What would you do?

Is a 400MHz faster processor, bright screen, slower HD and new warranty worth $1300 to you? That's about what it will boil down to. To me, not even close. But money is always pretty tight here, and I'm a tight-wad anyway.

ah, the joys of being on a budget. it's both a curse and a blessing. I started saving back when the m6809 was the hot item and didn't buy one till this past December. The big thing I didn't like was the eMachines screen, so I was thrilled when I finally had the dough to get one and found out that Gateway had the Ultrabrite screen. Hard to wait, but the reward was nice

Also, it makes you appreciate things more and become more proficient in things (if you apply yourself, of course). For example, I'm on a student budget (yay for college). When I want to buy software, like a 3D modeling system, I do a lot of research, make a decision, and then start saving for it. Since I don't have a million other pieces of software, it's easier to focus on the one I get and learn it well and become proficient at it. I have friends who have the cash to buy the best of the best equipment and software, and I also have friends who download warez programs, and for the most part, they're not good at anything but surfing the web.

I have one friend who is always giving me updates about the new $$$$ software package he downloaded from somewhere off the net with a cracked code, but he hasn't even mastered any of them. No useful skills aside from being able to find illegal software online, lol. So while being on a budget stinks sometimes, it's also good to have limits because you can sometimes be more productive that way. You're more appreciative of what you have and more apt to use it.

But if someone on the forum wins the lotto, I won't say no to a Voodoo M:860

It would be more of a upgrade if there was a better video card. I'd put the money in the bank and save it for when an AMD Athlon with a better video card comes out.

http://www.newegg.com/app/viewProduc...103-477&depa=0

...as an alternative if you want the 3400+. That is the 62W version (same as in the 7422). You would still be lacking the machine warranty and bright screen (if you even like the bright screen), but it's $1000 cheaper And you would still have your faster HD

Basically with the exception of the video "ATI Radeon 9550 instead of the ATI Radeon 9600" that is my Emachines M6811, but I also have the faster 5400rpm drive & 1.0Gig of PC2700 ram..

Personally till they come out with a AMD Athlon64 4000+ "or faster" notebook I'm content with what I have.

<------- saving for a Turion, or new speaker components ~60/40

No, that is the DTR ... the higher consumption Processor. 89W is a desktop processor. The DTR is 81.5W. Wereshark put a 3400+ DTR in his machine a lng time ago and it worked well. All S754 processor currently made should work in our machines. Keep in ind if you put a DTR in, you will be significantly increases power consumption (worse battery life, hotter power brick) and heat output, with no performance gain.

DTR page: http://www.amd.com/us-en/Processors/...E10249,00.html
Mobile Page: http://www.amd.com/us-en/Processors/...E10269,00.html
Low-Power Mobile: http://www.amd.com/us-en/Processors/...E11030,00.html

That's one place the Turion will shine. It will have the increased cache with the low power consumption (on the same 90nm core as the low-power mobile A64 as opposed to the 130nm core of the others). The low-power A64 consumes 35W. The Turion will start at 25W, and end at 35 and still maintain the higher cache.

Has there been any announcement as to when the Turion is going to be released?

Has anyone seen or have a link to recent statistics on the true effects of high quantities of cache? It's been several years since I bothered to look into it so my info is way out of date, but back then they said that unless you were planning to handle massive amounts of data I.E. a database server, anything beyond 512k cache didn't really make much difference.

i'm not sure if it's true. where i come from, the more you have the more u will use

Arima touts a couple of Turion based laptops on its website. Shouldn't be too much longer before GatewayMachines does too...

Take a look at a P4EE compared to its lesser cache, same speed brother in different tests and you will see the effects of larger cache in different circumstances. On good place for finding a wide array of tests on a variety of processors is anandtech.