Acer Ferrari 3200 or Aspire 2020. - Page 2

Ferrari 3200

The P3 core was a very good core. The reason why intel has been able to bump up the mhz of the P4 so high is due to it's much longer pipeline. This allows for more mhz. unfortunately, a longer pipeline means there are more steps for packets of information to go through before being processed.
Due to the shorter pipeline of the dothan, the info doesn't have as far to travel and thus the info can be processed as fast as P4s running a ghz or more faster. here's an analogy I always use:
P4: running 40 yards at 20mph
Dothan: running 20 yards at 10mph

Watching Tourney and Phantom argue is hillarious, Any way Ebonix if u see this i recieved my sleeve and i love it to death thanks for the good info.

To everyone else does any one know when intel will release a 64 bit processor for laptops?

hugh: this is not meant to be aggressive towards you, but what's funny about the argument?

Tourney:

1) Fair enough, I over looked the widescreen question, good point, some people can't stand the widescreen.
2) Regarding the CPU, there isn't that much of a "noticable" performance difference
between the 2 machines.

I'm selling laptops myself so I get my hands on quite a few different models, and having used both of these machines I can assure you that the difference is very small.

And no need to get aggrisive on me, I wasn't in any way at you.

Your bickering serves absolutely no purpose.

It is true that AMD64 performs a little better in games, on average, than does its desktop competitor, P4 (which I'm guessing performs a little better than the mobiles?). However, I don't think that's got much do with being 64 bit at all. I think it's just a good cpu. I believe the two cpus are rather even. As far as I have seen, the 2800+ compares to a 1.7-1.8GHz Dothan, performance-wise. So, if there'd been a laptop with a 2.0GHz Dothan that I would have gotten as cheap, I'd have taken it instead. I hear you may be able to upgrade the Ferrari cpu though, although I doubt that'd gonna help if the graphics card is the bottleneck anyway.

Not all games support widescreen, which means you may get to play with black borders on the sides. It may not bother you, but it was one of the reasons that made me, personally, ditch the idea of other Acers that were out at the time.

The Ferrari battery life is not very good, although I rarely need it myself, but not any less than my father's ThinkPad's (with an older Intel Mobile at around 1.6GHz or similar). Still, if it's important to you, go for Dothan instead.

Exactly what I was trying to say but you explained it better Sanna

phantom

You really don't need to wait that long, since today's 32-bit apps also runs noticeably faster on this 64-bit OS. My guess is that the Windows 64-bit revolution will come sooner than you think, especially now that SP2 finally is out.

Not really, since Athlon 64 will also run 32-bit OS and apps faster than most other CPU's available today.

Not at all, you got it all wrong. AMD64 is now an industry standard and that won't change in 1-2 years time, only the speed of the CPU's will improve and today's 64-bit CPU's will ofcourse be compatible. The great thing with AMD64 is that you can run both 32-bit, 64-bit & mixed code simulaneously without any drop in performance, but ofcourse only real 64-bit apps will show the true performance capabilities. You can actually get a preview of this today by downloading a free trial version of Windows XP Pro x64 Edition from here:
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/6...n/upgrade.mspx

fortunately, with games such as Doom 3 that don't support widescreen, you can go into the cfg file to customize your own resolution. Doom 3 ran brillaintly on my mitac and didn't look the slightest bit stretched.
phantom...you have my apology

No, Snorre, you got it all wrong. To have the AMD 64 in the 32-bit world is like driving a Ferarri in second gear only - still faster than many other cars but not using the full potential of the car. Right now the AMD 64 is only a very good 32-bit cpu and has the 64 in its name only. It may give you better performance than P4 HT or Dothan but it is noticeable only in benchmarks. 32-bit simply doesn't allow the AMD 64 to perform at its best.
As for 1-2 years, in life this may not be that long of a period, but as far as technology is concerned, a couple of years are an eternity.
Not only MGHz will change in the AMD 64 but expect the whole "base" to change. Remember my words and you will see that in 1-2 years when everything will be 64-bit (hopefully) your AMD today will be just an old proc and you will be shopping for a new one.

you're a smart man.

I hope not, I'm waiting for OLED screens, complete solid state memory solutions, and perfected user replaceable GPU's before my next purchase. I'm pretty confident I'll get 4+ years out of my 3200. Hell, my 6 year old Gateway desktop can still do everything 99% of users need/want.

Hehe, I think you exaggerate a bit here. Using an AMD64 CPU on a 32-bit OS is more like driving a car in 4th gear and not being able to use the 5th and last gear, at best. You can expect to see between 15-25% performance increase on average going from 32-bit to 64-bit, and that's it for now.

Not really, several 64-bit OS alternatives already exists like Linux, NetBSD, FreeBSD & OpenBSD to name a few.

So what as long as it performs better than any other CPU out there also on a 32-bit OS? It's the same with graphics chips you know, where most of their abilities are not shown before later but people still buy them since they also run their games faster today. It's called progress

I seriously doubt that, the AMD64 standard was created years ago and there's nothing that indicate that it will change in the next couple of years either. They may add some microcode to it like 64-bit SSE3 support, but the first generation AMD64 processors will still be fully compatible as the architecture remains the same.

In 2 years time my AMD proc will be 2 years older, and so will yours and that's all there is to it. The future brings VISA, isn't that what they say?

