IdeaPad U150, SU2300 vs. SU7300, much difference?

I'm just wondering if in your opinion, would there be a whole lot of difference in terms of performance between the SU2300 and SU7300? I see the SU2300 model (dual celeron) is available at Amazon, or the SU7300 I could get from Lenovo.
My plans are just light gaming (old games, Intel graphics are fine for this), and some virtualization (VirtualPC & Win98). I know both processors support virtualization, so that's no problem. I'm just wondering about performance. What do you guys think?

 

the SU7300 has 3 mb of L2 cache and the SU2300 has only 1 mb of L2 cache. From experience an increase of 1 mb to 3 mb cache will make a lot of difference to the overall CPU performance, as is the case with the Pentium M moving from 1 mb to 2 mb of Cache.

 

Well I know that, but whether that translates to a 5% performance difference, or more or less, I don't know. As much as I don't believe in benchmarks, 3DMark06 reports very little difference between the two processors with the GMA 4500. I guess I'm more concerned with battery life and heat production than anything else. According to this review, the Lenovo was warmer than the other two notebooks in that class.

 

The SU7300 has some power saving features that the SU2300 doesn't, so the SU7300 will get better battery life.

 

I don't think even the battery life difference is that significant, Liliputing got 'about 5 hours' in normal use with the SU7300, Netbooked got 4 hours 44 minutes of 'real usage' ("Real usage - 30% brightness, Wi-Fi ON, BT ON, HDMI connected to 24-inch monitor") with the SU2300.

Plus, you can use something like CrystalCPUID/RMClock for variable clock control based on CPU usage to squeeze more battery life out of a SU2300.

 

Interesting, I'll give that some thought. Might just get the SU7300 model then. Thanks.

 

Su7300 is around 992, while the SU2300 is around 918... so the performance difference is around 5 to 10% under test condition.

http://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu_lookup.php?cpu=Intel+SU7300+@+1.30GHz

 

I got the SU2300 on my U150. It seems plenty zippy to me. The biggest performance problem is the massive amount of bloatware on the machine coupled with the slower 5400RPM drive. I plan to do a clean install with a faster 7200RPM drive, which should help speed things up considerably.

 

Thanks ZaZ. I remember with my late 2008 Macbook with Intel x3100 IGP, it played BF1942 great. As long as I could play that, I know most of my other games with play fine, which I suspect they will.

 

Hmm, according to Intel, the SU2300 and SU7300 all support Intel Virtualization, Intel 64, Enhanced Intel Speedstep, and Thermal Monitoring Technologies. Interesting. The only thing the SU7300 supports that the SU2300 does not, is Execute Disable Bit.

http://ark.intel.com/Product.aspx?id=42779
http://ark.intel.com/Product.aspx?id=42791

 

SU2300 doesn't have speedstep. The intel specs are incorrect. Discussed here.

 

Nice to know. Can't understand why Intel doesn't update their official specs then.

 

They hide behind the fact that it does lower voltage in different modes but keeps the same frequency