Hi, I'm planning on purchasing a new notebook and I was wondering which CPU to get if I'm going to use it primarily for gaming and will always have access to a power socket.  So which CPU is for me? Pentium M, Pentium 4M, Pentium 4 or Celeron?
Also, I know the video card is very important, so I sorted the video cards from worst to best, please correct me if i made any mistakes.
 
Integrated Graphics
ATI Mobility Radeon 7500
NVIDIA GeForce4 Go 440
ATI Mobility Radeon 9000
nVidia GeForce4 Go 4200  
nVidia QuadroFX Go 5200  
nVidia GeForceFX Go 5600
Ati Mobility Radeon 9600
 
also, money is an object, so i cant spend 2000+ CDN dollars (or 1500+ US)

I would put the list as follows:
 
Integrated Graphics
NVIDIA GeForce4 Go 440
ATI Mobility Radeon 7500
ATI Mobility Radeon 9000
nVidia QuadroFX Go 5200  
nVidia GeForce4 Go 4200  
nVidia GeForceFX Go 5600
Ati Mobility Radeon 9600
 
.. and there are a few more graphics boards but that's not important.  If you plan to use the Notebook primarily for games, then Centrino (Pentium-M) is not for you. If you are going to be plugged in 99.9% of the time, then the Pentium 4-m is not for you. So basically, since a celeron is a piece of sh...err crud, the only thing left is the Pentium 4 - It goes the fastest, and is coupled with the best graphics options in most cases.  
 
Many of the other forum members who visit the Notebook forums have very useful comments and links for the type of Notebook you are looking for, but I would say, look at voodoo notebooks, Sager [or Alienware - although they are expensive)...  
 
RaPTuRe
 
Who's General Failure and why's he reading my disk?

Since this is laptop you are buying here, you dont have much flexibility and freedom of choice compared to if you were to build a desktop. So have a couple things on mind. Obviously the most important here is your budget limit. First, look for brands that are cheaper and offer relatively good prices and values. In my humble opinion, Dell and hypersonic-pc.com are good, cheap laptops. Second, you should think about what processor you want, IMHO again, i would go for either pentium m or pentium 4. I wouldnt go for pentium 4m cuz ive seen benchmarks and it seems to be slower than pentium m (not to mention its slower than pentium 4). pentium m will offer more mobility but will perform a wee less than the pentium 4, but since you will have a power socket always then p4 might be a better choice. Again, since you arent building your own laptop, you dont have the freedom for example to choose a pentium m with radeon 9600 128 mb etc.... simply because the laptop companies wont build them that way, most of the times, you will see high end processors coupled with high end graphics card, memory, etc.
please also notice your budget isnt very high, especially for a laptop so if you were hoping to get the latest laptop, then i would suggest you saving up some more, and i would emphazise that more if you plan to do some hardcore gaming on upcoming DX9 games like doom III or HL2. but still, you should go to dell.com or hypersonic-pc.com and check out some prices, maybe im wrong, maybe they have dramatically lowered their prices. i have been researching a lot about laptops because i was also looking to buy one, and i found out that hypersonic-pc.com was the best fit for me since they were the cheapest with the best stuff. I would have gone with dell with the exception that they dont use ATI and hypersonic does. Voodoos are great, but they are so expensive for no big reason and alienware are fairly expensive too.
 
good luck, tell me what you think
 
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My computer is so fast it proves the theory of relativity wrong...

hi guys, thanks for the replies, I think im gonna go with the dell inspiron 600m, with a Pentium-M 1.4Ghz and a 64MB Radeon 9000 since i may need more mobility now that i think about it, and it fits my budget, $1848 CDN (or $1355 US).  Unless anyone knows if there will be a price drop in the 5600 or 9600 mobile video cards anytime soon ?

Sorry, I am just correcting a slight error in your post Grassapa - It's nothing, but it could lead to confusion:
 
The Pentium 4-m is just as fast as the Pentium 4 (e.g. performance), but it does not reach the high clock speeds that the (desktop) Pentium 4 does.
 
RaPTuRe
 
Who's General Failure and why's he reading my disk?

I could be wrong but according to intels website http://intel.com/products/notebook [...] processor&
 (if you click on compare performance) you can see a graph of centrino and pentium 4m and you can see that the centrino performs a bit more. they also have graphs of pentium 4m and pentium 4 and you can see that the p4 performs slightly better. The HT in p4 also helps if ure using programs like photoshop, etc and you can turn it off for single processor programs. but yes, if do need some mobility then a pentium m is a good choice. and i dont think the flagship ATI and NVIDIA chips for mobile systems will go down anytime soon since they are fairly new in the market.
 
thats my 2 cents
 
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My computer is so fast it proves the theory of relativity wrong...

The Centrino does perform better than a P4 (-m), but the desktop Pentium 4, and the Pentium 4-m are identical. They are the exact same CPU - the '-m' has SpeedStep Enabled. What Intel may have done is compared a Pentium 4-m against a same speed Pentium 4, but with the desktop P4 using a 133/200MHz FSB.
 
RaPTuRe
 
Who's General Failure and why's he reading my disk?

well, i agree that pentium 4 and p4-m are identical, but the fact that the p4-m has speedstep is exaclty what i mean by lower performance. If you run the p4-m plugged in, then yes, they are both equal, but since he might run it on batteries, then yes, the p4-m will lower performance to compensate for battery, while the p4 wont care and keep on running at full speed.
 
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My computer is so fast it proves the theory of relativity wrong...

...unless you tell it to carry on at maximum speed - in which case it won't and will carry on performing the same.  
 
And the P4 will care if you unplug it. It will switch off.
 
RaPTuRe
 
Who's General Failure and why's he reading my disk?