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Hi all.
As told in the thread's title, I'm on my quest for glory, and a new notebook. In particular, I need help to work my way out of my vast needs, my free software usage, my disgust for marketing names/tricks/scams, and last but not least, my scarce pile of money.
I would greatly appreciate any help you could provide, assuming that I can wait a month or two for an upcoming, breakthrough, world subverting and dragon-killing technology.
First, I'm a computer science student, so it will be used as the primary (only) machine for software development. I actively do 2D and 3D graphics, virtual machine testing, and much, much reading and writing.
And that's not nice on a Thinkpad A30 with little memory and a garbled screen.
I was first looking among 13 inches notebooks, as I found those to be quite portable, good looking, and assembled from the same components as the 15 inches ones (apart from the most power hungry component, the video chip). But then, looking at my friend's Black MacBook (which i find to be a quite decent machine, and great looking), I thought about the tiny screen, and the hours of pain I would spend reading on the same surface as that of a stamp. To my friend, that size is perfect, as she's quite shorter than me, but to me, it only looks cute, not usable.
As I will be moving it 1/10 of the time it will be parked on my working desk, a 15 inches, or as the market pushes lately, a 16 inches at maximum would have my OK.
I'm all for long lasting things, so it should be well armed for years (5 at least) of development, and general fun. I enjoy wasting my time developing OpenGL stuff too, so the video chip is important too.
So, after all these thoughts, I would be instantly sold if there was a 15 inches notebook with that CPU/chipset/GPU combination presented by AMD at the beginning of this year. But it isn't out there. Do anyone know when it will be put in a notebook?
Current AMD mobile CPUs certainly are sufficient for my needs. Today, that is. But I want something that would work for me even tomorrow, and the day after, so if their next mobile CPUs aren't out in the next couple of months, I would go with an Intel at 2.4 GHz or better, 3 L2 cache or better, and 1.000 MHz or better FSB (oh gods, I would want Hypertransport so much...). This means, in marketing speak, an Intel P8600 or better, right?
Out there I only see R600 mobile video cards. When are the R700 based ones expected to be out? I would like to buy a 4670, or a least (obviously only after reading rigorous lies.. ehm, "benchmarks") a 4370 or 45xx, but I NEED to know when those will be out. Actually sold, that is.
Then... what mobile (Intel) chipsets should I be choosing? (If we could ever speak of choosing, talking of notebooks). What should I be running from?
Memory, 3 or 4 Gigabytes should be the norm today, and I will be using AMD64 free software on this notebook, so quantity is not an issue. Money is.
Hard disk: what are the tipical read/write performances of today's notebook hard disk?
My current machine is a Thinkpad A30, with a Pentium 3 933 MHz, 256 MB of memory, ATI Radeon 7000 16 MB. Oh, yeah, and a totally garbled screen. So, yes, I really need a new machine.
Thanks for any hint you could provide.
And so the quest begins.
As told in the thread's title, I'm on my quest for glory, and a new notebook. In particular, I need help to work my way out of my vast needs, my free software usage, my disgust for marketing names/tricks/scams, and last but not least, my scarce pile of money.
I would greatly appreciate any help you could provide, assuming that I can wait a month or two for an upcoming, breakthrough, world subverting and dragon-killing technology.
First, I'm a computer science student, so it will be used as the primary (only) machine for software development. I actively do 2D and 3D graphics, virtual machine testing, and much, much reading and writing.
And that's not nice on a Thinkpad A30 with little memory and a garbled screen.
I was first looking among 13 inches notebooks, as I found those to be quite portable, good looking, and assembled from the same components as the 15 inches ones (apart from the most power hungry component, the video chip). But then, looking at my friend's Black MacBook (which i find to be a quite decent machine, and great looking), I thought about the tiny screen, and the hours of pain I would spend reading on the same surface as that of a stamp. To my friend, that size is perfect, as she's quite shorter than me, but to me, it only looks cute, not usable.
As I will be moving it 1/10 of the time it will be parked on my working desk, a 15 inches, or as the market pushes lately, a 16 inches at maximum would have my OK.
I'm all for long lasting things, so it should be well armed for years (5 at least) of development, and general fun. I enjoy wasting my time developing OpenGL stuff too, so the video chip is important too.
So, after all these thoughts, I would be instantly sold if there was a 15 inches notebook with that CPU/chipset/GPU combination presented by AMD at the beginning of this year. But it isn't out there. Do anyone know when it will be put in a notebook?
Current AMD mobile CPUs certainly are sufficient for my needs. Today, that is. But I want something that would work for me even tomorrow, and the day after, so if their next mobile CPUs aren't out in the next couple of months, I would go with an Intel at 2.4 GHz or better, 3 L2 cache or better, and 1.000 MHz or better FSB (oh gods, I would want Hypertransport so much...). This means, in marketing speak, an Intel P8600 or better, right?
Out there I only see R600 mobile video cards. When are the R700 based ones expected to be out? I would like to buy a 4670, or a least (obviously only after reading rigorous lies.. ehm, "benchmarks") a 4370 or 45xx, but I NEED to know when those will be out. Actually sold, that is.
Then... what mobile (Intel) chipsets should I be choosing? (If we could ever speak of choosing, talking of notebooks). What should I be running from?
Memory, 3 or 4 Gigabytes should be the norm today, and I will be using AMD64 free software on this notebook, so quantity is not an issue. Money is.
Hard disk: what are the tipical read/write performances of today's notebook hard disk?
My current machine is a Thinkpad A30, with a Pentium 3 933 MHz, 256 MB of memory, ATI Radeon 7000 16 MB. Oh, yeah, and a totally garbled screen. So, yes, I really need a new machine.
Thanks for any hint you could provide.
And so the quest begins.
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