AMD Versus Intel Mobile Processor Review

by Dustin Sklavos

Showdowns don't get any more hardcore or bitter than this one: Intel vs. AMD. The most popular analogy has been "David vs. Goliath," but I don't really believe it, although lately it's been akin to "Godzilla vs. Japan."

Run For Your Lives!!!

I digress. As far as CPUs and platforms go, it's been AMD and Intel for a long time now. Sure, you can joke about your Cyrix, your VIA or your Transmeta, but the only ones we ever took seriously were AMD and Intel. They've had a lot of back and forth over the years, which of course has generally been great for the consumer as actual competition often is, and this past year has been particularly vicious between the two.

Prior to mid-2006 and the release of Intel's Core 2 Duo on the desktop, Intel had a healthy lead in the mobile market while AMD's chips were the best desktop performers by far, and unfortunately, AMD didn't think to try and strangle the life out of its longtime rival by lowering its prices to continue to apply pressure.

Cue 2007, where Intel continues to step on AMD's head while they're drowning. Isn't technology grand?

Intel's had the best mobile platform for a few years with AMD constantly playing catch-up, blowing their one chance on any kind of lead by delivering the Turion 64 X2 months late and right on schedule to compete with Intel's mobile Core 2 Duo. Ouch. But Intel's ruthlessness is our benefit as consumers, because their willingness to reduce processor prices to put the hurt on AMD forces AMD to reduce their own processor prices, and that pretty much brings us to where we are today: two otherwise identically configured notebooks separated by $100 in the marketplace.

So today we're not going to compete on clock for clock or any of those other BS metrics, because in the end for the vast majority of us, they don't matter. What we're interested in is how much we can get for how little we pay. I'll give you a hint: "a lot."

TESTING

The two competing notebooks are remarkably similar in their configurations and provide a nice apples-to-apples comparison: the AMD based HP Pavilion dv2610us and the Intel based HP Pavilion dv2615us. If you removed the stickers from them, you'd never tell them apart.

PART	dv2610us (AMD)	dv2615us (Intel)
Processor	AMD Turion 64 X2 TL-58 (1.9GHz)	Intel Core 2 Duo T5250 (1.5GHz)
Chipset	nVidia 7150M/nForce 430 Mobile	Intel 965GM Express w/ ICH8-M
Memory	2GB Patriot DDR2-667	2GB Patriot DDR2-667
Graphics	nVidia GeForce 7150M (128MB)	Intel GMA X3100 (set to max RAM)
Graphic Driver	ForceWare 156.65 (HP)	Intel 15.7
Sound	HD Audio	HD Audio
Wireless	Broadcom 802.11g & HP Bluetooth	Intel 3945ABG & HP Bluetooth
Hard Disk	160GB Hitachi SATA 5400rpm	160GB Hitachi SATA 5400rpm
Operating System	Windows Vista Home Premium 32-bit	Windows Vista Home Premium 32-bit
Battery	6-cell Li-Ion	6-cell Li-Ion
Typical Price (US)	~$849	~$899

* Memory was upgraded in each unit from the 1GB DDR2-667 (2x512MB) the notebooks shipped with.

I post "typical price" because the prices of these units tend to vary pretty significantly. For the dv2610us I'm using, for example, I paid $699. But these two notebooks really basically are at price parity, with the Intel one tending to be a little more pricey.

In all testing situations, these two notebooks were configured as identically as possible.

Now, I'm going to get this out of the way right now: I HATE synthetic benchmarks. As I've gotten older, I've just hated them more and more. PCMark spits out some number that I have a hard time applying practically to anything, and I've found that the best purpose these benchmarks serve is being able to check and see if your computer is running like it's supposed to by comparing with an existing benchmark of similar/identical hardware.

With each test, I'll explain why I chose that particular program for testing and try to relate it to how you might practically apply it. I've also broken down the test suites into three categories: CPU, gaming, and battery.

The CPU tests focus strictly on the raw computational power of the processors themselves, and they fall in line with how a computer might typically be used.

The gaming tests I waffled on a bit, but they make sense to me. The graphics parts themselves may not be that comparable, but as the best and brightest of integrated graphics hardware for their respective platforms, they help to paint the big picture of the kind of performance you can expect from buying AMD or Intel.

The battery test is a simple one: how much battery life can you expect out of this notebook in average use?

CPU TEST 1: WINDOWS MEDIA ENCODER 9 (32-BIT)

Windows Media Encoder 9 is a free program from Microsoft that can easily convert most video files into WMV files, which I've found to offer excellent quality in respectable file sizes. Many people prefer DivX and I wouldn't begrudge them that, but I've found Windows Media Encoder 9 preferable for my purposes, and I use it a LOT on the job. This program is one of the two programs I'm using to test the CPU that's multithreaded; this means it will employ both cores of the processor.

