Yup, no single brand's notebook beats every others in processing
power. It all depends.
However, if you seriously aims at top notch processing power, go
for gaming notebooks. Those Alienware or vodo that was built with
AMD's AthlonFX 64 X2 processors runs twice as fast as your Pentium
D 2.8Ghz.
But if thats too much for you, just settle for a average dual core.
Most important of all is make sure your graphic is stand alone.
Intergrated ones greatly affects your performance and makes future
upgrade almost impossible.