Do I upgrade?

Albuquerque

Albuquerque

Red-headed step child
Moderator
Veteran
Around this time last year, I purchased a Dell Inspiron e1505 laptop with a Core Duo (not Core 2 Duo) 1.66ghz processor, 1GB of DDR2-533 ram, NV 7300Go 128mb PCI-E, the fancy glossy screen, Intel 3945 A/B/G wireless, 80Gb 5400RPM harddrive and 8x DVDRW for around $650.

A few months after my purchase, I got a great deal on a 2GB DDR2-667 upgrade kit, which has helped quite a bit now that I'm running Vista Home Premium. I also just recently added the Dell factory Bluetooth 2.0 EDR module for $20 flat.

Now I have the opportunity to bump to a T7200 (Core 2 Duo 2.0Ghz) and 4GB of ram for around $400. Granted, that's 2/3rds the price I originally paid for the laptop, but that's a great deal for the parts.

Since I actually purchased the retail version of Vista, I could then bump to the 64-bit version of Vista. And before you ask, Dell already provides 64-bit Vista drivers for every piece of my hardware on this laptop. I'm also not concerned about software compatibility, as most of my software consists of the OS, VMWare 6 and about half a dozen games.

So... Do I spend the $400 and upgrade? Or do I put it away and just wait for another year or two for a whole new laptop?
 
Yes ^ 2.

You can never have enough memory, especially when running Virtuals. In addition to support 64bit extensions, the new CPU also supports the Virtualization extensions. That should give another boost when running Virtuals.
 
Albuquerque said:
Just curious, not that I disagree, but what would be your reasons for me to upgrade? I already know my own ;) just wanted to have you share your thoughts...
Click to expand...
Faster is better, more is gooder. Pretty simple really. :)

Also I know Vista likes at least 2Gb, and I recently upgrade from 1Gb to 2Gb running XP on my PC and have noticed a really remarkable difference in a few applications. (Mostly games, but still.)

Besides my wife got a Inspiron 1705 UXGA, C2D T5200 (1.6Ghz), 1Gb DDR2 @ 533, 256Mb ATi Mobility X1400, 120Gb 5400, CD/DVD burner for Xmas from me last year and the damned thing flies in XP; but it definitely use more memory to run Vista.

The upgrade you're talking will make your laptop a whole lot better, it sounds worth the $400 to me if you rely on your laptop. (My wife's laptop is only really meant to be a mobile entertainment platform, she works midnights and has some time to kill. It bloody excels in its role. :cool: )
 
BRiT said:
Yes ^ 2.

You can never have enough memory, especially when running Virtuals. In addition to support 64bit extensions, the new CPU also supports the Virtualization extensions. That should give another boost when running Virtuals.
Click to expand...

actually hardware virtualisation is slower than software virtualisation !?! and a dual core is a nice enough speed boost I guess.

what OS are you running in that VMware? not another Vista? :???: :p
are you lacking RAM, and could you disable some Vista features such as prefetch, indexing?

I'm annoyed by the price, as on a desktop it would be a matter of adding a < 70 euros pair of sticks (on an already 64bit machine). and you don't sound like you're running much software (and you probably don't play recent games at highest detail settings I guess). Sure, probably not a bad deal but I'd play the waiting game
(I can imagine an AMD fusion laptop with 4GB DDR3, 32GB flash and a better display tech)
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Vadi said:
There seems to no 64bit Flash. I can live with it but I have WinxP too. :)
Click to expand...

Flash, QuickTime, RealMedia, ShockWave and a few other of those sorts of apps don't even rank on my priority list, know what I mean? ;)

Under VMWare I have XPSP2, Server 2003 and an old Win95 / Dos combo. Obviously the first two are considerably more resource hungry than the last one :) Most of the games I play aren't very demanding of the video card, mostly because it's such a generally underperforming card. (64-bit memory interface, ouch)

It generally works fine as-is, but it certainly grinds the disk a lot when I've got both XP + 2003 Vm's running simultaneously.
 
Davros said:
No by 64bit flash i think he's refering to vista's ability to use flash memory to speed the o/s up
Click to expand...

If he was, then I think he's wrong as I'm fairly certain Vista 64Bit does support ReadyBoost.

As for no 64bit Flash, if one really wants and needs Flash for web pages, just launch the included 32Bit Internet Explorer which does support Flash. In which case, he's still a bit wrong as Vista 64bit does support the Flash applications.
 
Do you really need that XP? afterall 2003 is a version of XP and can do everything XP does. but perhaps you're doing a client/server scenario.
you can also get Terminal Server working on 2003 and use the RDP client connected to localhost, if that'd be of any use to you.
 
Blazkowicz said:
Do you really need that XP? afterall 2003 is a version of XP and can do everything XP does. but perhaps you're doing a client/server scenario.
you can also get Terminal Server working on 2003 and use the RDP client connected to localhost, if that'd be of any use to you.
Click to expand...

VMWare 6 allows for that cool TS interface, which I have been using of course. However, I'm using that 2003 VM as an AD, DNS, DHCP and IIS sandbox/testing area, so I need to keep it seperate from my XP VM. I use a bunch of snapshots to keep everything in check...
 
are you able to install the upgrades yourself? is it difficult?

im in the market for a laptop now, but im thinking there aren't any ATI based dx10 solutions. so im waiting. it'd be great if i get a new one before my july san fran trip though. probably go intel core duo (the fastest mobile one)...2-4G ddr2....250G hd.

do they make any large external battery packs that would last around a day and you could carry in a backpack? or is the only choice the internal battery and AC power connect?
 
If you can gut your desktop PC, then you can likely gut your laptop PC within reason. There's a lot more (and smaller) screws, and sometimes they require funky bits -- but easily obtainable from certain hardware stores if you know where to look.

I have no real want to play any high-end games on my laptop; that's why I have a desktop machine. The cost involved to get a laptop "up to speed" would be much better spent IMO on a desktop platform, especially considering that you'd end up being plugged into AC full-time anyway if you truly wanted the performance for any notable duration.

As for external battery packs, I know they exist, but be careful. I normally would've suggested looking into Electrovaya, but recently their PowerPad product has seemingly gone to crap. Six months is the standard warranty, and from a multitude of customer reviews, it seems they last about six months and ten days :(
 
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