intel core 2 v amd turion x2?

Question

I shall be buying a new laptop shortly, but before i do, out of the spec's which one would you go for as i'm not sure which would be the fastest spec, more cache less ram, or less cache and
more ram .

Intel Core 2 Duo 1.6GHZ with 2 MB Cache and 1 GB ram or
AMD Turion X2 1.6GHZ with 512 x 512 cahche and 2GB ram?

Wha does anybody think ?

Thanks for the advice so far, i would be mainly be using it for Photoshop and web designing.
The laptops i'm looking at are both HP Pavillion models.

Answer 1

You would be getting the better processor with the Core 2 Duo. If you could upgrade the intel laptop to 2 GB RAM when you bought it that would be best because it will probably come with 2 x 512 MB RAM sticks and in order to upgrade to 2 GB you would have to buy 2 x 1GB sticks instead of just adding 1. By having the factory upgrade it when you buy it then it would have 2 x 1GB sticks. If you cannot upgrade then I would go with the AMD Turion X2 with the 2 GB of RAM. It's not that big of a drop off between the 2 processors. Good Luck HTH.

Answer 2

Depends on the types of applications you'll be using.

I haven't read any benchmarks that compare the mobile offerings from Intel and AMD. Unless you have a specific need, such as gaming, video encoding or programming, in general use, you probably won't see much of a difference between the two processors. (If you do have such a specific need, you'll need to research which processor is better for your application.)

If you tend to have lots of applications open at once, then go for the bigger RAM. One thing you can certainly bank on: new software always uses more memory. You can never have too much!

Answer 3

For office applications, you would hardly notice any difference in performance. In synthetic benchmarks and video encoding, Core2 Duo would have an edge. In games, Core2 Duo may have an edge in 3D benchmarks but hardly noticeable in actual games because 3D graphics is a lot more dependent on the graphics processor.