I'm looking for absolute max laptop performance for applications. I'm not remotely interested in gaming, internet, etc. The machine will be used to run & demo business intelligence applications and as such will usually be hooked up to some form of projector for output and when in the office it will be in a docking station on a 19" flat panel - so the screen on the machine isn't that important. I just want the fastest machine possible to run lots of floating point type calculations for databases, etc. & office applications.

My current thoughts are a Dell XPS, Toshiba Tecra M3 and an HP nw8240.

I'm looking at whether a top line 3.2 or better P4 chip will give more performance than a 2.0 or 2.13 Mobile processor. Anybody who can tell me which will give better performance & whether there are any better options than the ones I'm considering ?

The machine also needs a minimum 1GB RAM, probably 2GB.

Any help would be greatly appreciated, as I can't find any reasonable comparison of P4 laptop s vs Mobile CPU laptops.

Thanks in advance for any assistance.

HP with Athlon is the way to go for the FP stuff.

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pentium m 770(2.13ghz) is better than 3.2ghz p4 in most applications

Yeah, sure, but it costs arm and leg

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You can get a 4000+ compaq(not hp) for like $1600

Probably a late reply, but I've had an 8240 for about 2 years now, its quite a solid performer. I have 2G in d-channel.

what apps are you going to be running, becoz business apps its very consistent, and it eats it up, BUT... if you are going to be playing an odd new game here and there, the vga card temp shoots up like theres no tomorrow.

I still would not upgrade it for any of the dual or quads though. they would have to come out with a 2.6ghz quad for me to get excited.

2.33ghz Core 2 duo T7600

If you need a Pentium 4 you could always get a EUROCOM D700T Enigma it just might cost 2K

dude forget ghz. That old school.

Right now it how the cpu runs. You can take my 3.4 ghz with 2mb L3 cache. It runs on par with a centreno duo 1.66 ghz. And the core 2 2.33 kick butt.

If you want to save money the 1.83 ghz core 2 would be a good idea. And it would be faster then a 3.4ghz laptop.

I was just saying that to give the guy some options here. I know that a c2d will beat the p4 as I was looking to get one. architecture is new school. you will need 2 gigs 4 your apps by the way.