My friend is getting a new computer and

[Justin]

he has a question:

Ok. Some of the new laptops out there have a Pentium M. Some have a "Core Duo" and some have an Athlon 64. WHICH IS BEST. It's kind of a simple question... I mean I know they all have different uses I guess. But for me, why would I choose one over the other. Here's the processors I'm thinking of getting:

2.0 GHz ~ish Core Duo
2.4 GHz (3700+) Athlon 64

Those are the two I'm thinking of, but for my purposes (gaming, video editing) which would be best?

[Mausau2000]

The Core Duo is supposed 2 have longer battery time and it is Dual Core Athlon 64 i would never buy for a laptop.

[Jupac]

go with the Pentium M =)

[Mausau2000]

Pentium M also goes for a long Time so that should do as well=)

[Tangible Demise]

I'm Justin's friend... I went ahead and made an account...

Ok, I don't really care about battery life. I never use the battery long enough to worry about that anyways, I just really want it for portability and the *occasional* battery use.

I would like to be able to use the laptop to play Half-Life 2, without a whole bunch of lag and occasional freezing, like I find on my current laptop.

The new system, if I went with the Athlon, would be configured like this:

AMD Mobile Athlon 64 3700+ 2.4 GHz
Microsoft Windows XP x64 Edition
1024mb Corsair XMS Notebook Memory (400mhz)
80gb 7200rpm Ultra ATA 100 HD
ATI Radeon 9700 Pro 128mb Graphics
8x DVD Multi-format Dual-layer Burner
Intel Pro Wireless a/b/g LAN


I mean... with all of that, would the computer be able to play Half-Life 2 without a bunch of problems?

[David Harrison]

HL2 is a very demanding game, if you want good framerates then you're gonna need a hell of a lot more than a 9700, that card is two generations old!

I can't say I like laptops, but I've read around in the past and from what I can tell, the Pentium-M is fantastic.

But the major question is, how much are you looking to spend on this thing? Because that will determine what goes in it.

[Tangible Demise]

Yea, well... what is your definition of "a hell of a lot more than a 9700?" There's plenty graphics cards out there. So, I need more than a 9700. That's good to know, but it doesn't really help with anything... what would be the minimum I'd need then, if not a 9700?

[David Harrison]

Well like I said, how much do you want to spend? You could go to Widow PC (http://www.widowpc.com/) and pick up a laptop with an SLi 7800GTX setup, that'd run HL2 quite nicely, however is seems that they've had to temporarily remove it from their site.

In my desktop PC I have a 6800Ultra, that runs HL2 very well, but I still can't turn the AA and AF to full. So if you want to run HL2 at the full settings you'd have to go for the newest generation of cards. For nVidia that'd be the GeForce 7 go series and for ATi it's the Mobility Radeon X1000 series.

Here are the nVidia mobile graphics cards:
http://www.nvidia.com/page/mobile.html

Here are the ATi mobile graphics cards:
http://www.ati.com/products/mobile.html

If you go nVidia, I'd recommend the 7800 or 7800GTX, if you go ATi, I'd recommend the X1600. Those two nVidia cards will probably outperform the X1600, as the X1600 is a mid-range card while the 7800's are high-end cards. The X1600 would probably be about on par with the 7600 in the performance and multimedia section.