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What would you buy w/ $2800 budget??

post #1 of 89
8/18/04 at 12:35pm
Thread Starter 
What would you buy w/ $2800 budget?? Let me hear it....
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post #2 of 89
8/18/04 at 12:41pm
a cool computer and 1400 worth of upgrades to my car.
new muffler, sparkplugs, brakes, and a strereo
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post #3 of 89
8/18/04 at 12:42pm
used BMW 2002
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post #4 of 89
8/18/04 at 12:43pm
Depends on if I wanted mobility or DTR? Graphics or ultimate practicality? Fun or work? Both?

If I were you and just had 2800 dollars to blow and no idea of what I wanted in mind, I'd give the money to me .

But seriously... what are you looking for.
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post #5 of 89
8/18/04 at 12:53pm
Thread Starter 
Sorry...I have an '02 530i...don't need another BMW.

Looking for a desktop repacement...portability is NOT a major concern. Powerwerful enough for video and CAD. It's got to be way more noticable (speed wise) then the 1.7-m Satellite I just got rid of.
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post #6 of 89
8/18/04 at 12:56pm
sagar 4750 or 8790
www.pctorque.com
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post #7 of 89
8/18/04 at 12:57pm
Well depends mostly on CPU and screen size preferences. I am personally into the widescreen notebooks. Also depends if you are a gamer or not, I am not into games but some of the laptops below are pure gaming machines with fast GPUs. So:

For Centrin Dothan cpu:
1) Asus W1N w/ 15.4 WSXGA and configured at Startech (the stock version comes with 1.7 banias which is still very powerful but I'd rather have the Dothan)
2) Asus M6BNe w/ 15.4 WXGA
3) Sager np3790 w/ 15.4 WSXGA and WUXGA as an option
4) Acer Aspire 2025wlmi w/ 15.4 WXGA
5) Mitac 8050 15.4 WXGA is also a very popular notebook in thses forums.
These are all laptops of great quality and you can look around for more reviews on them (use the "search" option at the top of the page)

For AMD 64 cpu:
1) Sager 4750 w/ NOTE: 17inch WSXGA
2) Acer Ferrari 3200 w/ 15inch SXGA+ - this seems to be a very good laptop but I find its looks a bit flashy so it was not a choice for me but the quality is very good.

For P4 HT cpu:
NO THANKS - don't wanna break my back and also I usually prefer laptops with battery life longer than 1hr or so.
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post #8 of 89
8/18/04 at 1:02pm
Thread Starter 
I'm a bit concerned with Dothan / Centrino CPU's not being as powerful as the P4 HT's. Some sales kid at BestBuy was telling me that a 1.7 Centrino is equivilent to a 2.8 P4...

I'd rather get a P4 and not get duped by the sales pitch.....
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post #9 of 89
8/18/04 at 1:15pm
1.7 centrino is equivalent and can perform as high as a 2.8GHz P4 in some benchmarks.
I'm not going into all the specifics cause it would take to long but...
there's a thing called a pipeline in a processor and the processor will chop information into little packets and send it down the pipeline to be processed. Intel uses longer pipelines on their P4s then AMD does on their processors. Intel does this to get more mhz out of their processor because the longer the processor, the more mhz it can run at. However, there's more steps in a longer pipeline, thus the extra mhz don't really help out.
Here's an analogy:
P4: running 40 yards at 20mph
Centrino: running 20 yards at 10 mph.

You still get excellent performance. In fact, a 2.0GHz Dothan runs on par with a 3.0GHz P4. and it's 2mb cache really helps in office tasks.
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post #10 of 89
8/18/04 at 1:20pm
Acer Ferrari 3200 - $1950 @ Newegg
Hitatchi 60GB 7200rpm Hard Drive - $180 or so
2x512 MB PC3200 dimms $200 or so

$400 left for future upgrades, 90nm AMD 64 3700+ probably around $250, Nice Backpack carrying case $50-80. And whatever else.
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post #11 of 89
8/18/04 at 1:23pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Milenkod
I'm a bit concerned with Dothan / Centrino CPU's not being as powerful as the P4 HT's. Some sales kid at BestBuy was telling me that a 1.7 Centrino is equivilent to a 2.8 P4...

I'd rather get a P4 and not get duped by the sales pitch.....
According to some things I have read, the Dothan is comparable to regular P4 chips that have 1.5 times the processor speed. These are just a couple of things I pulled off of Google, so they might be crap.
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post #12 of 89
8/18/04 at 1:25pm
That is a pretty accurate rule of thumb. So, no, it's not crap.
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post #13 of 89
8/18/04 at 1:28pm
Lots of folks seem to like Fujitsu N5000 series, although I have no personal experience seems like a nice, but well into luggable category, desktop replacement.
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post #14 of 89
8/18/04 at 1:32pm
Top end CL56 + $1000 worth of investments of your choosing.
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post #15 of 89
8/18/04 at 1:39pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by 46and2
According to some things I have read, the Dothan is comparable to regular P4 chips that have 1.5 times the processor speed. These are just a couple of things I pulled off of Google, so they might be crap.
Actually google did the job again - no it is FAR FROM CRAP. In fact, you can often see even a higher than 1.5 multiplyer being mentioned but I guess 1.5 is more overestimate-proof.
A 2.0 Dothan in fact performs equally to P4HT in the 3GHz region like 3.0 and even 3.2. Of course the Dothan will lack the P4 speed in multithreading but these are very specific tasks. Dothan laptops have the lightest formfactors of all and bring the longest battery life you can find. Overall, it is a very efficient yet powerful cpu.
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post #16 of 89
8/18/04 at 2:05pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Milenkod
Looking for a desktop repacement...portability is NOT a major concern. Powerwerful enough for video and CAD. It's got to be way more noticable (speed wise) then the 1.7-m Satellite I just got rid of.
This guy wants DTR and everyone recommends Dothan. Portability is not a concern and you recommend 6lb laptops.

He said he wants a laptop that is faster than the 1.7M he got rid of, and you begin a discussion on the 1.7 Dothan.

To Milenkod: Check out the upper end Sagers @ PCTorque.com and probably take a look at the Dell XPS and 9100 as well.

To everyone else: Pfft.
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post #17 of 89
8/18/04 at 2:19pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Milenkod
I'd rather get a P4 and not get duped by the sales pitch.....
It was this statement that got everyone going to correct him because he thought that a 1.7 dothan couldn't perform nearly as well as a 2.8GHz P4
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post #18 of 89
8/18/04 at 2:28pm
10 demerits (double post)
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post #19 of 89
8/18/04 at 2:55pm
You can get a loaded Dell XPS with a mobility 9800 for about 2800 with a 250 mail in rebate.

I am not a Dell fan, but it is the fastest most powerful DTR you can get at the moment. When the 9800 is made available to others, I'm sure there will be better choices, but for right now the xps is the highest performing notebook there is imo.
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post #20 of 89
8/18/04 at 2:55pm
10 demerits for bacon boy for double posting!
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