Laptop Blues

In my last thread I posed the tossup between AMD’s 64 bit and Intel’s P4 CPUs.

Thanks to all who posted. The response was overwhelmingly in AMD’s favor, so I decided on an ABS Mayhem G3. For the price, there was no competition. But I then discovered that there was the issue of the GPU. You see, the Mobility Radeon 9700 has but 4 pixel pipes, while the Mobility Radeon 9800 has 8. This is almost the difference between last generation and current generation AGP cards. But you already knew that.

“Why not just get a 9800 card in your Mayhem G3” you say? I’m glad you asked that. You see, ATI sold the rights to the Mobility Radeon 9800 to Dell. Shame on ATI! That means, that to get a 9800 in my laptop, I have to buy an XPS, which is overpriced as it is, and even with a P4 Extreme Edition, the Mayhem G3 still manages to roll with the “mighty XPS” in most tests. By the way, I am not fond of Dell at all, so the purchase of the “king of last generation laptops” is out of the question.

Introduce the PCIx GPUs to the scene. The dilemma is this. I can get a PCIx laptop, for $300-$400 more, but it will be paired with a desktop P4; back to the original thread. I want an AMD 64bit CPU, but I can’t get it with a PCIx GPU. See how it can wear you out?

So I said all that to say this…I want an AMD 64bit CPU, coupled with a PCIx GPU in a laptop chassis. If anyone knows where to find this sort of laptop, I’m open to suggestions. If it can’t be done yet, where is my dime better spent. The future is 64 bit processors, and PCIx GPUs. So why aren’t they together?