Question about laptops and cpu speeds,,confused !

[rxkevco]

Hi all,
Am looking at buying a newish, used laptop on ebay and have been having a complete nightmare trying to sort out what it is i actually need.

Here goes,,,, i use cubase SL3 on my desktop comp, but although i have loads of ram and lots of harddrives, the 1.4ghz p4 cpu is a bit slow.
Dont get me wrong,,its been more than sufficient for my needs so far, but as i am getting more familiar with the program and doing more with it,,,i have decided now rather than later , is the time to get a better computer.
Ihave decided on a laptop because of its space saving, and portability.

NOW,,,The headache,,,,
I am looking at a couple of p4 3.2, 3.6 ghz laptops etc,,,,,, and a couple of AMD 3000+ , 3700+ , 64 bit laptops as well.
I need to know which would be the best to go for using cubase ????
What would a 3700 amd cpu be equivilent to, in the world of intel p4 ???

I know that in laptops, AMD is supposed to be the best as they are smaller sized cpu,s that dont get very hot and are effective at longer battery times,,, whereas,, the p4,s in laptops are notorious for becoming too hot, are bulkier and drain batteries in no time at all.

Will an AMD, 64 bit athlon xp-m or sempron 3000/3700 cpu be equivilent to, or better than, say,,,a 2.6ghz p4,,,, or worse,,,, ???

I am getting very confused with all this laptop business.
Any advice would be greatly appreciated,
cheers,,,kev.

 

[mithra6]

An AMP 64 bit processor's clock speed is advertiset at 2.7 (ish) gig, BUT Intel has a history of inflating its clock speeds, so if Intel is advertising 3 gig clock speed it's actually less in the real world.

AMD 64 processors are definitely worth it. I had a 2 gig Intel P4 PC before, and now I have an AMD 64 3700+, and it's night and day.

Plus if and when you upgrade to the next Windows your laptop will be ready.

 

[rxkevco]

amd ,64 bit is probably well worth it,,,, but is it better than its intel equivelent ??????
will this athlon 64 bit 3700 be good for cubase,,,which demands a 2.6 ghz processor requirement for most efficient running ???

 

[mithra6]

I don't use Cubase, but works on my PC for Sonar 4. I haven't looked at Cubase's website, but Cakewalk has a section for building PCs and info about what to buy. Cakewalk had an e-mail address and I got a reply the same day. Cubase should have the same.

I WILL say that even though the clockspeed on the AMD says 2.7, it's WAY faster than a P4 2.7 processor. Do a search and you'll begin to see a pattern.

The only thing I have seen an issue with is some of the newer motherboards for the new AMD dual core processors have some complaints that it causes slowdowns on audio apps.

That's only what I read, but I'm sure some people are doing fine with that.

The AMP 64 is a good bet I would say.

 

[rxkevco]

Well,,,, i have gone and got one.
Should get it tommorrow morning, first thing, so i will let you know how i get on with it.
I got a 5 month old fujitsu siemens Amilo A1650. AMD 3700+ 64bit, xp-m cpu,
15"4 widescreen, over a gig of memory, 80gb harddrive, 4 usb 2.0, firewire, digital i/o, Dual layer dvd rw/ cd rw,,,, pretty much the bollox really.
Am dead pleased with it,,still has warrenty on it as well. Got it for £550, bargain,,,i think.
Steinbergs "cubase forum/website ",,,pretty firm on their preffered requirements for SL/SX3. You could grow a beard waiting for a responce from steinberg themselves. In fact i think i grew , and shaved 2 beards in the time it took them to respond to my last post. Steinberg rely on the forum members dishing out the customer service !!! Seriously,,go look at cubase.net, go on the forum and just read some of the responses,,,it can be quite aggressive on there at times,, and god forbid if you dont have a "dongle ",,,,, you can smell the vultures.
Seriously,,, go have a laugh,,,
Anyhows,,,thanks for the advice,,will let you all know how i get on.
Cheers,,,,,kev