battery life and weight arent big concerns I would definately get a Pentium 4. Also, make sure to get the best possible screen. For example, if you get a dell get the WUXGA and you will be able to 4 table with no overlap and have space to spare!

[wacki]

The only think I find odd is that a software guy is going to a poker website for tech advice. The listserves, tech websites he reads, and other tech/software forums would be much better candidates for this kind of help.

That being said, www.anandtech.com (http://www.anandtech.com) is one of my favorite sources for tech news. I basically agree with everything astroglide said. Although, considering his previous comments on that site, I am very suprised that astroglide recommended it.

The real question is, do you have a regular pc? If that is the case then get the lightest laptop you can. Check out the ultraportables and similar notebooks. Battery life is important too. If all you are doing is typing papers, surfing the net, and playing poker you don't need that much power. Go light!

This may be a bit extreme for you, but I'm thinking about buying one of the ultralights that have the Via C3 processor. I saw a setup that is 1.7 pounds and has 8 hours of battery life at max use.

Will post link later.... poker game is about to start.

[NoTalent]

everyone knows intel sentino is the best cause it says on tv. it gets me on the intarnet without wires. Even the guy at best buy said so

[astroglide]

it's an understandable thought, but programmers can't rationally be expected to know about pcs any more than film critics know about being a director. they USE computers in a very specific way, with a technical/abstract trade, but no knowledge of their construction is usually necessary to do their job. it certainly can help in some circumstances though.

[Mano]

I've never owned a laptop, and haven't really kept up with the technology for them. In the past they have always been under powered and expensive. I want a laptop so I can load a large source project from work, and work on it at home (I recently had a daughter, and spending long hours at work that are sometimes neccesary is not appealing right now). I have a nice desktop, and I suppose I could just get a big external hard drive, but it would be nice if I could also work from the living room (computer is upstairs in my office, and I would set up a wireless network). I need something powerfull enough to compile fairly large projects in Visual Studio. I also want something with a fair amount of screen real estate, so I may go for one of the 17" laptops, so it will probably be big anyways, so I am looking for performance and price.

[mikeyp]

Alright makes sense. As stated earlier I wasnt trying to give you a hard time... I was just making a simple observation. No harm meant.

[scotnt73]

the pentium M puts out MUCH less heat than the pentium 4 and is very comparable in benchmarks from what ive read. intel is actually going to be using the M in desktops along with P4s for people who want a lower heat alternative to the p4(overclockers). The pentium M is basically a state of the art badass P3 perfected while the p4 is a first generation heat monster with a few problems. dont get me wrong i have a p4 and it works great but alot of the nerd websites i goto(slashdot for one) the nerds are singing the praises of the M and wondering why intel didnt just use it instead of the p4 in the first place.

[BadBoyBenny]

If power and bulkiness really aren't concerns, check out Sager notebooks. I bought a high end one from pctorque about 2 years ago and I was happy with it. They have desktop speed P4's, lots of RAM and good video cards.

[Senor Choppy]

Centrino isn't actually a processor type, it's a Pentium M coupled with the Intel 855 chipset and an intel wireless connection. The whole naming scheme is incredibly dumb/confusing.

Pentium M is in a class by itself. But since you said battery life and weight aren't an issue, a P4 would probably be the best option if you were sure you'd never be unplugging it and roaming around.

[turnipmonster]

very true. I am a programmer as well and I know nothing about hardware, or for that matters PCs/windows in general. I've never used windows in a professional capacity.

--turnipmonster

[adios]

Not a problem. Just pointing out that many (most) software developers are fairly far removed from the processors they program on/for.

[mikeyp]

Youre a Unix/Linux fan then right?

[turnipmonster]

yeah I've just always worked for companies that used unix as a development platform. mostly solaris, digital unix and currently linux.

--turnipmonster

[mikeyp]

I really like linux.... what do you use to program? I like using something simple like Vim.

[turnipmonster]

most people I work with use eclipse, but I just use vim and then just build at the command line with ant(java) or make(c,c++).

--turnipmonster

[destro]

Pentium 4 for speed Centrino for battery life.

[astroglide]

centrino is not a cpu