MSI MS-1057 CORE 2 DUO NOTEBOOK

Introduction

When the Intel Core 2 Duo benchmarks first came out, many felt it was too good to be true.  But more and more reviews just went on to prove that this new architecture from Intel really delivered heavy hitting punches, without sucking up too much juice.  After finally seeing too many praises, too many oohs and aaahs, and too many dream machines based on the C2D, I felt that I should just check it out myself.

But wait, lets add a twist to this.  Let's build a notebook PC using the Core 2 Duo Mobile CPU, also known as the "Merom" processor.  Building a notebook is not as simple as building a desktop.  Most parts are proprietary and designed for a certain set of components only.  Furthermore, the system requirements of the Merom is also quite stringent - the BIOS, voltage regulator circuits, and chipset all have to be just right for the C2D to work properly. 

Luckily, MSI has a series of barebones notebooks called "whitebooks", and one of them, the MS-1057, is compatible with the Core 2 Duo Mobile CPU.  So we set out and purchased the necessary components for this project.  If one were to put together this exact configuration, it would roughly cost the amount shown below.  However, one can save by reducing the memory, picking a slower CPU, and/or HDD.