For this test, I took a video file I produced for my job and converted it to a Windows Media Video file. The file itself is being converted with no perceptible quality loss.

SPEC	Original File	WMV File
Resolution	720x480	640x480
Type	AVI	WMV
Encoding	Microsoft DV	Windows Media 9 at DVD quality (VBR 2 pass)
Size	1.15GB	93.6MB

The AMD Turion 64 X2 TL-58 converted the file in 17m:34s.

The Intel Core 2 Duo T5250 converted the file in 17m:31s.

At 400MHz slower, the Core 2 Duo still turns in a pretty impressive performance. The two are apparently so close in performance here that it makes sense they would achieve price parity. In regular use, this would be negligible and unnoticeable.

WINNER: Intel Core 2 Duo T5250. (AMD - 0, Intel - 1)

CPU TEST 2: wPRIME 1.55

The program wPrime is the other multithreaded program in my testing suite, and it tests the raw mathematical computational power of each processor. It's also a popular program for stress testing processors to make sure they work properly and error free.

It's more or less the multithreaded successor to the very popular Prime95, so the odd overclocking nerd in the audience will want to look it up when they're overclocking their computers.

For this test I ran the 32M speed benchmark of wPrime in both single and dual threaded (read: utilizing a single core and then both cores) configurations.

CPU	Single	Dual
AMD Turion 64 X2 TL-58	81.089	40.889
Intel Core 2 Duo T5250	106.894	53.805

* Time measured in seconds (lower is better.)

As you can see, the increase in performance going from a single core to both cores is effectively double; most programs will never be this efficient, but a program written to make use of more than one core will still see VERY healthy performance gains (typically between 60% to 80%), particularly multimedia software.

What's notable here is how badly the TL-58 really murders the T5250; that extra 400MHz on the core pays off in spades here.

WINNER: AMD Turion 64 X2 TL-58. (AMD - 1, Intel - 1)

CPU TEST 3: UNREAL TOURNAMENT 2004 (SOFTWARE RENDERING)

A lot of older games can actually run completely independently of the 3D hardware in the computer. While Unreal Tournament 2004 doesn't explicitly let you do this, you can edit a file to force it to run entirely on the CPU. This proves to be a pretty good measure of a processor's more well-rounded performance, since in running Unreal Tournament 2004 entirely on it, all of the game's calculations must be run: physics, AI, sound, and graphics. It's a nice chunk of "everything."

The game was run at the following settings:
640x480, all settings on Normal, all checkboxes checked, shadows on "blob"

For the benchmark, I used the program UMark, a free program available online that really makes it easy to benchmark the game. The benchmark ran on the Inferno map (one of my personal favorites) with twelve bots to help stress the system.

CPU	Avg. FPS	Min. FPS	Max. FPS
AMD Turion 64 X2 TL-58	32	16	72
Intel Core 2 Duo T5250	37	19	87

It bears mentioning that it wasn't that long ago that processors didn't even really have the raw computing power needed to run this game; certainly when the game came out, using the software renderer was a pipe dream and I suspect that's at least part of the reason it was obscured.

Showing how much Intel's gaming performance has improved since the Pentium M era, the Core 2 Duo really punishes the Turion here, maintaining both a smoother framerate and a perceptibly faster average despite the 400MHz clock speed deficit.

WINNER: Intel Core 2 Duo T5250. (AMD - 1, Intel - 2)

CPU TEST 4: DBPOWERAMP 12.3 CD RIPPER

This one should be pretty obvious. While most of you use iTunes or Windows Media Player to rip CDs, I've elected to use a program I've had a lot of good luck with: dbPowerAmp. It's easy to use, well-rounded, and produces quality MP3s.

For this test, I set dbPowerAmp to rip the MP3s at Variable Bit Rate averaging roughly 160kbps, and set the encoding speed to "Slow (High Quality)." I was originally going to rip the newest CD from The Birthday Massacre, "Walking with Strangers," which I highly encourage people who love eighties music to check out, but that CD is enjoying an extended hiatus in the CD player in my car. I picked an alternative favorite, Toad the Wet Sprocket's last true album release, "Coil."

Note that the optical drives in the notebooks are specced out identically, though allow for minor variance in the results due to different brands with the same specifications being used. This is actually really common practice for all of the major manufacturers; the drive I got in my dv2615us may very well be the same one you get in your dv2610us, and vice versa.

The AMD Turion 64 X2 TL-58 ripped the entire CD in 5m:21s.

