Laptop Quad Core Performance Help/Opinion

[The Stig]

Sorry I posted this in the sticky but it seems no one is reading it



Current laptop specs:
T7200 Core 2 Duo [2.0ghz]
nVidia 7400 Go 64mb
2gb RAM
12.1 inch screen

EDIT: Using Vista 32 currently, apart from songs and firaga lagging the shit out of me every now and then, I can live with this though, it doesn't affect my [in game] performance too much.

Quad Core or stay with Dual Core?

I don't need recommendations for what laptop I should buy but I do have some queries in regards to the above question. I do know that whatever it is the graphics card will be pretty decent, but not hardcore decent as I'm not a fan of tweaking my (other) games to look good or to max it out. Just "all average/casual".

So...

Basically I have a virtual Windows XP box running at part time (I do a bit of light app testing or IE6 testing within it, and I do this when I'm not busy within FFXI, maybe just light activity i.e. farming/campaign/hanging in Whitegate) and when I run that (512mb RAM and 16mb Video RAM allocated to it) my laptop gets pretty busy. FFXI is still playable and smooth but if I want to watch a video on top, then it'll get pretty choppy, and processor is of course busy. This is on top of other stuff I do, i.e web browsing, IRC, MSN, Winamp listening to music.

If I get Dual Core (probably one of the newer ones clocked above 2.4ghz) would my performance increase much more, in regards to my FFXI + WinXP virtual box + video watching.

I can dual box comfortably with FFXI turned down, it's not a problem. Of course in high traffic areas then it can get a bit choppy, but not tooo choppy. But of course the WinXP box isn't running if i dual box.

But if I was to get a Quad Core (which is the lowest spec one, clocked at 2.0gz) :: Intel® Core™2 Quad Mobile Processor Q9000 - SLGEJ :: <-- click to find out more, would it allow me to do more? Would I notice a performance jump. I'll be reasonable and say, 2 FFXI boxes going, 1 WinXP box and a video box on top of my firefox, msn, irc, winamp. And if I want to trio box, take out the WinXP box and add 1 more FFXI box. Would everything run smoother?

The choice of quad core above is because the laptops I have my eyes on seems to be reasonbly priced with the Q9000, anything above and the price gets ridiculous.

NOTE: All my laptop choices will have 4gb of RAM.

Also, I am probably going to go with one with an ATI card... can I get a confirmation that all laptop users with ATI cards have NO lag/shit issues with FFXI when combined with Vista. And I suppose 32/64 bit doesn't matter here. And I want to play GTA4, which can use a quad core for good performance I hear. And I repeat, I don't care for tweaking it to look the best, reasonable look + playable is all I care for. I'll tweak if I'm bored.

One of the laptops I had in mind, I can't find the other 2 for some reason:
MSI GT725-210UK Laptop GT725-210UK - Laptops Direct
and
ACER Aspire 8930G-904 18.4" Quad Core Laptop Notebook on eBay, also, Laptops, Computing (end time 01-May-09 16:57:59 BST)
^ I picked this from eBay because he is within murder distance

Another one is the Acer Quad Core one but that comes with nVidia's card. I'll dig around a bit more on nVidia but from my understanding most if not all issues have been cleared but some people are unlucky and still get issues.

Thanks!

[The Stig]

Bump

If someone can offer some insight.

[Klain]

FFXI doesn't support multiple cores. But, you COULD set the affinity to different cores, so that would help a bit.

Quad if you do a lot of things and have multithreaded applications, Dual if you just run FFXI and light programs imo

I'm not too fond of laptops myself, prefer desktops so I can overclock and adjust heating as needed.

[sruon]

FFXI doesn't support multiple cores. But, you COULD set the affinity to different cores, so that would help a bit.

Quad if you do a lot of things and have multithreaded applications, Dual if you just run FFXI and light programs imo

I'm not too fond of laptops myself, prefer desktops so I can overclock and adjust heating as needed.

Wouldn't mind a bit of information, I dualbox, triplebox a tons and always thought I could just assign each FFXI instance to one core, but I never seen any difference. CPU would still be at 50% used.