Sony Vaio AW290 vs HP HDX18t Series (Which is Faster?)

[chopin2256]

Which laptop between these two is faster? All parts are equal except the following:

Sony Vaio AW290
Processor - T9550 (2.66 GHz) or T9800 (2.93 GHz)
Ram - 8 GB DDR2
Graphics - (9600GT 512)

HP HDX18t
Processor - Quad Processor Q9100 (2.26 GHz)
Ram - 4GB DDR3 System Memory
Graphics - (9600GT 1012)

The above two are similarly priced (~$2,400) except the 2.93 GHz Sony Model. The quad core has 12 MB of cache, but the dual cores have 6 MB of cache. However, the clock speeds of the dual core is faster.

Which computer is faster overall for gaming? How about for memory intensive applications, such as loading soundfonts for music composition? The laptop will be a desktop replacement, used for music composition and it will also be my media entertainment center.

Thanks!

 

[frozenlead]

For that price, I wouldn't buy any of them. You can get a much, much getter GPU for games for $2400 in a sager machine. Loading soundfonts should also be fairly HDD limited, I don't expect your memory to be a factor in it - the memory far surpasses the HDD in speed. It may depend on the program, though. Before you launch into getting a quad, check the program your using can actually take advantage of using a quad core processor...I don't know how much CPU power a music comp program would need - it depends on how the program operates. I know Sonar can run on 4 cores - but that's about all the music program experience I've got. Sonar owns.

 

[chopin2256]

Thanks for your reply. I understand those prices are steep for that hardware, however I am not interested in just a gaming computer. I am willing to sacrifice a little for a larger LCD screen. The computer is going to be used for movies, and real estate on the screen will also be important especially for composition. This is why I am set on getting an 18.4" laptop, between these two models.

 

[frozenlead]

The Sager notebook equipped with a 1920x1200 screen will be able to show the same amount of picture/data that the 18.4" screens on these notebooks will. What you can show is less of a factor of screen size and more of a factor of screen resolution. I can't really imagine that the screen increase from 17" to 18.4" is really that great enough to warrant the lower hardware.

What else will you be doing with the computer, aside gaming and music composition, and what programs will you be using?

 

[chopin2256]

Good points you raise. I will also be using it to watch movies. I suppose the 18.4" would be nice for movie watching. How would Sager lcd screen compare to the Sony/HP 18.4 you think?

 

[frozenlead]

By the numbers, the screens are the same save for size. However, in terms of quality, I'd put the Sager panel over the Sony or HP's any day. HP's are often overly white and have bad backlight leaking - and owing to Sony's quality of components in the past, I wouldn't bet on getting a good one.

However, if you're going to watch movies with a notebook - well, you better be sitting right next to it. Watching a movie even on an 18.4" screen from a good 10' or so is really quite annoying. It's just too small.

 

[scvsmark]

Fingerprint reader and bluetooth? How about being able to run RAID? Many options and features with the HDX18t. BTW: Both the Q9000 and the Q9100 all have 6MB on L2 cache and the QX9300 is the one that has 12MB. Neither of the three have hyper-threading but still, quadcore in a laptop???? I love it. By the way, Crysis plays just fine, however for school purposes I created a dual boot system (ordered Vista Ultimate x64 and my own XP Pro x64) and play games in XP since it messes with my Dreamscene and consumes less resources than Vista.