The Intel Core 2 Duo T5250 ripped the entire CD in 3m:44s.

Those numbers pretty much speak for themselves, and the Core 2 Duo's multimedia performance rears its head here, clocking a full minute and a half faster than the Turion.

WINNER: Intel Core 2 Duo T5250. (AMD - 1, Intel - 3)

GAMING TEST 1: DOOM 3 (OpenGL)

Doom 3 is a favorite of mine, and is going to be my representative for OpenGL games (admittedly a dying breed). It's got an easy-to-use built in benchmark, and it still stresses modern hardware just enough.

As I've mentioned before, the first run of the timedemo in Doom 3 is basically useless since the demo itself caches a lot of stuff on the fly, so I always use the second run after everything's cached. The game was set at 640x480, Low Quality, with shadows disabled. The game was also patched to 1.3.

The AMD Turion 64 X2 TL-58 and GeForce 7150M recorded a framerate of 36 fps.

The Intel Core 2 Duo T5250 and GMA X3100 with hardware shaders recorded a framerate of 11.2 fps.

The Intel Core 2 Duo T5250 and GMA X3100 with software shaders recorded a framerate of 11.6 fps.

Forgive me for being crass, but nVidia has basically made an ass out of Intel here. While Doom 3 is still pretty punishing on any IGP except nVidia's, Intel can't do anything to scrape playability here.

Clearly, the much publicized much improved GMA X3100 is worlds away from what was promised.

WINNER: nVidia GeForce 7150M. (AMD - 2, Intel - 3)

GAMING TEST 2: HALF-LIFE 2 - LOST COAST (DirectX)

In the DirectX 9 corner, we have Half-Life 2: Lost Coast. I actually noodled what to use to represent DirectX for a while, but Half-Life 2 is so stupidly popular, and Lost Coast one of the most system stressing incarnations of it...it just seemed like the right call. It becomes especially relevant since Intel had been really pimping their Half-Life 2 performance back at GDC.

For the benchmark, I used Lost Coast's video stress test. I set the game to 640x480, all settings on high and with full HDR.

The AMD Turion 64 X2 TL-58 and GeForce 7150M recorded a framerate of 39.68 fps.

The Intel Core 2 Duo T5250 and GMA X3100 with hardware shaders recorded a framerate of 18.72 fps.

The Intel Core 2 Duo T5250 and GMA X3100 with software shaders was completely unplayable, less than 1 fps.

The GMA X3100 is having really nasty growing pains, and that's evident here. Fog distance seemed a little bit off in parts of the test, and certain effects that didn't faze the 7150M (like the distorted glass) played havoc on the X3100.

WINNER: nVidia GeForce 7150M. (AMD - 3, Intel - 3)

BATTERY TEST

Believe me, I considered being lazy enough not to include this, but thought better of it. This is one of the major points of contention between the two platforms: which one offers better battery life? So, given similar configurations with the exact same shell, screen, and battery, this seemed like an excellent chance to compare.

To best simulate and maximize the potential battery efficiency of the notebooks, I developed a custom power plan. The screen brightness was set to 20%, wireless networking was enabled, Bluetooth was disabled, and Sleep and Hibernate were both disabled. The screen was also prevented from shutting off. The remainder of the power plan was derived from Vista's "Balanced" plan. With these settings, I let the notebook "sit there" on the desktop with the screen saver running. This is more or less a best case scenario, but if you're just using the computer to take notes in class, this is a good indicator of how far you can stretch the battery without periodically putting it to sleep.

It's also worth mentioning that for the battery tests, I used the original 1GB the notebooks came with, as opposed to the 2GB upgrade. This should have virtually no impact on battery life, as the number of DIMMs in the unit is the same, the capacity is just reduced. If anything, switching to 2GB may improve battery life by a little bit in regular use as the hard drive won't be hit as frequently.

At these settings, the AMD-based dv2610us lasted 2h:58m before entering sleep mode at 5% battery life.

At these settings, the Intel-based dv2615us lasted 4h:05m before entering sleep mode at 5% battery life.

WINNER: Intel Core 2 Duo T5250. (AMD - 3, Intel - 4)

USER EXPERIENCE

I try very hard to be platform agnostic: I'm not a fanboy for either side, and I'll use whatever's the best on the market. That said, I do have certain personal biases. I've generally found in my experience that Intel machines - at least, efficient ones - tend to offer "smoother" performance. It's hard for me to quantify and most people wouldn't know the difference either way. I also personally prefer Intel chipsets. I've found them to be very stable, and their disk controllers have been consistently top notch.

