Which processor should I go with for a thinkpad t61p?

T8300 or T9300?

[Edited on March 24, 2008 at 8:28 PM. Reason : a]

3/24/2008 8:23:24 PM

if money isn't an issue, i'd definitely go with the T9300 due to having twice the cache (6mb vs 3mb)

that said, i don't know what the difference in price is, but the extra 100mhz isn't going to be noticeable and the slightly lower voltage of the T9300 (1.15v vs 1.25v) probably won't give you any major battery advantage...if we're talking $40-50, i'd do it (personally), but anything more than that and it's not worth it

there might be an advantage of the C0 stepping over the M0, but that goes beyond me

T8300: http://processorfinder.intel.com/details.aspx?sSpec=SLAPA
T9300: http://processorfinder.intel.com/details.aspx?sSpec=SLAQG

for what it's worth, i have the T9300, but that's because i got a $500 off coupon on my HP and i had to max out some of the specs to get it to the $1300 minimum in order to GET the $500 off

3/25/2008 9:27:48 AM

that's a pretty awesome sounding deal

3/25/2008 10:35:14 AM

^ indeed...i think ben's bargains has the same deal going on right now, up to 4500 uses, anyway...a great deal IMO, but you end up having to wait 2 weeks or so for shipping if you customize

3/25/2008 10:43:47 AM

The t9300 costs an extra $127 over the t8300 so im right on the fence about it. Any idea if prices will drop soon?

[Edited on March 26, 2008 at 6:45 AM. Reason : a]

3/26/2008 6:42:13 AM

^ for what it's worth, tom's hardware tests show that cache size really IS important, and even more so with the 45nm processors (which both of these are):

conclusion: http://www.tomshardware.com/2007/10/24/does_cache_size_matter/page8.html

i guess, though, that it's still a toss-up...for $127, i think that i (probably) could do without it...the 100mhz bump means nothing IMO, but doubling the cache is a better reason to fork over the extra money

what sort of applications will you be running again? it seems that games gain the most advantage, but something like 3D studio max sees absolutely no performance gain from the extra cache

i dunno...i'd say skip

[Edited on March 26, 2008 at 9:44 AM. Reason : .]

3/26/2008 9:39:28 AM