HP zv5000z notebook

Just a few things to clear up here.

"None" wrote in message
...
General Schvantzkoph wrote in
news
I'm thinking about getting an HP zv5000z series notebook with an
Athlon 64 3400+. Does anyone in the NG have one of these, how do you
like it?

A friend considered buying it. There are a few wrinkles:

1) The harddrive is only 4800 RPM.
2) The video card, a version of nVidia Go 440 (I think that's the model)
is not getting great reviews. Furthermore, there are reports that it
does not support DirectX. Since you will be using Linux, this does not
affect you. OTOH, there is a petition to get HP to switch over to ATI
cards.

The GeForce440 Go does not really support Direct X 8+ as it does not have
the hardware based shaders, etc, it gets away with a pretty good set of
software ones, but they are not nearly as fast as the hardware based ones.
This chip is a notebook version of the GeForce4MX, so you can check that out
for a better understanding of what HP put in there. If you want a really
good 64-bit notbook, check out Hypersonic or Voodoo computers as they both
offer their systems with DX9 level ATI cards(either the 9600 or the 9700).
Other than that, it seems to be a very good machine.


Also are there any Linux compatibility problems?

One final question, I vaguely recall reading something about HP
selling systems with a castrated AMD64 that only operated in 32 bit
mode. Does anyone know if the processors in the zv5000z are proper
Athlon 64s?

Hmm, of all the reviews of this machine that I've read (including a few
users), I have not come across this one at all.

Good luck.

"Lord Blue" wrote in message
news:rxqRc.249648$JR4.201409@attbi_s54...
| Just a few things to clear up here.
|
| "None" wrote in message
| ...
| General Schvantzkoph wrote in
| news |
| I'm thinking about getting an HP zv5000z series notebook with an
| Athlon 64 3400+. Does anyone in the NG have one of these, how do you
| like it?
|
| A friend considered buying it. There are a few wrinkles:
|
| 1) The harddrive is only 4800 RPM.
| 2) The video card, a version of nVidia Go 440 (I think that's the model)
| is not getting great reviews. Furthermore, there are reports that it
| does not support DirectX. Since you will be using Linux, this does not
| affect you. OTOH, there is a petition to get HP to switch over to ATI
| cards.
|
| The GeForce440 Go does not really support Direct X 8+ as it does not have
| the hardware based shaders, etc, it gets away with a pretty good set of
| software ones, but they are not nearly as fast as the hardware based ones.
| This chip is a notebook version of the GeForce4MX, so you can check that
out
| for a better understanding of what HP put in there. If you want a really
| good 64-bit notbook, check out Hypersonic or Voodoo computers as they both
| offer their systems with DX9 level ATI cards(either the 9600 or the 9700).


Or save a ton of money and get the eMachines m68xx series with the ATI 9600


| Other than that, it seems to be a very good machine.
|
|
| Also are there any Linux compatibility problems?
|
| One final question, I vaguely recall reading something about HP
| selling systems with a castrated AMD64 that only operated in 32 bit
| mode. Does anyone know if the processors in the zv5000z are proper
| Athlon 64s?
|
| Hmm, of all the reviews of this machine that I've read (including a few
| users), I have not come across this one at all.
|
| Good luck.
|
|
|