That said, there was a large period of time when nVidia was the de facto standard for performance on the AMD platform. I regret to say that in this case, it feels like nVidia sort of lets down the whole thing. There just isn't that polish, that "it just works" that I've experienced with Intel hardware. Most of this may be due to the depressing performance of the 7150M on Vista's Aero Glass which I referred to in my review of the dv2610us. Apparently, that was the result of the 7150M's power management; the clock speed it scales down to on the desktop is 100MHz, and apparently is just not adequate for running Aero Glass smoothly. I'm not sure who to blame for it, but I'm inclined to blame nVidia. Go 6150 based AMD machines don't share this problem.

Taking the poor Aero Glass performance out of the picture, I've found the Intel based machine to feel snappier and more responsive in general. Of course, if you're not interested in using Vista and want to downgrade to XP, suddenly the AMD unit becomes a lot more attractive. The frugal buyer will likely be able to find the AMD-based dv2610us for around $100 cheaper than its Intel counterpart.

In either case, upgrading the RAM to 2GB should be your top priority. With 2GB of DDR2-667 available in stores for around $50, and on NewEgg for even less, there's just no excuse not to do it, especially if you're running Vista. 2GB of RAM is the sweet spot in XP, and in Vista it's really the minimum to achieve smooth and enjoyable performance. The sweet spot for Vista - at least Vista 32-bit - is probably 3GB, which is impossible in a notebook with only two RAM slots using matched pairs.

Remember that user experience is really key. All the raw horsepower in the world won't help you if you don't find using your machine a comfortable, enjoyable experience.

CONCLUSION

I think if you have to pick between the two, the answer is going to be pretty obvious. Even though the AMD chip in the dv2610us is one of the newer ones that draws less power and dissipates less heat, it still has to run 400MHz faster to even think about keeping up with the Core 2 Duo T5250. Intel's chipsets and processors are, quite honestly, just plain more efficient across the board. At the exact same power settings as the dv2610us, the Intel-based dv2615us lasted more than a full HOUR longer.

Now, that said, the AMD-based unit is cheaper and as far as casual gaming goes, it would get my wholehearted recommendation. The GeForce 7150M is very fast and in practical use I've actually found it to be much more desirable than the Radeon X1200 integrated graphics and Intel's GMA X3100. Remember, you can get an extended battery for HP's dv2000 and dv6000 series in the store, and if you shop right, you can usually pick it up for $100 and nearly double your battery life.

Unfortunately, I've run into a bit of a conundrum as a casual computer and game user, and it has to do specifically with these two notebooks, making it hard to really recommend either one. Here's why:

For the AMD-based dv2610us, I mentioned in my review of that particular notebook that the Vista Aero Glass performance is inexcusably poor, and at present, there is no reasonable fix for it. What appears to have happened is actually pretty clear: the GeForce 7150M's clock speed is locked at 100MHz while running in Vista's desktop, and that just isn't fast enough for Aero Glass. Yet when you look at the battery life numbers, it's pretty clear this was about the only way they were going to get decent battery life out of this notebook. In the future, I honestly expect that at some point, a driver will probably surface that will alleviate this problem. That doesn't do anyone any good in the short term, though, and I'm not interested in buying something because of its "potential." The fact of the matter is that the dv2610us shipped with a real flaw.

For the Intel-based dv2615us, the problem gets a little more complex. First of all, everyone's been playing the waiting game with Intel's GMA X3100, hoping Intel would be able to unlock its actual potential. But it's been ten months since I saw them at GDC, and while I plan to review the part itself in more detail in the future, the fact is that right now, it's just not consistent enough. Framerates fluctuated wildly, and having to edit my registry to optimize it with certain games is frankly unreasonable. While theoretically you may be able to get better performance out of it in some games right now than other IGPs, and while theoretically it will improve over time, this is all theory. I'm not holding it in my hands. I'm not interested in promises, I'm interested in products.

And then there's another issue with the dv2615us. Simply put, you can do better. From HP no less! Right now, for $829, you can order the exact same notebook from them if you configure it yourself. This is before using any coupons, and before students apply their (very easy to get) discount. You'll have to wait a couple weeks for it, but the benefits are obvious: get exactly what you want, take advantage of any deals they offer, and save some green in the process. In fact, for what amounted to about $50 less than I paid in the store, I was able to order the same notebook with a high capacity 6-cell battery, a 2GHz Core 2 Duo, and a dedicated graphics card using a coupon I found on this very site (hint: check the laptop deals button at the top of the screen, it's awesome).

