A Couple of Laptop Questions
 

I just bought my first laptop. All of my PC's (except for the most recent one) have been frankensteined from stuff friends and family were done using, and I know plenty about desktop innards. However, I haven't kept up on laptop technology for a while now (the last thing I remembered hearing about was the P4 going mobile), and after looking up some of the new technology find myself none the wiser. So, I have a few questions:

1) What exactly is the Pentium M? From what I gather it is a P4 with a lower clock speed and a bigger (2 MB) L1 cache (or at least I hope it's L1). I assume that it has a shorter pipeline (like the Athlon) and doesn't suck up as much power. Does it also have a different chipset???

2) I keep seeing an option for RAM that you can get it on the standard 2 pieces or pay an extra $20 or so to get it on one piece. I know that manufacturers claim that it gives you a boost in speed, but I remember having this on an old Cyrix machine (can't remember the mobo manufacturer), and I hated it. It seems to me that it wouldn't change anything at all by cramming all of the RAM on to 1 board except the amount of space it takes up. Has anyone seen any benchmarks or can explain exactly why this is faster???

The M is a ground-up mobile chip design. Before all the laptop chips were based on a desktop chip counterpart. The M is not, and that helped them make a faster chip that uses less power.

If you get the ram in one piece, then you have an expansion slot free later if you decide you need more. Otherwise, you have to replace 2 sticks of ram rather than just adding a 2nd one.

I have a Dell Latitude D800 with a 2.0Ghz Pentium M and two sticks of 512mb DDR2. I am highly impressed with it's performance. The Dothan core that it uses is really state of the art for mobile processors.

I personally would recommend getting one.

Adding to Shakran's replies, programs are first run using RAM before going to virtual memory. In case you don't know, RAM runs at much faster speed than VM, which is actually your hard drive space used in place of physical RAM. Adding another stick of RAM will help when you run memory intense applications - most shoot 'em up games, photo/video manipulation programs, etc.

With two sticks, you're spreading risk.. if one blows, you still have a backup. One stick allows you to upgrade more in the future...

Its really just a matter of opinion... assuming the two RAM sticks are the same CAS latency/speed as the larger board..

I don't think he's asking about whether or not to get MORE ram - -just whether or not to put what he gets on one stick or 2.

Exactly what I was asking. I'm quite aware of the fact that any computer component that has no moving parts is going to work much faster than any component with moving parts. Thanks for all of the answers though.

I did order a refurbished Dell Inspiron 6000 with the 1.6 GHz Pentium M, a 128 MB Radeon graphics card, and 512 megs of RAM. Which brings me to my next question: How much harder is it to upgrade internal components (probably only RAM and GFX upgrades here) in a laptop vs. a desktop?

hell good luck even with the GFX upgrade. Generally I consider only the ram and HD to be easy upgrades in laptops. Anything more than that and it's time to trade the old one in on a new one.

The M (Mobile) Processor
 

The Mobile processor's will have a lower GHz speed rating but will run much faster than they appear. The HUGE benefit of having a mobile processor is the CPU freq scaling (that occurs automaticly on batteries), which allows the computer do "downgrade" itself to minimum freq required to accomplish the task at hand useing MUCH less power. It extended the battery life by 2x in most laptops.

Mark

Penguins has it right. And remember, you don't HAVE to get an M to get that. The A64's do it as well. My 2.4ghz laptop usually hums along at 800mhz on batteries unless I start doing something that's resource intensive.

I would say this is correct. I have added RAM and upgrade HDs but everything else is pretty much integrated... especially with the Dells.

Thanks for the help there.

Just got the new laptop in today, in fact, I'm using it right now. It does great with all sorts of different applications, although the most graphically intense thing I've done is play Red Faction (which I realize is pretty far down the list). I think the only thing I might do now is up the RAM to a gig or two.