Purchase Advice--Graphics Question

[safelder]

I'm considering upgrading my T43 to a T60 Core 2 Duo because the prices on the T60 models are so good right now. I'm having difficulty deciding which graphics to go for, however.

My current T43 has the discrete 64MB ATI card on 14.1" SXGA+. I plan on staying with the 14.1" SXGA+ display for the sake of portability (I'm in a dock most of the time anyway). In the T60, I apparently have the choice between 64MB, 128MB, and 256MB ATI cards. I don't do any gaming, CAD modeling, graphic design work, or anything like that. I do, however, plan on upgrading to Vista--maybe not immediately, but fairly early on.

The specs of the machines are otherwise similar. On the T60p side, I'm considering the 2613-HPU and -HQU (HPU has a 2.16 GHz processor; HQU runs 2.33 GHz for about $90 more). On the T60 side, I'm thinking 2613-HKU (2.00 GHz processor, 128MB video for about $150 less than the -HQU and about $50 less than the -HPU).

Clearly, this isn't a decision to be made on price given the small deltas. Thus, I'm more worried about heat/battery life and future-proofing.

Other than the processor speed (which will likely never be an issue) and video memory (which I don't think will be an issue), is there anything I miss out on by going with the regular T60 rather than the T60p? How much will the larger memory card or faster processor hit my battery?

Thanks in advance for any advice.

[Seeb]

If you care about heat (meaning low heat -> low fan rpms -> little
noise) you shouldn't go for the X1400 128MB which has 75° in idle
mode, forcing the fan to run constantly (and maybe/probably loud -
depends on how much luck you have with the VERY much differing
machining quality of the cooling system of the GPU)

The X1300 64MB is around 12° cooler.

For vista (mostly for the aeroglass interface) you need at least
128MB of graphic RAM - emulated through HyperMemory or
dedicated doesn't matter.
The more dedicated RAM you have -> the faster vista runs

If you have the money: buy a T60p (which you probably won't need).
If you don't have it: decide between the X1400 and the X1300 -
which means deciding between noise/better vista performance
and silence/worse vista performance.

BTW: Both cards support HyperMemory up to 512 MB
BTW2: I think the X1400 will do a difference in performance in vista
of about 8-28% compared to the X1300 (just a guess)