Thinking of buying a new laptop, got a bunch of questions

[ivand67]

OK so I haven't bought a computer in almost 4 years. My super old Dell Inspiron 5150 laptop's screen hasn't worked in months (the left hinge is broken and the monitor turns off 5 seconds or so after turning it off every time so I have to use an external monitor to be able to use it), and it's just super slow.

I need a computer that will be able to handle light games (games like the upcoming Madden 08 and NHL 08), and most importantly, 1080p movies in x264, XviD, etc. (without taking up all the CPU power like my 5150 does with 720p video). Also, I'm hoping to get into web design and Photoshop again with this laptop, so I'll be doing a lot of multitasking. Performance, graphics, and a big screen (1900 x 1200), are a must and they're more important than design, weight and battery life.

I'm out of it right now so I don't know nearly as much as I used to know about computers. So I got a couple questions...

- Is an Intel Core 2 Duo the right choice for me or is AMD good enough? I know AMD has a lot of fanboys, that they make awesome processors as well and that at some point during the past few years, they actually had faster processors than Intel, but what's that situation like right now? And I'm aware that Intel has nVidia and AMD has ATI... It seems to me that a graphics card like nVidia's 8600M GS should be good enough for me. On that note, I see on nVidia's 8600M GT has double the stream processors (but somehow, the 7 series has a 256-bit memory interface while the 8M's is 128-bit - WTF). What is the benefit of that? Can anyone help me with this? I don't know jack s--- about this.

But it does seem to me like the T7300 2 GHz Core 2 Duo would be good enough. Any thoughts on this?

Also... I don't care for Microsoft's annoying Media Center and although I'd like to stay current, I've heard that Vista makes things slower because of so many additional (and rather unimportant) features. There's nothing particularly wrong with XP for me - the upgrade to the Windows Explorer windows and file management is probably the only thing I've cared for with Vista. How much slower is it and is it really worth it?

Based on what I've said so far, can anyone make any recommendations? I'm hoping to spend around $1,500-$1,800 but since I'm 22 and my job doesn't pay very well, I gotta have a credit account and pay on a monthly basis (part of the reason I like Dell too)...

Thanks!

 

[Big B]

Core 2 is faster, but AMD's pricing is competitive, so while I'd lean toward Core 2, getting an Athlon wouldn't be a total rip-off. The CPU isn't nearly as important as it used to be.

I'd make sure you have at least 1GB of RAM, however.

Right now, unless you're waiting for a DX10 game, the 7900's seem to be a little better in DX9 than the 8600's. AMD's Radeon HD 2400/2600 series might be something to consider given how much more they offload from the CPU when playing HD content compared with the 8600's. I'm not sure if there's a mobile Radeon HD 2000 chip out yet or not. But, anyway, if you're not concerned about DX10, the 7900 would be a better choice unless the power savings are significant with the 8600's.
Generally, the mid-range cards of the current gen mirror the performance of the top-end of the previous generation. This time both nVidia and ATi/AMD have dropped the ball unfortunately.
The bit width: the bigger the number the wider the bus. However, numbers only tell part of the story. How efficient a chip is can't always be told by looking at the clocks. It can help, but don't rely on them.

I'm not sure what HP offers, but from what I've seen, they're pretty nice and sturdy. My klutz brother's HP has survived him for the past several years, but that's about what I know. Dell seems fine to.
I've also heard some good things about Lenovo (the PC biz part of IBM) and Sager. Lenovo's Thinkpad line might be out of your price range, as they seem to be a tad pricey.
I'm hoping some of the members here will chime in, especially those with newer laptops.

 

[ivand67]

Nice... Thanks Big B for your help.

On the RAM... 2 GB is my minimum. I have 1.25 gigs on my current laptop and it's still not enough. Often times I find myself downloading at full speed, while burning a DVD, and you really can't do anything else while doing that, or else the burn will just slow down.

The HP's look nice... I haven't looked around on HP's web site that much. Certainly they have a couple of really nice laptops and from doing a little research, I found out they're actually the #1 manufacturer of laptops in the US right now. Dell is second, and Acer just passed Toshiba.

Would still like to hear from other people too though.