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Athlon 64 (ASUS Z80K) v. Intel (ASUS M6BNE)

post #1 of 12
3/4/05 at 3:57pm
Thread Starter 
hey all,

i have priced out two notebooks from proportable as follows:

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ACIM6BNE
PROPortable M6BNE Centrino Notebook
1. Intel® Pentium® M w/ 2MB Cache; 400MHz FSB : 755 - 2.0GHz; 400MHz FSB; w/ 2MB Cache
2. DDR333 so-Dimm : 1024 ddr333 (512mb x 2) -Corsair XMS w/ CL2.0
3. Hard Drives 2.5" ATA100 : Hitachi Travelstar 60GB 7200 RPM w/ 8MB Buffer
4. Optical Drive : 8x DVD Dual Layer / Dual Format Burner (+/- R/RW)
5. Internal Wireless Card (Required for Centrino) : Intel PRO/2200 Wireless 802.11b/g MiniPCI
6. Operating Systems : No Operating System (Barebone)
7. Warranties : 3 years parts & labor w 1 way paid shipping
$2,215.93

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ACIZ80K
PROPortable Z80K Athlon64 Notebook
AMD® Athlon® a64 w/ 512K Cache : a64 3700+; 200MHz FSB; 130nm socket 754
Hard Drives 2.5" ATA100 : Hitachi Travelstar 60GB 7200 RPM w/ 8MB Buffer
Internal Wireless Card : Asus WL-120g Wireless 802.11b/g MiniPCI
Kingston Performance DDR333 so-Dimm (NOT ValueRAM) : 1024 ddr333 (1024mb x 1 dimm) - Performance RAM
Operating Systems : No Operating System (Barebone)
Optical Drive : 24x Combo Drive (DVD/CD-RW)-Standard
Warranties : 3 years parts & labor w/ 1 way paid shipping
$2,057.69

what i need a notebook for is mainly school-work. so, for programming and text-processing. as far as recreation goes, music will be my main nonwork-use of the notebook, i dont really plan on movie-viewing very often, and i will be putting linux on it, so i dont see myself playing many games.

so i was wondering which notebook would give me the performance i need, the Althon 64 or the intel model?

anyone who has either notebook and can give their experience with battery-life, or just speed in general, would be a great help. though, personally, i think it would be quite awesome to have a 64-bit processor since gentoo linux supports it, but it is not a requirement.

thanks!

PS - also, with the new sonoma chipsets coming out... i probably would wait, however, i dont know if the linux-venue will support them in the near future. does anyone know anything about this by chance? thanks.
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post #2 of 12
3/4/05 at 5:31pm
instead of the Z80K i recommend the A2K its the same thing i think but it comes in BLACK!!! its got a radeon 9700 pro 128MB instead of the 64MB that the M6 comes with and its also way cheaper. its also a barebones but most companies will sell it as a prepackaged and prebuilt laptop
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post #3 of 12
3/4/05 at 7:27pm
May I ask where and what is a A2K
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post #4 of 12
3/4/05 at 7:34pm
Exactly has been stated... the A2K and the Z80K are essentially the same computer. However, the A2K comes preconfigured from ASUS and has global warranty. The Z80K is the barebones version of the same notebook... however, it comes in silver rather than the black that the A2K comes in.

On the ASUS website, it states that the A2K is only in Canada...not sure if this is strictly true... but it could be.
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post #5 of 12
3/4/05 at 10:27pm
Thread Starter 
hey all,

thanks for the replies... but, pr50wner, by recommending the A2K, are you suggesting the Athlon64 is the superior buy? thanks!
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post #6 of 12
3/4/05 at 10:44pm
The A2k/Z80K will perform slightly better during certain/most tasks... however, I doubt you'll notice the difference.
Since the video card is identical in each notebook, if you choose to play games, that will limit you more than the CPU for sure...so games should play just the same.
FOr text/word processing, you will not notice a difference between the two...and honestly, I don't see why you need such a powerful processor for such small tasks; a Pentium M 1.6 will save you money and will perform just the same.

The Pentium M notebook will give you better battery life... and is lighter, and probably a little better looking...

I say go with the M6BNe.
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post #7 of 12
3/4/05 at 11:13pm
Check the prices at istnc.com, they run a very good bargain. they have all asus model except for preconfigured ones, you might want to check out the new z71v.....
The m6bne with your specs, warranty included comes to 1919......
not to knock proportable, they seem like very good people, but i can assure you istnc will take care of you.
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post #8 of 12
3/4/05 at 11:28pm
By the way, battery life on the m6 will be much better than that with the z80k. The m6 gets 6+ almost 7 hours with the second bay battery used. Without the optical bay battery it get close to 4 hours with light use. I use it for what you plan on using it for, that is school, mostly coding and such. For what you want to do you might as well go with the centrino for the extended battery life. Although mind that well using battery saving mode the cpu stays at 600mhz, but with the 2mb l2 cache, is more like 1.1ghz. I just got my m6, and love it, except i kinda wish i knew the v6v's were going to be released so soon. I would have probably went with one of them.

And seeing you looking at paying 2k+ might want to go to proportable.com and look at the v6v's to come in on tuesday. They are going for 2,199. By the way, if you're going to be coding, you might want a higher res screen as opposed to the wxga of the m6bne, the m6ne has the sxga+ which will give you some more real estate for multiple window usage. The v6v, has a sxga+ screen, small design, sonoma, etc. check it out, hope this helps......
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post #9 of 12
3/5/05 at 1:32am
Thread Starter 
thanks all for the great replies!

georgewa, i was looking at istnc.com before, i think from a recommendation of yours on a another post. they did look to have good deals.

also, i must apologize, i should have typed the ACIM6NE, which does _not_ have a wide-screen, i just looked at it wrong on the website (thought it was the other way around), sorry; because, georgewa, you are right about screen real-estate, i definitely want the 1400x1050.

also, the 7hours of battery life (with second battery) is quite impressive on the m6, that does play a factor in my decision, thanks for the first-hand experience.

the v6v looks nice, but the only reason i would hesistate to get one is because of the linux issue, heh. i dont know if the kernel has support for this chipset... i would think it does, but i have to investigate further.

oh, and the reason i like the proportable site is because they offer the corsair ram, which i think i would be willing to pay a little extra for higher quality parts. not to say that istnc does not have high quality ram, but i am not sure what brand they use.

all-in-all, i think the only thing holding me back from sonoma technology is the linux issue, because the DDR400 looks really nice. so i will check into the chipset compatability, thanks all!

PS - auroras, the reason i want the newer technology for these tasks, is because i just want to be able to hang on to this notebook for a while, and i might as well try to get the best/near-best on the market. also, who knows what else i might need the power for, heh.
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post #10 of 12
3/5/05 at 2:02am
talk to istnc, they use corsair and micron ram strictly. just use their live chat or email/phone and ask them about it. They don't use generic ram at all. i must have asked them 50 questions before making the purchase. they have the best deal by far if your looking for a asus notebook, all quality parts, free artic silver five, burn test, everything checked out prior to shipping.
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post #11 of 12
3/5/05 at 2:34am
oh yeah it is only in canada, i actually saw one up close and it looks really good! i like prefer black notebooks more so than silver, black to me is the "elite" color.
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post #12 of 12
3/5/05 at 2:36am
Quote:
Originally Posted by pr50wner
oh yeah it is only in canada, i actually saw one up close and it looks really good! i like prefer black notebooks more so than silver, black to me is the "elite" color.
indeed... black is more "l337"
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