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P4 vs. Celeron?


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hey folks.

 

i'm going to grad school this fall, and the school requires a laptop. they require a 2.0 GHz pentium IV, and i'm trying to price out my options. i found a 2.7 GHz celeron for WAY cheaper than any pentium IV machine i've seen, and was wondering if anyone here knew about the performance differences between these processors in a laptop. could i get away with the celeron, which would allow me to spend the extra money on beer? or am i going to have to bite the bullet, drop the money on the p4 and start working on some moonshine?

thanks in advance to anyone who can help.

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i recently bought a 2.8 celery laptop. i find performance is excellent for normal everyday modelling, (and modest rendering). but dont try any serious huge scheme modelling or rendering on it else you be here until 3001

 

mine cost me 800 british pounds, which at the time was the cheapest deal about in the uk

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As a former instructor of Second year students with a mandatory laptop purchase (I know, different situation than a grad student), I informed my students to not concentrate on processor speed. For most students, the slowest link in the digital design process is themselves. Work smarter, not harder. The more important criteria should be portability, durability, screen size, and features such as CDR, VGA out, and wifi.

 

I've seen many students gloss over CDR, wifi, and vga out in favour of less expensive models. They always regret it. These features are needed for studio web access, BACKUP, and presenting with LCD projectors. Very important stuff.

 

Most schools have labs with dedicated work stations and render farms for the heavy lifting when you need it. Unless you are an advanced user, processor speed isnt really a concern for you. I dont know what parts of this advice apply to you, but these have been common concerns expressed to me many times.

 

I dont want this discussion to turn into a brand/platform war as I think an academic purchase is an important topic. For the last few years the most popular machines, in my classes, at the start of the year were Dells, Toshibas, and PowerBooks. By the end of the term most Dells had been sent back for service, the Toshiba owners realized they got a sweet deal and the PowerBook users were in love. I usually recommend Toshibas for the AutoCAD crowd and the price concious and PowerBooks for those who want to get into video.

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with the company i'm looking at (http://www.cyberpowerinc.com), the difference in price between the 2.8 p4 and 3.06 p4 is $50, so it seems pretty logical to spend that (hypothetical) money. company i work for got my office computer from cybyerpower, and they seem to make a good machine.

that's an interesting point about the potential for a renderfarm at the school...i don't know if they do or not.

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Check out http://www.ibuypower.com. They have a similar setup as that website. You might find a deal there too. I teach the architectural digital media class at University of Florida, and like Steve, I have seen the same result. Toshibas seem to be the better buy for laptops. Dells are good too, but one of the models have a cooling problem. And like Steve says, work smarter, not harder.

 

If you use AutoCad to model in, X-refing is the way to go. If you use Max or Viz at school, Max is more memory intensive. Viz is virtually the same program as Max (a totally different discussion).

 

Most graphics cards will allow you to link up to a projection system. However, the graphics cards do not control the rendering speed of the computer. To make up for a lower graphics card, I work a lot in wireframe.

 

Moral of the story is this, learning how to manage your digital workflow is very important. If you learn it now, life will be easy later. Just remember to try and keep you polygon count as low as possible.

 

Good luck.

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i decided to go for the p4...i decided the computer was going to be my close companion for the next three years (at least) and it wasn't a purchase i wanted to regret later. at least, i hope i don't regret it later! i'm psyched, though; p4 3.06, 1024 mb mem., 60 gb hard drive... and the whole thing came out to about $1,100. not too bad for a notebook. i just hope it isn't a total piece of crap. :confused:

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