Anyway, the current AMD64 processors are more future proof than any other CPU's available today. I expect there will be Pentium M with EM64T support coming out late next year too, or sooner, for you that absolutely must have the Intel Inside badge

I am also willing to keep my lappy for 3 years at least. But in a year or so it would be just a good lappy and I will be trying not to look at the new ones when I go to BB or visit this forum. This is the curse of technology, I guess - today you have the best machine possible and tomorrow there is something better out there.

Snorre, you are totally missing my point. Calling the AMD 64 a 64-bit proc NOW is totally irrelevant. The 64-bit is only part of its label and its performance is better than P4 or Dothan not because it is 64-bit capable but because it is a better 32-bit proc, as someone else put it before.
There is no such thing as future proof for the current AMD 64 because until the time for 64-bit computing comes, a new and better AMD 64 will be out and you, and most other people with the present AMD 64, will be willing to get that better 64-bit proc. So, all in all, you will most probably end up using your current AMD 64 in 32-bit apps as a 32-bit proc and thinking that it is future proof but when the future does come you will end up upgrading it to the new AMD64.
What you are using now is great 32-bit cpu and not 64-bit one which is future proof only in theory but NOT in practice for not many people use P3 or the early P4 today although these are still decent cpus but today's applications have much higher demands then they can put up with.
This being said, I would still build my desktop with an AMD 64 cpu but the reasons are far from relying on being future-proof and expecting to still have a great cpu in 1-2 years when I will need its 64-bit capabilities.

I don't have any crystal ball and neither do you I presume?

All I'm saying is that the AMD64 CPU's are more future proof than the 32-bit notebook CPU's available today. How good today's 64-bit CPU's will be 2 years from now I don't know, but I'm pretty confident they'll be in a much better position than today's 32-bit CPU's.

Buying technolongy for tomorrow is the dumpest thing a person can do. Not only will you be able to get it much cheaper when the supporting software becomes available, you'll more than likely get much better performance. If you are planning on keeping your current laptop for 4+ years, I guess you are not a gamer. I went thru 4 laptop in 4 years just because of the GPU changes and I don't even play FPS much. But I do expect my Aspire 2025 to last a couple years with the MR9700, which would give all the 64 bit OS and software a year to work the bugs out.

Anyway, XP64 is going RTM any moment now.

On the MS Newsgroup the product manager announced it a few days ago.

Price will be the same as XP Pro now and the final name should be Windows XP Professional x64 Edition

I'm
>Brian Marr and I work in the Windows Client team as the
Product Manager for
>Windows XP Professional x64 Edition.
>
>Yes, that's right - we have a new product name!
There have been a few
>other major changes that I thought might interest you so
I wanted to take a
>few minutes and send an update to the x64 BB crew.
>
>First, as stated we have officially changed the name of
our x64 desktop and
>server offerings to the following:
>- Microsoft® Windows® XP Professional x64 Edition
>- Microsoft® Windows ServerT 2003 Standard x64 Edition
>- Microsoft® Windows ServerT 2003 Enterprise x64 Edition
>- Microsoft® Windows ServerT 2003 Datacenter x64 Edition
>
>Second, we have updated the Customer Preview Program
with a new build. The
>pre-release software is available for free download or
CD order (charge for
>shipping) at
>http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/6...aluation/upgra
de.mspx for clients
>and
>http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserv...64bit/extended
/trial/default.mspx
>for servers. The new builds support both Intel and AMD
x64 compatible
>platforms. I am running this build on my production
machine at work and
>have been very pleased with it.
>
>Third... you're going to notice quite a few changes in
the latest build.
>Windows XP Professional x64 Edition will include near-
feature parity with
>the 32-bit version of Windows XP Professional, including
the device
>infrastructure to support a range of solutions. Our
hardware partners will
>need to write 64-bit drivers to enable these solutions,
but the device
>infrastructure is there. We have also added features
such as the Windows XP
>user interface, Windows Messenger, Windows Media Player,
Movie Maker 2,
>Bluetooth support infrastructure, wireless support
infrastructure, Power
>Management, support for .NET Framework 1.1 and will have
language support
>for Japanese, German, French, Japanese, Swedish,
Spanish, Korean, Simplified
>Chinese, Traditional Chinese.
>
>And finally... Windows XP Professional x64 Edition will
be priced at the
>same level as Windows XP Professional (32-bit).
Similarly, the Windows
>Server 2003 x64 Editions will also be priced on par with
Windows Server 2003
>(32-bit). There will now also be an option for customers
to participate in a
>technology exchange where they will be able to trade-in
their 32-bit
>licenses for 64-bit license when available - we're
working out the details
>around how this will be implemented, but I wanted to let
you know that it
>will be happening. The key point is that if you buy x64
hardware from an
>OEM or System Builder (and they support it) you will be
able to trade your
>XP Pro or Server license for the equivalent 64-bit
license.
>
>That's all for now, but I'm sure there will be more to
come. We're looking
>forward to hearing your thoughts on the latest build!
>
>Best Regards,
>
>Brian

There *is* a reason to buy AMD64 if you're a gamer - if you aren't, all this talk is in vain Because then it really won't matter. Apart from battery life.

For gaming there is a reason to get a 128mb 9700, at least. CPU, whether Dothan, ADM64 or P4HT, will not make much, not to say any, difference for you. This is not counting heat and battery life preferences.