But we're not just talking about these two HP notebooks. In the broader sense, we're talking about AMD vs. Intel, and the situation is grim for AMD. Put simply, Intel's modern technology murders AMD's best and brightest. The only saving graces of the AMD platform are their consistently lower prices and consistently superior integrated graphics for the casual gamers. And that said, while AMD's processors may be "slower" than Intel's, they are by no means slow. The bar for modern hardware is really pretty high, and the average user probably won't even notice the difference.

Of course, if you're not interested in doing any gaming, and you want something that'll last a while on the battery, suddenly AMD's value proposition looks a lot less impressive. If it means spending an extra $50 to get an Intel notebook, I'd have to suggest going with that.

And for the casual gamers, it's important to note that with Dell and HP custom notebook prices so low and constantly seeing coupons and savings, there's really no reason you can't get an inexpensive laptop with dedicated gaming hardware. Even the low man on the modern mobile gaming totem pole right now, the nVidia GeForce 8400M G, is light years better than an integrated part. And once you bring that inexpensive dedicated hardware into the equation, suddenly you wonder why anyone would bother with AMD in the first place.

It's a sad day for AMD, no doubt about it, but remember who benefits from Intel stepping on their head while they're drowning: you, the consumer. Competition between the two has pushed hardware prices lower and lower, and that's only better and better for us. With AMD based notebooks hitting $600 and under, it's incredible you can even get a budget notebook with a dual core processor in it; you shouldn't even settle for anything else at this point.

AMD vs. Intel? It's been bloody, and hopefully in a year this situation will have changed. But right now, I think it's pretty clear who came out on top:

Consumers.

 

Very interesting comparison!!!

By the way I guess wprime is really not that accurate then...

 

Wow. Great article. Although I was wondering why the gaming part was included when this is more dependent on the GPU than anything... This is a processor comparison after all.

 

I never liked wprime. Somehow, I'd get worse scores with a t7300 than some of the t5600s. My score would improve 15-20% by 4 threading. And it doesn't look like it's shows anything relevant in real life apps if the amd's wprime spanked the intels, but the intel outperformed it on the cpu apps.

 

Thanks! This is a very, very good comparison of the 2 processors.

I especially liked "It's pretty clear who came out on top: Consumers"

Very nicely done.

 

I think it's because no one is going to just get an AMD or Intel processor and just look at it sitting on their desk. The processor is part of the whole computer, and the default integrated graphics on Intel-based notebooks is always going to be Intel's own chipset ... and the most common integrated graphics option found on AMD notebooks is nVidia.

So, when you're comparing AMD vs. Intel you have to consider the integrated graphics each uses. If not, you're missing a HUGE element of the "real life" user experience.

 

I totally agree with consumers coming out on top. I'm not so much worried that Intel beats AMD and vice versa. For me, it's about cost. At one time, Intel chips were getting beat by AMD. Now, Intel is on top. They will keep hopscotching each other and that's fine as long as I can get a great system at a cheap price.

 

This seems to prove what I've been saying for a while, that clock for clock Intel are better but $ for $ they're pretty evenly matched. Personally, I'd take the X2 version just for the 7150 over the X3100, but that's the only reason. Were it 7150 for both and the only difference was the cpu I'd have the Intel, mainly because of the vast difference in battery life. I really didn't realise the difference was that big!

 

Very nice writeup! + Rep and + Respect

 

I can't ignore author's writting style - it's truly engaging - making it for an interesting read regardless of what is being written. Competition is a beautiful thing that works wonders for us, consumers. I don't have loyalty to a particular brand, thus, I chose the winner - Intel. Be it still true the next time when I shop for my next lappy, i don't know, but if it is the AMD that stomps on Intel's head, I would be perfectly fine with that. BTW- check my sig, DV6000z just didn't cut it

 

Totally agree. The topic was interesting in itself, but the way it was written was what kept me reading. Engaging indeed.

Funny, I thought AMD owned ATI.

Seriously though, I guess there is a point. Maybe if AMD/ATI made their own chipsets and IGP, I wouldn't mind the gaming part. It would've been pure Intel vs AMD then. But I digress.

 

Thanks for the very informative review. I wasn't surprised Intel wiped the floor with AMD. Personally, I think the review on the gaming performance is more of an Intel vs nVidia. Other than that, it was a great review.

 

Thus, this is not an Intel vs AMD mobile processor review. This is an Intel vs AMD integrated platform review.

A processor comparison should have two setups as close as possible. The picture is very different if we look at $1500-2000 notebooks with discrete graphics. In which case, Intel's Core 2 Duo pulls further away as the best choice.

 

Good review. For me I felt I made the right choice due to the better gaming performance. Though I would not have minded better battery life I tend to be tethered 90% of the time. I feel the author did they best they could given how hard it is to benchmark two processors for laptops due to the whole Mobile Platform idea.

