I currently have a 1.6 GHz Pentium M in my Dell Inspiron 9300 with 512 MB of RAM, an 80 GB hard drive, and a 64 MB video card.

I have a Core 2 Duo at 2.4 GHz with a 256 MB video card and a 320 GB hard drive in my desktop and love it.

What I am wondering is if it is worthwhile to get the Core 2 Duo at 1.66 GHz on the Dell E1505 notebook. With selling my current, it'll be a $500 or so upgrade to get a 128 MB video card and 1 GB of RAM.

How much of a difference would it be from the Pentium M 1.60 GHz to the Core 2 Duo at 1.66 GHz??

Thanks in advance

i guess it really depends on what you plan on using it for, on the plus side you upgrade to a dual core cpu, you double your amount of memory, also increasing your graphics memory by a large amount. as for performance im sure that the core 2 duo laptop would outperform the pentium m laptop mainly because with dual core you can execute multiple threads at one time.

But how much of a difference would just the processor upgrade give? I know that a 2.4 GHz Core 2 Duo is 50% faster than a 3.2 GHz Pentium D, but what about that kind of comparison for the Pentium M to a Core 2 Duo in a notebook?

Well the Core 2's were Intels next big jump since the M series, so IMO, I think it's a nice upgrade, not just in performance but these processors also use less power = less heat also. You must have noticed the difference? It's nice to see Intel making a come back with the duo processors, and even quad core. It looked like that had fallen too far behind AMD there for a second!

i looked around and the core 2 duo gave a performace gain of around 30%.

Oh I know they are great processors, but are they great enough to sell mine with the Pentium M and pay an extra $500 to get the Core 2 Duo? How much better is it? I already get 3.5 hours of battery life and never had an overheating problem.

like madmonkey said they use less power which will extend your battery life and the hardware is overall better for futrure applications that will require the better hardware so yea it is a very good upgrade.