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laptop n00b & Z96J

post #1 of 9
8/11/06 at 10:11pm
Thread Starter 
Hi people,

Thinking of buying this very soon:

http://p4laptops.com.au/order-ITCz96ja.htm

With this config:

Intel Core Duo T2400 1.86ghz
100gb 7200rpm
2GB DDR 667 (2x1 1gb)

Rounds off at 2225 Australian, roughly 1,706 American. Yes, I live in Australia, so it made more sense to buy locally than get Z/S96J shipped from GenTech, as everyone here seems to be doing!

Questions:

1. Should I swallow the extra moolah needed for a 7200rpm hard disk, or spend the money on the T2500 CPU? I've been hearing mixed accounts as to what to do in this situation.

2. Is the FPS hit from the Z96J's res, and playing on lower res (black lines/bars?), that bad? Again, I've been hearing mixed reports about this.

Any general comments and recommendations is welcome, thanks in advance.
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post #2 of 9
8/11/06 at 10:50pm
1) Considering hard drives are _the_ bottleneck of computers today, I would get the 7200 rpm drive instead of the better CPU anyday, performance-wise.
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post #3 of 9
8/16/06 at 4:29am
Thread Starter 
bump. please, someone answer!
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post #4 of 9
8/16/06 at 1:07pm
DDDa did answer, and I agree with him.
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post #5 of 9
8/16/06 at 2:15pm
Z96j supports SATA hard drive, Seagate is also a better choice for 7200rpm. Suppose you should choose Z96j because it has a 1680x1050 screen, whereas, S96j only supports up to 1280x800.
Cheers
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post #6 of 9
8/16/06 at 9:13pm
The other way to get better notebook HDD performance is to purchase the higher capacity drives - 80GB, 100GB. They have higher areal density which translates to faster access. I purchased a 100GB 7200RPM (Hitachi) drive for my S96J for just this reason.


Be seeing you...

---> TBC (Tri-D Battle Chess)
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post #7 of 9
8/17/06 at 12:09am
I recommend that you get the 7,200 rpm drive. It does make a difference and the S96j/Z96j has very good cooling so heat of drive is a non-issue. Between the Seagate and the Hitachi, the Hitachi is better choice. The Hitachi is still top of the leader board over the Seagate:
http://www.storagereview.com/article...otebook_2.html

If you want to game at native res and fill the whole screen the S96j is better choice. You will not be able to play modern games at 1680x1050 with high settings on the Z96j. The Z96j would stretch the image so there would be not be a need to have black bars. Some people are not bothered at playing games at non-native on a LCD. I prefer playing at native. If you can you may want to try playing games at non-native res on a LCD (desktop or notebook) before making decision.
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post #8 of 9
8/17/06 at 4:25am
Thread Starter 
Thanks for the help guys, much appreciated.

Sadly, S96J isn't available over here, but I'll follow your advice flipcody and check whether non-native res gaming is enough to bother me in the long-term.

Cheers.
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post #9 of 9
8/17/06 at 5:52pm
Those are good points, Flip. As far as scaling goes, there are those who believe that LCD scaling is a "poor-man's AA", so I agree; be sure to play your games at your chosen resolution (scaled or native depending on laptop) and decide for yourself. I prefer native resolution.


Be seeing you...

---> TBC (Trained By Clowns)
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