Ableton Forum

Hi Folks,

I saw an offer of two different laptops at the same price. Both got different advantages, I do not know which one I should prefer for making music (not gaming):

Samsung X20 XVM 1600 III
Intel® Pentium® M Prozessor 730 (1,6 GHz 2 MB Cache 533 MHz FSB)
RAM 512 MB PC2-3200 (2 x 256)
80 GB EIDE-Harddisk 5.400 UPM
15" SXGA+ TFT/1.400 x 1.050
max. 256 MB Intel Graphic Media Accelerator 900
DVD-Super-Multi 4xDVD+/-R,2xDVD+/-RW 2xDVD-RAM 8xDVD-ROM
ca. 2.400 g
1190 Euro

or

www.faet.de
faet V5.6 Series -
- als 15" XGA and 64 MB Grafik (on demand)
- Intel Pentium M - 1,6 Ghz - 400 mhz FSB - 2048kb Cache
- mit Intel 802.11b+g Wireless-LAN (mit Intel Centrino Mobiltechnologie)
- 1024 MB DDR RAM (1x1024 MB) - 400mhz
- 60 GB - 7.200u - 2,5" - 9.5mm Harddisk
- 8x DVD-R/+R / 4x DVD-RW/+RW / 2,4x DOUBLE LAYER DVD / 24x CD-R / 16x CD-RW / 8x DVD
1128,95 Euro

How much more important is a CPU with 533 MHz FSB compared to 400 MHz?

Regards.

as far as I'm aware FSB is the speed at which the computer transfers information internally, between chips or processors or whatever, so I'd imagine the faster the better, especially where music production is concerned.

the first one has a faster front side bus and 20 gb more in the hd...

the second has 1 x 1024 mb of ram which is a very good thing, and a 7200 rpm hd wich is also a very good thing...

personally i would go for the second one

Thanks for the response.

I don't know if the value of 533 FSB and a 7200 rpm harddisk is comparable.

I would prefer the second as well because the company builds for your own special needs and has a maybe better support. And you can upgrade the CPU Power or RAM for some bucks.

Is an internal notebook harddisk at 7200 rpm very noisy? Someone told me that...

Regards.

Is an internal notebook harddisk at 7200 rpm very noisy? Someone told me that...

I've got one, it's a little noisy, but I'd say most of the noise issues are due to the fans. You know how I'm thinking about dealing with it? Get an aquarium big enough to fit it in, turn it upside down to use it as a cover, use an external keyboard. Raise the aquarium a little with rubber feet to let in air and let any wires in.

The Front Side Bus transfers data between the CPU and the RAM. It is preferable if the two are at the same speed, otherwise you get a processing bottleneck. I would check and see if the first computer has each at 533 MHz ram, or two at 266 - which is also possible. either way, you're only going to get 533 MHz in total no matter what - you don't get 1066 MHz with two chips at 533...

For dollars and cents, the single chip at 1024 Megabytes is worth WAY more than two chips at 256. A double ammount of RAM (like 1GB) and a faster hard drive is better than a marginal increase in FSB.