 

Yea the 7150M definitely > x3100 which makes the AMD processor a better choice if your looking for integrated graphics and playing some older games.

Battery life/processing power definitely goes to the intel system though.

 

That's ironic since AMD owns ATI.

 

Hopefully AMD can get their game together and recover their losses. Ive not got a preference for AMD over Intel (my current PC has a C2D E6600, my last had an AMD 3800 X2).

However, competition is good for everybody it and strengthens the market by forcing companies to try to outdo one another. Personally, I'm hoping AMD is able to push back a clear winner in their graphics market especially. I think it would be the easiest route for them to regain market dominance.

 

LOL, no no, its accurate. See AMD is well known for creating really powerful calculators. wPrime with AMD is always much faster than Intel, but rarely in other applications does AMD win. AMD has more built in operators onto the chip, for calculations than does Intel, but most applications don't use these operators any more. Most applications have a different "intuitive" approach to programing, that Intel has adapted to and has now long abolished the more archaic systems from the processors, and has a much more efficient architecture based on their Processor-Memory interaction, along with all other system components.

AMD has made and has been making its own succesful chipsets for a while. Just manufacturers prefer to use the cheaper chipsets from Intel, Nvidia, and ATI. After they purchased ATI, they came out with the RS690, which integrates the ATI X1200, based on the X700 chipset from previous.

I agree with you, I prefer what has more value. Currently thats Intel. At one point it was AMD. If AMD can get new managment, they might be able tor regain market share. What ever company can offer me better for cheaper thats what I go with.

[Moderator's Message: Next time, please don't triple post; instead, use the Edit button. Thanks!]

 

Nice Writeup as always pulp. Intel really slays AMD CPU wise...

Rafiki6, Don't tripple post, next time use the multi-quote functionality and make one post.

 

is it not possible to get an intel chip w/ nvidia integrated graphics?

 

I do that, for some reason vBulletin is messing up with my account. It happened to me on another thread too.

 

Oh. Sorry.

 

Just one comment. They did. There was an article some years ago about the price wars that Intel and AMD got into (when AMD was by far cheaper to buy), and eventually AMD had to stop because they admitted they couldn't afford the price cuts any more.

 

Thanks for the clarification. So will it be more accurate to say that wprime is not accurate at reflecting real life performance?

 

Wasn't this an unfair battery test? A dedicated graphics card uses more power than an integrated one.

 

7150M is not dedicated.

 

both were intergrated cards on different processors. great review, although im still proud of my AMD, 4second difference is negliable

 

Dustin, thanks for great comparison. However I found some strange comment.

> Even though the AMD chip in the dv2610us is one of the
> newer ones that draws less power and dissipates less
> heat, it still has to run 400MHz faster to even think
> about keeping up with the Core 2 Duo T5250. Intel's
> chipsets and processors are, quite honestly, just plain
> more efficient across the board. At the exact same
> power settings as the dv2610us, the Intel-based
> dv2615us lasted more than a full HOUR longer.

First of all -- how CPU that consumes more power can last longer? It is contradiction, so this is Intel (CPU+board, and in laptops that is what really counts) that consumes less power, not AMD, right?

The second -- how can you tell that AMD has to run 400MHz faster? What is MHz in CPU speed? Just a number. Sticker on the box. The only thing that counts is price and speed. The other thing is marketing -- I could say also that Intel had to put some more cache to keep up with AMD. Or they had to put extra jump predictions to keep up with AMD. Does it make Intel look bad? Not at all.

I don't care what which company had to do in order to produce their CPUs. Performance / price -- it is all that counts. And such comment about clock speed suggest that Intel is way ahead, and you could get those 400MHz more from Intel just for asking.

I would choose Intel as I did before, because of battery life and heat (maybe you add additional section about it? I am really suspicious if AMD is really a winner here) but I just wanted to point out that above comment is not precise and can be seen as unfair.

Thank you once again, have a nice day, bye

 

Pulp this is a great write-up and a solid comparison of both Intel and AMD. My prime concern is that while the consumer may gain in the short run, in the long run this price war may kill AMD (at least in the mobile processing market) ultimately hurting the consumer. As a friend of mine says in a joking manner, "AMD's sales are less than Intel's R&D budget" which to a large extent is quite true. If Intel continues to beat AMD in the laptop processor marketplace either one of two things will happen:

1.) AMD stops making processors for the laptop market and shifts most of its resources towards servers (where they have done a respectable job...their Opteron chip garnered a LOT of notoriety and publicity over Intel's chips) as they have a greater competitive advantage in that market.

