Bought a new laptop; need comparison input

[raiza]

Hi everyone! I just purchased a new laptop from Dell today, and I just wanted to see if someone could give me some perspective on its capabilities. Here are it's specs:

Intel® Core™ 2 Duo T5300 (2MB Cache/1.73GHz/533MHz FSB)
1GB DDR2 SDRAM at 667MHZ, 2 DIMM
256MB ATI MOBILITY™ RADEON® X1400 HyperMemory™

The main thing I want to know is if this is better than my current aging desktop:

AMD Athlon 64 3500+ 2.2Ghz
1GB DDR Ram
128MB ATI RADEON 9800Pro

I won't be getting the laptop for another 3 weeks due to shipment, so that's why I'm asking this as opposed to just using it if I had it. How much better would you say it is than my desktop? Just a tad bit? A good improvement? A very noticeable difference? Thanks ahead to all those who reply!

[raiza]

Can anyone give me some input?

[jlreich]

The CPU and ram are definitely an improvement. In many ways the video card as well with much more modern features than your old 9800, but overall, laptop video cards are not that great. Without looking it up I think the 1400 has some dedicated ram with the option of using hypermemory as well. That's not too bad. If you plan on using the hypermemory much I would bump up the ram to 2GB. Ram is very cheap right now as you can get 2GB for that system for probably around $100, assuming you buy and install it yourself. And that's for most likely faster ram than Dell is putting in it.

Hope that answers your questions.

[raiza]

Hey thanks for the reply! Concerning the laptops Dual Core processor, I'm not very familiar with Dual Cores since this is my first time getting one, so is it really that much better than my desktops singular AMD cpu? The 1.73Ghz seems kinda low, but is it like it doubles that since it is a Dual Core processor? As far as the RAM goes, yea I'll be looking into upgrading that in the future, but I think I'm ok with 1GB for now.

[jlreich]

It isn't just that it is dual core, although that definitely makes a difference. The Core2 architecture is much more efficient than your old s754 AMD. It can do much more with the 1.7GHz than the AMD can with 2.2GHz. Yes that's 1.7GHz x 2 because both cores are running at 1.7GHz. But even if you had only one core it will still stomp on your old AMD.

[raiza]

Ah ok! Thanks alot jlreich! I really appreciate all your help! :)

[jlreich]

Enjoy your new machine! :)