Turion X2 worth waiting for?

Is 64-Bit Dual Core really going to be all it's cracked up to be? Is it worth waiting later in the summer to buy a notebook for school and passing up the 750$ Dell Coupon?


(Note: My primary concern will be for gaming)

 

Turion X2 is already out. But Dell doesnt like AMD, you cant get AMD based Dell notebooks.

Charlie-Peru

 

Jaiste,

It all depends on needs. If you can wait...by all means, do! The reason we say that is because the computer technology develops so fast that you will get either a better deal on a "lower-end" machine, or get the newer technology.

Since you are talking about Dell you must be thinking of Merom...which will be out later this fall.

64-bit is going to be awesome, at least in my mind. You will have alot more power, games will be taking advantage, so already do like Quake I believe...right now it gives you more eye-candy, which everyone loves. Also, encoding and decoding should be alot faster.

Depending on what you use it for, how much you want to spend, how long you want it to be able to be used and how long you are willing to wait are all the factors that you will need to factor in.

 

USAF, first thanks for all of your help in a couple of my threads.

I'm not Dell-centric, and an Asus is really my #2 choice. I do however need this computer before August 23rd, so the Merom seems to be out of the question for now...

I would be open to a different company so long as I can take advantage of a Turion X2 and I can get a dedicated graphics card X1600 or better...

Any idea when notebooks will start rolling out with the X2?

 

jaiste, i just read this
http://www.notebookreview.com/default.asp?newsID=2944

 

If I had to guess on the rollout, I would have to say June/July for the X2 mainstream computers from most manufacturers. But that is my guess. As in the article stated by Totti it seems HP will be releasing it around that time. I don't think the other companies will be far behind.

 

Except the HP and Compaq notebooks have some notsogreat GPU's...

****. Now the debate in my head gets worse... go with the great deal on the Dell but face its size and CPU futureproofness, or stick it out and wait to see what july brings, if anything at all in the way of Asus X2graphics dedicated notebooks.

 

Like I said...if you can't wait...do so!

I bought my I9300 the end of November and got it Mid-December...then January rolled around and my I9300 was replaced by the E1705. So like I said...wait if you can.

 

By that logic I can hold out till the end of july... sigh the wait is gonna kill me. and I hope to god some gnarly coupons for Dell are out then!

 

Well if you want the newest computers...like say they release a new model in July, most likely will not have coupons, but...the other computers will be coming down in price and most likely have better coupons and maybe even a better video card, etc.

 

If you're running mostly 32-bit applications (which you probably will be), the Turion X2 is not going to be any faster than the Core Duo and will probably use more power. Compare the benchmarks between the MS-1058 (turion x2) and MS-1057 (core duo) in this thread.

The only advantage that I can see of getting a Turion X2 is that it is usually coupled with better ATI integrated graphics (x200) on non-gaming machines. By the time 64-bit apps are out there will be a better 64-bit processor from AMD.

 

My question is will it retain the same socket as the single core turion 64, and will us reg turion users be able to upgrade. Now that would be nice

 

If it does, you will need a Bios update that would come from the Manufacturer. But that is the big thing about the Merom too.

 

well then lets all hope that msi will come out with such an update, as I know averatec is way to useless to do something contructive like that.

 

You will not be able to upgrade a Turion64 notebook to a Turion64 X2. The sockets on the motherboards are different (socket 754 vs. socket S1 respectivly). They are physically different.

The current thought throughout the forum is that a Core Duo (Napa platform) will be upgradeable to Merom processor by just swapping the chip out. At most you would need a BIOS flash to upgrade. (The jury still seems to be debating if a BIOS flash will even be necseeary.)

 

Why not buy a T x2 CPU & Asus barebones and put it together yourself?
G2P stated even a monkey could assemble the Z62, Asus seems to be making it easier all the time (grab market share?)
Do your research (+FS forum here) and eBay watching of required items, SODIMM, HDD, WiFi, then start making purchases early July. Buy CPU last, after price drop when new merom comes out. Why buy Dell, heavy as .ell! My Z71* much better than =$$ Dell.

 

Oh well My mt40 2.2ghz turion and 2gb of ram seem to multitask just fine. I guess dual core will be on the next lappy. I sure know it will be in my next sff desktop.