Dean Kukral wrote:
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "Thomas Harold" <[log in to unmask]>
> Sent: Monday, August 14, 2006 2:53 AM
> Subject: Re: [PCBUILD] New laptop purchase
> 
> 
> <snip>
> 
> Minimum requirements should be:
> - dual-core (Core Duo) CPU unit
> - 1GB minimum with upgrade to 2GB down the road of RAM
> - 80GB hard drive (or 100GB), you can upgrade this later
> - display resolution greater then 1024x768
> 
> <snip>
> 
> **********************
> 
> I've been considering buying a laptop for some time now (in spite of the 
> fact that they are very bad deals and extremely inflexible).  One of the 
> things that I've noticed and thought was silly in a laptop was the dual-core 
> cpu.  However, I see here that you recommend it, and I'd like to know why. 
> (It may be moot soon enough, because most new laptops seem to be coming out 
> with them.)

The price difference on a single-core vs a dual-core laptop is minimal 
($100?).  In exchange for the slight cost increase, you get a laptop 
that is going to "feel" responsive for a lot longer then a single-core 
laptop would.  For instance, if my 4-year Tecra 9100 was a dual-core 
laptop, I would not be as anxious to replace it because a CPU hogging 
process would not interfere with the responsiveness of the system.  As 
it is now, there are quite a few things that I can run on this system 
which reduce key-entry to a mere 1 keystroke per second.  Things as 
simple as MS Outlook or Thunderbird retrieving e-mail from the mail server.

I'd imagine that you've noticed this responsiveness in your dual-core 
desktop as well.  I have a 2 year old dual-CPU Opteron system sitting 
beside me and it takes an awful lot to make it feel slow.

The power requirements for the dual-core (Core Duo) are minimal when the 
CPU is not being worked hard.  The Core Solo and Core Duo chips are 
already more power-efficient then the old Pentium 4M (and possibly the 
Pentium Ms as well) so it's basically a wash.  But I haven't really paid 
any attention to the battery life on the new machines.

Back when dual-core CPUs were $200-$400 more expensive then single-core, 
dual-core or dual-CPU was a bit of a luxury.  Now prices have dropped 
enough that it's a good purchase choice for the average user.

I've been using a laptop as my primary system since early 2000.  The 
first unit (Tecra 8000 w/ Windows 2000) only lasted about 2 years before 
I upgraded again and handed it off to someone new.  For the really CPU 
intensive stuff (video encoding) I use a desktop system (my 
dual-Opteron) and I have a 3rd machine dedicated to gaming (although the 
dual-Opteron may assume that role soon).

The Tecras (and other dual-core laptops such as the Lenovo or Apple) are 
beefy enough with the advent of dual-core to function as desktop 
replacements.  The only real downside is the graphics chip inside. 
There's no upgrade possible there.  Laptops will continue to take market 
share away from desktops as there's not as much downside to using 
laptops as there used to be.

Dual-core and quad-core are definitely here to stay.  Intel's aggressive 
pricing on their Core Duo and Core 2 Duo chips is causing a sizeable 
shift in the number of multi-core systems shipping.  Even our low-end 
systems at work are now being built with dual-core because of the good 
prices.  We figure the extra few bucks will get us another 2-4 years of 
life out of the machines.

(If you read some of the technical forums, you'll hear some folks still 
crowing about using older dual-CPU AthlonMP or dual-CPU P3 systems 
because they still feel fast enough to be useful.)

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