W3J T2500 or T5500

Sorry to post another thread on this, but this is driving me crazy.
despite the information I've received on this issue, I still find myself stopping myself from ordering a W3J because I can't decide whether to get the new T5500 (1.6ghz Core 2 Duo) model or the current T2500 (2.0ghz Core Duo) model. I wish there were benchmarks comparing the two. I know I won't need a 64bit processor for a while, but I do know that meroms are faster than yonahs, but the fact that there is a 400mhz difference between the two seems to imply that the current T2500 would still be faster than the new T5500. Someone please ease my indecisive mind!

 

2 year warranty on the T5500 C2D is the deal breaker for me.

Cheers.

 

I think the 2.0ghz will be faster than the 1.6ghz. That may not be true if you're running some 64-bit app down the road, but if that's the only deciding factor I'd go for the yonah. There are some rebates/deals going around for the older model too, and you can save some cash and upgrade the processor in the future if you really want.

For equivolent ghz cpu, the memrons are faster, but maybe only in the order of 5-8%, which is not a very significant factor.

 

In the benchmarks I have seen, percentages range from 1-22% faster per clock for Merom CPU's. In gaming you will see little to no difference. But in, I think it was encoding the Core 2 Duo did around 22% faster per clock. If it were me, I'd take the Core 2 Duo 1.6 over the Core Duo 2ghz, because it's more future proof.

 

Plus with the 2-year extended warranty, mouse and case, I feel you get a better deal with the new model... but it's a tough choice.

~ Brett

 

For games you will be GPU limited with the X1600, and for anything else I doubt the difference will be noticeable.

 

If I remember correctly, there was a post a week or two back from Justin and ProPortable that said he wouldn't be surprised if the W3J came with "something special" and that it would be "in the norm" for ASUS to do something like that.

Have the first upgraded W3j's arrived in the US yet? If so, were there any surprises?

 

Yes, I said that, but also in the mean time Asus has reaffirmed everything that we were already told... I'm not as optimistic as I was last week.... Especially since the W3's are actually hitting port on Tuesday.

 

I would get the new one.

I dont see any discount on the old one over the new one more than like 20$.

the new one has a carrying case, mouse and 2 year warrantee.

It should be slightly slower...

All things considered Id get the new one definitely.
Now if the old one was in the $1500 range I mean Id get it. All that other stuff isnt worth more than $100 or less total to me.
I was hoping to find the old one for $1500 but anyway Im pretty much done shopping.

 

thanks for everyone's replies.
i'm leaning towards the merom, but i have a couple more questions.
i'm going to be using this notebook mainly for office, photoshop, gaming, and music/movie playback. will there be a noticeable difference between the two processors in these circumstances? also, in what real world events (not benchmarks) would the speed difference be noticed?

 

No and none. haha

~ Brett

 

In the case of Photoshop, you would be better to get the 2.0Ghz Core Duo, and a faster 7200rpm HDD and second HDD to run in the multibay as a scratch disc in Photoshop.

I have been involed in testing new computers at work to run photoshop on large files 400-600mb heavily layered tiff files that normally open up consuming all available RAM, we have actually set up some benchmark testing on one of our plans where we set up processes to run through actions and timed the results.

Because Photoshop writes a history state of an image to the HDD everyime you apply an action or make a change, if you are using complex brushes maybe a processor will help, but in the case of Photoshop the biggest performance increase comes from a faster HDD and also using two hdds especialy if you are using up all your RAM and your HDD is pagefiling virtual RAM on your HDD.

My last test was on a system :
Dell Precision PWS390 (Irvine)
2.00 GB RAM
Processor Intel E6600 4MB L2 2.40GHz, 1066Mhz
XP Extreme 64 Bit
Seagate, Cheetah Ultra320 SCSI 15000rpm
NVIDIA Quadro FX 3450/4000 SDI

but on large photoshop work where windows page files, this older system with twin HDDs is actually faster:
Dell Workstation Precision PWS470 (London)
Dual Intel Xeon CPU 3.00GHz
2.00 GB of RAM
XP Pro SP2
128mb ATI FireGL V3100
40GB Seagate, Barracuda SATA 7200rpm
150GB Maxtor, Diamond Plus 9 SATA 7200rpm

Next test when I go back to the states is going to be the PWS390 with twin SCSI drives and 4GB RAM...

 

thanks for everyone's opinions.
but the opinions are so mixed, that i'm in the same predicament.
ahhhhh, what to do

 

well i don't know if this helps but i was in same position as you 2 weeks ago..

but... in the end.. i looked at it this way, the T5500 won't satisfy me in future anyways, so either the 2500, or 5500, i would need to upgrade sooner or later. but my situation i needed it before october started so its different than you. I got a not bad deal too, but i would go for the T5500 especially with the 2 yr warranty and all, but if the T2500 cost substantially less than i would go for the T2500.

 

well, i did it.
i went with the merom.
thanks for everyone who replied.
i hope that the performance in games is just as good as with the 2.0ghz yonah.
=/

 

I'm in the same boat, I need a laptop before the end of November. Is the 2 year warranty only through proportable or any vendor that has the newer T5500?

 

The latter.

~ Brett

 

Thanks for the info

 

yup, the latter