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    Which would perform better?/plus blu ray Ques

    Discussion in 'Hardware Components and Aftermarket Upgrades' started by jam12, Aug 24, 2007.

  1. jam12

    jam12 Notebook Deity

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    As the title says, which of these machines with the following specs perform better -
    2.0 GHz Santa Rosa, 4.0MB Cache, 4200 RPM hard disk.

    OR

    1.8 GHz Santa Rosa, 2.0MB Cache, 5400 RPM hard disk.

    Finally, is a blu ray drive a good feature to have? I'm not really planning to watch blu ray DVD's but is there any other reason to have one?

    Thanks, jam.
     
    jam12, Aug 24, 2007
    #1
  2. Yoir

    Yoir Notebook Enthusiast

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    2.0 GHz Santa Rosa, 4.0MB Cache, 4200 RPM hard disk
     
    Yoir, Aug 24, 2007
    #2
  3. Kwakkel

    Kwakkel Weirdo

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    the 2GHz with 4MB cache is indeed the better option :)

    BR is for movies
    maybe one day software will appear on it, but i do't think that's going to happen before the HDDVD vs BR war is over :)
     
    Kwakkel, Aug 24, 2007
    #3
  4. RogueMonk

    RogueMonk Notebook Deity

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    I'm going to offer a contrary perspective.

    Hard Drives are by far the largest bottleneck in laptops (and desktops). While the 2ghz/4mb CPU is faster than the 1.8ghz/2mb, you will only notice the extra speed on high demand applications. But with the faster Hard Drive, you will notice the increased disk performance on almost everything you do.

    I'd go with the faster Hard Drive.
     
    RogueMonk, Aug 25, 2007
    #4
  5. ZaZ

    ZaZ Super Model Super Moderator

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    I would agree the hard drive will be a larger performance limiter than the CPU, but the hard drive is much easier to upgrade.

    If you don't plan to watch movies, the only reason to get a Blu-Ray drive would be if you back up large amounts of data as Blu-Ray discs can much more data.
     
    ZaZ, Aug 25, 2007
    #5
  6. JM

    JM Mr. Misanthrope NBR Reviewer

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    I agree. The faster hard drive will give you the most notable performance bump, not a slightly faster processor.

    So I say go with the faster hard drive, in agreement with Monk.
     
    JM, Aug 25, 2007
    #6
  7. Kwakkel

    Kwakkel Weirdo

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    it's not the CPU speed that matters, it's the cache!
    and you'll only notice increased speed whe you're loadig things, or when you do video encoding/decoding/recording
     
    Kwakkel, Aug 25, 2007
    #7
  8. powerpack

    powerpack Notebook Prophet

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    I think the question is loaded, and there is no correct “general” answer, what do you plan to do? With that said I like the faster HDD for the reasons stated. But, the 2Ghz is 10% faster in clocks and the extra cache is another 10% increase in CPU intensive tasks, and HDD are easier to upgrade.

    I have heard some of those 200GB 4200 HDD are not that slow.

    Blue Ray, aren't those over $500?
     
    powerpack, Aug 25, 2007
    #8
  9. ZaZ

    ZaZ Super Model Super Moderator

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    I just reviewed the Toshiba A215 with the 250GB 4200RPM drive. While not as slow as drives of yore, it was noticeably slower. Depends on what you are doing. Internet and office aren't that CPU intensive.
     
    ZaZ, Aug 25, 2007
    #9
  10. Sunday Ironfoot

    Sunday Ironfoot Notebook Enthusiast

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    I'd say go with the faster CPU and upgrade the hard drive yourself. You can't upgrade CPU's after all.
     
    Sunday Ironfoot, Aug 26, 2007
    #10
  11. Kwakkel

    Kwakkel Weirdo

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    of course you can
    it's just a bit harder :)
     
    Kwakkel, Aug 26, 2007
    #11