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Thread ID: 61591 2005-09-10 03:21:00 CPU speed PC vs Notebook rachela (8862) Press F1
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387546 2005-09-10 03:21:00 I've looking at buying a new computer and trying to decide on PC vs notebook .

Can someone give me a guide to comparing PC CPU speed vs notebook CPU speed?

It seems that most new PCs are 2 or 3GHz, yet notebooks are around 1 . 5GHz .

Why such a difference?

What would a 3GHz PC CPU compare with for a notebook?
rachela (8862)
387547 2005-09-10 03:29:00 Notebooks can get their power from a battery . The faster the CPU runs, the more power it uses, and the shorter the time until the battery is flat . Higher capacity batteries are heavier, and cost more .

Notebooks are sold partly on their battery life time (long) and total weight (small) .
Graham L (2)
387548 2005-09-10 04:11:00 the pentium m processors outperform most pIV processors & have way lower power consumtion. Intel realised they didn't design the pIV too well, so they went back to the pIII design for the pentium m. Someone will correct me if I'm wrong, but I think that the pentium m has lower power consumption than an eqivilent performance AMD processor. Greven (91)
387549 2005-09-10 04:28:00 For the same amount of money a desktop will definitly be faster/more powerful. Greg (193)
387550 2005-09-10 04:38:00 As always, the major factor should be what you want or need to do .

If you want to type letters, a processor which can wait at 4GHz for you to hit the next key is wasted . If you are doing this away from a power point, it's going to drain your battery faster, and that will be the only "benefit" of the higher speed . If it's a desktop, it doesn't matter . (A notebook will have power management, so the processor will be slowed right down when it isn't being used, so this is a little bit unfair, ;) ) .

If you want to do lots of image processing or other heavy computing, a desktop is going to be better . If you have to have the portability, accept a slower speed, which won't actually be noticed in most work (it can still think faster than you can) for the sake of battery life (which you will notice) .

There have been some "notebooks" been designed as "desktop laptops", which are sometimes even sold without batteries . They don't have power management, so are not very satisfactory if a battery is installed .
Graham L (2)
387551 2005-09-10 05:15:00 My parents recently bought me a new computer but i had t ostay under $800. I originally planned on getting a laptop but ended up getting a desktop because the performance was so much better on a desktop in my price range. CorbinH (37)
387552 2005-09-10 07:02:00 my laptop is most definitly marketed as a desktop replacement, though it wasn't one of the nasty ones sold without a battery or power mangement, battery life was good for near 2 hours with all the software controlling the power use.

Since then I have removed all the power managment, I pay for power then I want it on tap.Also the battery has died.

Anyhow, its a 2800,512mb ram,9600pro, a smilar spec'd desktop would spank it sideways.


As for the p4 not being a good design, thats only because the AMD is better,and the arcitecture of teh p3 was or is more suited for a laptop.the P-M is still easly destroyed by a p4 chip or an AMD Athlon, though not if you restricted the clockspeed of the desk top to match the laptop chip.

The higher end P-M chips do the job perfectly for the average laptop, plenty of grunt.
Metla (12)
387553 2005-09-10 07:22:00 Also as far as i know most of the lower end ($1000 down) either have no or a bad graphics card... and just of curiosity how good are intel Xeon processors cuz i have afriend whos dad has a computer with a 3.5ghz Xeon and like 3 gigs of ram... yet i dont know how fast it is and it bothers me lol CorbinH (37)
387554 2005-09-10 07:25:00 generally you have to spend over 2G to get a laptop that has a game capable video chipset with its own video-ram.

Though even then they lag well behind desktop performance, there are massivly powerful units available overseas that use the 6800 ultra, haven't seen them here though.
Metla (12)
387555 2005-09-10 07:32:00 By over seas where do u mean??? CorbinH (37)
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