Beginner's question - Laptop CPU Comparison

[VickyD]

I tried searching the forums, but didn't find the exact answer I was searching for.

The Situation: I've been researching on buying a new laptop which is mostly for Business use, and some part-time gaming as well. In the last few months, I see a lot of Centrino 2 laptops springing up, and I was specifically interested in the new Sony Vaio SR series - due out in August.

The problem: Most of the sites I see are coding their laptop CPUs as P8XXX or T9XXX. With little to no additional information given on the difference between the two. I know that the 'T' Series laptop CPUs have been around for a while (Dell XPS M15XX / M17XX, Vaio Z series, Asus - can't remember model sorry ), and I *think* the P series laptop series are the centrino 2.

The question: Is the P series - even at a lower clock speed - 2.2 - 2.4 GHz actually faster than the T series 2.5 - 2.8 GHz?

Any help to a confused buyer would be genuinely appreciated!

 

[VickyD]

Sorry - it wont let me edit the post

I tried searching the forums, but didn't find the exact answer I was searching for.

The Situation: I've been researching on buying a new laptop which is mostly for Business use, and some part-time gaming as well. In the last few months, I see a lot of Centrino 2 laptops springing up, and I was specifically interested in the new Sony Vaio SR series - due out in August.

[strike]The problem: Most of the sites I see are coding their laptop CPUs as P8XXX or T9XXX. With little to no additional information given on the difference between the two. I know that the 'T' Series laptop CPUs have been around for a while (Dell XPS M15XX / M17XX, Vaio Z series, Asus - can't remember model sorry ), and I *think* the P series laptop series are the centrino 2.[/strike]

[strike]The question: Is the P series - even at a lower clock speed - 2.2 - 2.4 GHz actually faster than the T series 2.5 - 2.8 GHz? [/strike]

I figured this out now. Apparently the FSB speed was the main difference and as it turns out, the T9600 is in fact much faster than the P8400 / 8600.

A second question however - The graphics card offered in the system is the ATI HD 3400 series with 128 mb ram. How easy (or difficult) is it to actually replace the graphics card in a (Vaio) laptop? Is there even the remotest possibility that I could plug in a off-the-market 9800M GTX?

 

[lostandwandering]

Okay here's the deal with the CPU's. The P series is part of the Centrino 2 wave, but they are not the only new ones. The T9 even CPU's (T9400 and T9600) are also Centrino 2. The T9400 and T9600 have more L2 cache in them (6mb vs 3mb). Both the T series (the ones I mentioned) and the P series run on the 1066FSB so there is no difference there.

As far as the GPU's go, it is very difficult to upgrade the graphics in laptops. Very few have the ability to do so and then you have to go through the trouble of finding the card you want, not easy since they aren't sold like their desktop counter parts. In most cases, a laptop with low end graphics, like that Viao, will not have the cooling capacity for the higher end cards and thus they will not work, you will always be overheating.

My suggestion to everyone, is that if you are concerned about playing games and such, get the best graphics card that you can afford at that time since things like the CPU and HDD can in most cases be easily upgraded.