2.) AMDs chips continue to get increasingly worse relative to Intel's (since they cannot justify all the R&D they spend on the laptop processors and cut back) thereby allowing Intel to charge a significant premium over AMD chips.

Nonetheless, in the short run we will all benefit. Yay consumers

 

if AMD loses out Intel may jack the prices up they will be ultimately the only processors on the market. =/ bad for us consumers.

AMD has to gets its act together and at least be on Par with Intel. it could have been possible that my amd laptop which lasts for a solid 2 hours couldve lasted 3hrs with an intel chip tsk2x

 

I think that would be the more accurate statement.

The higher clock rate explains the better wPrime performance, but it does not necessarily translate to better real life performance.

 

When I bought my laptop I had to choose between ASUS F3Ka and ASUS F3Sr.
The differences were:
1. T7250 2GHZ vs Turion x64 2GHZ
2. X2400 (Intel) vs HD 2600 (AMD)
3. HDD 160GB (Intel) vs 250GB (AMD)
4. AMD system were 30$ cheaper.

I didn't see any reason I should get Intel system because I wouldn't notice any difference between those processors on everyday work especially if the build quality of both systems are the same. Other components in AMD system for almost identical price were better and I don't make my decisions on processors only...

For extra 150$ I could get F3Sr with 250GB but I would stick with x2400 anyway.
For extra 500$ I could get F3Sv with T7500 2,2GHZ, HD 2600, 250GB,
WXGA+

 

wouldnt a better chipset help AMD? plus there's still a $50 price gap to make the systems competitive. Maybe a 2.0 ghz X2?

That is what AMD is trying to do. Push similarly performing cpu in Intel's price range. But they need a better chipset which even their new AMD/ATI product hasnt been able to achieve.

I am not biased but I am sure AMD is a nice VFM proposition. But if I am looking for a good performance pc.........

 

I agree with all of your comments about how the processor should not be the determining factor in a notebook purchase. I also think AMD's presence in the market is necessary to keep Intel on their toes and prices down. But lets not forget that this write up was comapring two nearly identical systems, for processor performance. This shows that AMD currently is not leading since an AMD Turion X2 Tl-58 at 1.9 GHz was compared with an Intel Core 2 Duo T5250 at 1.5 GHz was compared.

One thing to note is that the Intel processor has a larger L2 cache which can increase performance by about 10-20% per MB, since it brings down the efforts of the processor, versus the AMD's 1 MB cache or 512 KB per core.

 

all tests are biased toward the amd processor and not towards the intel processors larger cache.
No dual core tests. real life consumers are going to be much happier with a intel cpu.

 

Great write-up, Pulp! Interesting to read and very informative with a lot of content that actually matters to people in day-to-day use.

Reminds me a bit of [H]'s writing style and format; I wish more articles and reviews were written this way.

 

Thanks for this very useful review. The test results provide some substance for the debate over which is better.

John

 

I'm afraid of that. AMD's market cap is under $5B, and they paid $5B for ATI.
Intel is going to come out with Nehalem in 2009, and it seems a killer architecture, with an on chip memory controller and many other improvements. Anyone know if AMD has a worthy competitor to Nehalem ?

 

I would've bought the AMD as well if I were in that same situation. Better graphics and better price, why the hell would I buy the Intel? Sure AMD is slower but I'm not going to encode video or whatever processor intensive tasks there are. For the most part, AMD processors should be fast enough for daily tasks and probably even gaming.

Anyway, I agree we don't [or maybe shouldn't] make our decisions based on processors only. But most of the time, it's systems with Intel that come with great performance options and better price-performance ratio. That deal of yours is kind of rare, actually.

 

Nice review Pulp, that was a great read. It's good that we have some solid benchmarks to fall back on when we are asked to defend a processor choice.

Personally, I would buy either processor. I would decide based on the internal components and battery life and pick the one that has the best combo.

 

I've had several of the AMD dual core & the Intel. An AMD is simply not usable for any type of mobile use, since it runs out the battery in nothing flat.

 

I appreciate the compliment. While I try to avoid HardOCP and would be quick to discourage anyone from visiting it due to Kyle Bennett's gross unprofessionalism and general tendency towards being a dick (and before anyone jumps on me for saying it's unprofessional to mention - I write articles every so often freelance for NBR, Kyle's HOCP's editor in chief), I really respect and appreciate how they put together a lot of their articles. It's not just raw data, it's practical information. I was really skeptical at first when they made the switch, but it seems to have been the right call. I'll openly admit I'm emulating their style, especially where gaming is concerned, because frankly...what's more useful to you? "This card got 1752 3DMarks in 06" or "This card will run Far Cry at 1280x800 High Details"?

