I'm looking at two different laptops for FS (mainly FS9, but also FSX). One has the AMD Turion X2 TL-60 (2Ghz) and the other has the Intel Core 2 Duo T7600 (2.33Ghz).The other core features are pretty much the same for each system - ie 2GB RAM, 7200RPM HDD and 2x Geforce 7950GTX SLI graphics.Other than the CPU the major difference between the systems is the screen - the AMD system has a 20" screen and the Intel system has a 17" screen.I've been reading up on the difference I can expect between the two CPUs. From what I can tell for the fairly mundane everyday tasks like web browsing, watching DVDs and the odd bit of word processing I will notice no difference between these CPUs. The question I have is how will they perform with FS?Thanks for any help/advice!

Intel chips are 2 generations ahead of AMD at the moment (die resolution), so they run cooler, less power and are quicker hz/hzIt is correct that for doing "mundane" things you will not noticedifference, but FS9/FSX can bring any chip to its knees if you seteverything to max - so get the Intel.Tom

The C2D would be faster in FSX on generation grounds alone and, to me anyway, 17" is the biggest screen that I would qualify as a "lap"top, so the decision is easy - the Intel jobbie!Gary

Ok thanks guys. The situation is a little more complicated:I'm restricted to using a laptop because I work at sea, and I spend about 8 months each year away from home. What I'm looking for is a high end system that can run FS, as well as contemporary games.I'm in the UK, and although I can purchase a system from abroad (e.g. Eurocom or Voodoo PC), I am not willing to do so as I will not be protected by UK retail law, and of course I may have to pay VAT on anything purchased from abroad. The current choices for really high end laptops in the UK are:i) Dellii) Alienwareiii) RockI did actually have a very nice system from Alienware on order. I placed my order one month ago when I was in the Falklands, and the estimated delivery date was 7th October, and I thought it would be with me a week or so after I arrived home. However, it would appear Alienware are having problems sourcing some parts and my estimated delivery date slipped to 22nd October. When I asked them for a concrete guarantee they could not be sure I would receive my system before the end of October. Now, I really don't want to have

The 17" Intel is still my recommendation.Gary

I think you would almost have to test to see what CPU gives the better performance, but I am concerned that the 20" screen is going to use a lot more CPU slinging pixels to it. Maybe some one can say for sure if screen size only impacts the vid card needed, not the CPU, but I'm not sure it won't impact the CPU too. Also consider readability too. At 12x10 I find 17" is on the edge of what I can use. Is the 20"er something like 16x10? I don't think I can stand a 20" widescreen at normal resolution, but maybe that's my old eyes. scott s..

Clock for clock, the difference between current AMD and Intel CPUs is about 20%. That's all. The real strength of the Core2 is its headroom. It overclocks 50% to 100%. AMD's CPUs were (are) lucky to get 10%. However with a laptop, that doesn't matter because O/Cing (generally) is not an option. That means that at identical clock speeds, Any AMD dualie will provide (only) 20% less performance than its clock-for-clock competing Intel C2D. The playing field is really quite level in the laptop arena. We haven't seen the benchies yet, but my initial opinion is that the SLI'd 7950GTXs will wipe the floor for FS9 and (non-DX10'd) FSX over a pair of 8700s. That 7950GTX is Such a strong chip. I expect one would be hard pressed to tell much subjective difference between the two systems you are considering . . . other than that big, beautiful 20" monitor. Boy, sure wish I could afford one of those. Looking forward, it's appears (Very sadly) like the 8700 is gonna be about it for laptops for quite a while . . . and don't count on Nvidia's new (G92) 8800GT either. I heard it caught fire the other day in the lab. It has heat problems. Consider: If the 8700 is a knatts whisker better than the 8600, and the 8600 doesn't scream over the 7600 (true so far?). I've swapped in that 7600 for my 6600 and saw a bit of a difference, but only that. So how much difference can I expect with an 8700 vs my current 6600? See why I'm not overly optimistic about anything less than a full 8800 (of some flavor)? To my mind, if it's not at least the 8800GTS/320, don't even bother if one is considering a permanent card. This laptop waiting game is getting old. An SLI's pair of 7950GTXs may just be the way to go. Go ahead and take the 20% CPU horespower hit. You'll never notice it.

Thanks for the advice everyone :)I did a little more shopping around, and bit the bullet and purchased an "off the shelf" system yesterday.It's an Intel based system T7500 (Santa Rosa) with 2GB RAM, ATI HD 2600XT graphics card, with 400GB HDD. This particular system came in at around half the price of a custom built top of the range SLI laptop, and still features a beautiful 20" 1,680x1,050 display.I was a little wary of the graphics card, knowing that it is a mid range card. To be fair the 7600GT on my old laptop could handle just about any modern game, as long as I didn't go crazy with the screen resolution and AA. Benchmarks appear to put the 2600XT roughly on par with the 8700M. The general feedback from owners of this laptop is that whilst it isn't a mind blowing FPS monster, it more than holds its own with modern games.So far I've just installed FS9 and FSX straight out of the box with their respective updates. I've got both sims running at the native resolution of the display (1,680x1,050) and 4x AA and 8x AF. FS9 with all sliders maxed out and unlimited FPS hits about 70FPS, and I've now locked it at 25FPS. I've not tried to see the maximum FPS I can get with FSX, but with most sliders well to the right I am holding the 25FPS target. I am getting some microstutters though so I may tweak some more and see what happens.All in all I'm very impressed with the new system so far. I'm still getting to grips with Vista though, and starting tomorrow I'll cautiously start adding my favourite addons into FS9, and I'll probably put Activesky X and FEX into FSX and see what results I get! Considering this is sold as a "multimedia system" it appears to be a very capable gaming rig, and the 20" display is very nice indeed!