<p>I don't know anything about processors. Does anyone know which ones are the best?</p>
<p>Intel - anything but celeron (do they even still make those POS's?)</p>
<p>Depends on what you want, whether it be a laptop or a desktop.</p>
<p>If you want a laptop, then the one and only processor that anyone should get is the Intel Pentium M. (The Intel Centrino is the same thing too) No doubt about it. They are all numbered 7xx.</p>
<p>If you want a desktop, then it gets a little confusing. Whatever you do, NEVER get a Celeron. They simply suck. The Intel Pentium 4 comes in four flavors: Basic (5xx numbered), 64-bit (6xx), Extreme for gaming (7xx), and dual-core (8xx). What you choose depends on your needs. If you need a desktop for basically internet, office, and simple games, go with the 5xx or 6xx. If you're a hard-core gamer, the 7xx is best. The 8xx is a brand new line, so I don't have much knowledge on that. AMD has the Athlon XP, which would be comparable to the Intel Pentium 4 5xx, the Athlon 64 (compare to 6xx), and the Athlon 64 X2 (compare to 7xx and 8xx).</p>
<p>Many say that if you'd like to future-proof your PC, go 64 bit. You can do that if you'd like, but no 64 bit software has really come out. My understanding is that the 64 bit version of Windows XP is really not a significant upgrade.</p>
<p>Personally, my desktop has the Athlon 64 and I find it to be a pretty fast and reliable processor.</p>
<p>go with Athlon</p>
<p>Oh sorry, this is for a laptop. Thanks for the advice so far.</p>
<p>Would a Intel Pentium M 780 be A LOT better than a 750?</p>
<p>Not really. In a laptop small speed diffs ie, .3ghz dont make much of a noticable difference.</p>
<p>Is a Pentium 4 processor better or worse than a Pentium M processor?</p>
<p>For laptop p4 is worse on battery.</p>
<p>At stock speeds (meaning you do not mod the chip to run faster than it is meant to, which is not wise in a laptop), the Pentium 4 is probably faster, but at the expense of power.</p>
<p>following up on videogamerx2, power used by the chip is dissapated as heat. as a result, the pentium m is better in that it has a lower power draw and thus results in lower levels of heating (good for your lap).</p>
<p>Celeron sucks, but it's cheap and good enough for people who use their laptops for internet browsing, email, and word processing. But mix in a little bit of gaming or graphic design, and the celeron stops working lol!</p>
<p>Centrino and M are the best bets for laptops. Stay away from Pentium 4 though, it really heats up and kills battery.</p>
<p>just to clarify, centrino is really a 'package' - a pentium m processor, intel wireless chip, and intel chipset.</p>
<p>The real question is what do expect out of this computer.... how much do you want to spend...... if money is an issue... then you should think about the diff. between processing power.... and a combo cd/dvd/burner drive... ram.... hd space... etc If you like to have multiple "programs" open that are more ram dependent then go for more ram... if you use heavy programs ..... (or game)... then go for a faster cpu and upgrade the ram when you can......</p>
<p>pentium m for a laptop, athlon-64 (or fx if you really want to...) for desktop.</p>
<p>The "new" Celeron D's are pretty decent but are still ousted by the newer Sempron's from AMD. As per laptop CPUs, you best bet is definitely a Pentium M but AMD's "Turion" (aka Mobile-64) chips are pretty good. They give you that 64-bit processing ability (should you choose to upgrade Windows in the future) and a low heat output.</p>
<p>That's because the celeron has always been a bastardized version of the current market chip while the Sempron is more like a continuation of the XP line (it doesnt have the 64bit extensions but they go unused for most users).</p>
<p>If you get anything besides the Pentium M 760 chip then you will pay a premium for the extra processing power. The 760 is clocked at 1.86 GHz; don't get the 2.0 GHz or 2.13 Ghz. If you want the Pentium 4 equivalent of the Pentium M then multiply the clock speed by 1.75 (ex: 1.86 Pentium M * 1.75 = 3.26 GHz Pentium 4). </p>
<p>No offense, but if you are asking this question about processors then you don't even need the 1.86 GHz. Go with the 1.6 GHz or the 1.73 GHz.</p>
<p>1.75 multiplication is way too generous. At best it's a 1.7 and at worst around a 1.5 depending on what application you compare.</p>
<p>The Pentium M 760 IS 2.0 GHz. The 750 is the one clocked at 1.86 GHz.</p>