upgrade processor or harddrive

[ryanheath2006]

I am planning on ordering a laptop with a 1.86 Pentium M 750. I want to know if I should spend the extra $100 and upgrade the processor to a 2.0 Pentium M 760, or spend about $120 and upgrade from a 80 gig 5400 rpm to a 60 gig 7200 rpm harddrive. Which would end up giving it more performance.

 

[sezerb]

I would say your best bet would be to upgrade you processor. But it also depends on what you will be using the laptop for

 

[LaptopExtreme]

Yup. Processor is the way to go. I don't consider an 80gb 5400 HD to a 60gb 7200 as an upgrade. The cost should be almost identical, if not the same. And yes, the HD is very simple to upgrade. What laptop are you getting?

 

[Dropkickmurphys]

yeh the processor will be your best bet....you might wanna keep the HDD as a 5400 as it creates less heat....

 

[ryanheath2006]

I am looking at getting the Dell XPS M140. It just went on sell for base of $650. So I'm going to upgrade it some. I read a pretty good review of it on pcworld.com. So I figured it would be a good buy to take to college. Lacks the video card performance, but I'm not into gaming.

 

[onegpthreexp]

You want a faster pipeline instead of a quicker drive. The controller will transfer at the same rate no matter the revolution. You’d have to have a superb cache to make RPM a more important factor than Gigahertz. A 1.6 Pentium M can semiconduct at the speed of a 2.4 Pentium 4. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentium_m
In all practicality you’re looking for a quicker loading Internet Explorer

and all of your programs. Meaning you need quicker paging because that’s what consumes resources. Choose a greater processor and save an average of one or two seconds instead of the microinstance a drive might make.

 

[pc club guy]

i say the processor man, with a better processor you can be able to run more things at a time. HD speed is important but that can be easily replaced on a laptop, but a processor is harder to replace. so just listen to us and uprgade for processor and if you want more space just buy another laptop HD or get an external drive later on.

 

[spamdos]

a PM 2.0 is a nice quick processor and good battery life, as everyone said the HDD is not really an upgrade. i would consider it a downgrade...from tyhe other one if you are going to be taking it to school and that sort of stuff.

i think a PM 2.0 is about equivalent to a P4 HT 3.2 or 3.4