Which laptop processor is better? Core Duo T2250 or T2300?

Question

Hello... I purchased two laptops from the Dell Outlet today, both E1705 units with different features, one with more ram, dvd burner, one with better video (7900GS), etc. I basically intend to take the best pieces of each into my new laptop, and then ebay the other one. :) My question is, one has the T2300 processor (1.66GHz/667MHz FSB) and the other has the T2250 processor (1.73GHz/533MHz FSB). If all other things are equal, which will be faster, the one with more processor speed, or the one with the higher FSB speed?

Once we've established that, one other question.. I notice both laptops only have 533mhz ram, so assuming I don't buy faster ram, am I correct in thinking FSB won't matter and I'd be better off with the slightly faster CPU? :)

Thanks much for the advice!

Answer 1

No, the one with the faster FSB is better. You are on the right track with your thought process about the RAM, but its a little more complicated. You have to compare actually bus speed to actual bus speed. FSB speed on Intel's is 4x the actual bus speed, since they send 4 bits in a cycle. So the actual bus speeds are 133Mhz and 166Mhz. On Ram the stated speed is twice the actual speed, since it is DDR (double data rate) So 533 Mhz RAM is actually 266Mhz. So either way your RAM is faster than your bus, so go ahead and go with the one with the faster FSB.