 

@ masterchef341

It's not impossible, just not common.

Intel still markets the whole "Centrino" thing, which is an Intel CPU, Intel chipset (and integrated GPU), and Intel wireless card. This has been a great marketing point for Intel. Instead of just selling a CPU, they add in their own chipset and wireless too. Intel seems to do fine on the chipset side (although their integrated GPU is still lacking), but I'm not a fan of their wireless cards at all. Still you rarely find and Intel machine without Intel chipset and wireless, because then manufacturer can't sell it "Centrino".

A direct CPU to CPU comparison is pretty though any more because they will always be on seperate chipsets. When you start looking at similarly priced CPU's, Intel pretty much blows AMD away. When you add in chipset and wireless it does end up being much closer price-performance wise.

Looking just at CPU's, AMD Turion X2's are priced close to Intel Core 2 5xxx series. (i.e. for ~$200 you can get either an AMD TL-58 (1.9GHz) or an Intel T5450/5470 (1.6GHz). AMD has about 300MHz on Intel, but would still get betten in most real world performance.

Once you build out an entire system though AMD gets more competative. I can build out an AMD TL-58 system for about $600. For the same money on an Intel system you'll have to drop down to a T5270 (1.4GHz) or Pentium Dual Core T2310 (1.46 GHz with half the cache and lower FSB). Once you drop to the lower end Intel chips, AMD is pretty competative performance wise, but you'll still get better battery life on an Intel system. A TL-58 will be pretty close to a T5270, and will generally beat an T2310.

 

The article was good as many on this discussion noted, but I thought the x3100 was unfairly represented in gaming performance. The Vista drivers still have issues which cause extremely low frame rates. If the comparison had been done on XP, I would not be surprised if performance tripled. (I noticed that myself when switching from Vista -> Xp)

 

I really have to disagree, and it's for a couple reasons:

1. I'm not deliberately picking best case scenarios for the hardware.

2. 99% of notebooks shipping today ship with Vista. Vista is the platform to be testing on.

3. If Intel can't get their crap together on Microsoft's flavor of the day, I'm not going to freaking reformat both of these laptops to XP and hunt down drivers just so I can give the X3100 a fighting chance.

 

That's the thing though. People are buying Vista laptops, not laptops that have the option of XP or Vista. That's what people forget. You can load XP, but the laptop wasn't "designed" for it.

Alternatively, I bought my Alienware with Vista and was disappointed with its performance. I went back to XP, and got huuuge gains. Every manufacturer is having problems eeking out strong performance in Microsoft's Flavor of the Day. A new OS should not be slower and less responsive.

And for the record, I've been running an XP/Vista dualboot with Business since Vista was released.

 

It's been my experience that with recent drivers, both nVidia and ATI's parts have performance parity with XP now. And I don't disagree: a new OS should not be slower and less responsive. But that's pretty much been the pattern with Microsoft's stuff anyhow.

 

Excellent review. I like your conclusion. Who won in the AMD vs Intel battle this year? The consumer. But I will probably have to disagree that comparing OEM notebooks can be an accurate budget comparison between the two.

Unless you are purchasing the processor itself (as an end-user system builder), you can't really see where exactly your money is going to. There are plenty more things going on behind the OEM pricing curtain (HP in this case) than just a choice of an AMD processor and an Intel processor. When I compare the price erformance of an AMD notebook to an Intel notebook, I can't really see anything in more detail than just a system.

Only when you build it yourself do you see the true value of a processor, because you know how much you paid for the processor, and you see the results of its performance.

Anyway, back to the conclusion of the article: To me, I could care less whether AMD or Intel comes out on top. My loyalties are to myself. What matters is that through all the bloodshed, I profit! That sounds greedy, but I would probably be classified as a budget performance computer enthusiast. I limited my notebook and desktop budgets to $450 when I upgraded this year. Four years from now, I expect to see that number drop, even in these times when the value of the US dollar seems to be plummeting.

So it's good to see balanced competition, but it can arguably be even better when one is smashing the other into the ground, because the one being beat up will be the first to slash prices.

Great article, and a great writing style. Can't wait to read more of your work.

 

I have seen the turion paired with the ATI radeon xpress 1150....
To me either this or the x3100 would be fine with me....I would rather game on a console than a computer. I use my laptop for lots of projects, but none graphic intense....so I'm kinda lucky to not need a super powerfull gpu...
but yes you are right about amd/ati...
Interesting article though...

 

Oh, a fun FYI. There's an LG and a Samsung that has X1250 and C2D CPU's (LG E300 and Samsun R20).