The Register Finds Fault In Turion Benchmark Setup 266
An anonymous reader submits "From The Register, it appears that AMD has joined Intel, ATI, nVidia, and just about every other hardware manufacturer on the planet in benchmark fiddling. The benchmarks for the Turion appear to have been compared using quite different systems - a 35 watt Turion 64 with an ATI GPU versus a 25 watt Pentium M with an Intel integrated graphics processor. Sadly, it appears the original benchmarks were too good to be true."
Strage Focus (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Strage Focus (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Strage Focus (Score:2)
No. Low power consumption, which is primarily what the M has over the regular P4, is good for lots of things:
1) Higher cpu density rack servers
2) Quieter system cooling (less air to move, fans spin slower & quieter)
3) Less elaborate cooling - better for semi-embedded type uses, such as in a car-pc or "tv set-top box" where high-power cooling systems are not feasible because of space constraints.
Re:Strage Focus (Score:5, Interesting)
The Pentium-M can't keep up with the high end P4's (Score:4, Informative)
I looked at the benchmarks and they definitely *do not* beat the high-end P4's consistently.
The Pentium-M compares to the P4 much the same way that the old Cyrix chips compared to a Pentium- they do well on non-CPU intensive tasks such as Microsoft word and internet explorer, but the weak FPU hinders its raw performance in CPU hungry tasks. The Pentium-M's floating point performance is slightly better than half of the high end P4's.
When you design a chip to be low power, you have to make tradeoffs. Intel designed a pretty efficient chip that delivers good performance for the amount of wattage it consumes, but it shouldn't be confused with more powerful desktop chips. It does well in light applications that aren't really CPU hungry and won't bog the processor.
Anandtech did a pretty thorough review of the Pentium-M and how it compares to desktop chips.
"As a mobile processor, the Pentium M cannot be beat - we've actually seen why, even in this comparison today. With a highly power optimized architecture, the Pentium M continues to deliver performance that is competitive with other mobile CPUs on the market. The problem is that in the transition to the desktop world, its competitors get much more powerful, while the Pentium M is forced to live within its mobile constraints."
http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx
Re:Strage Focus (Score:5, Funny)
That's because it's a online tabloid.
Re:Strage Focus (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Strage Focus (Score:2)
If you prefer Intel processors, then the real reason to buy a Pentium M is because you want better battery life than a Pentium 4. You respect the fact that you're taking a performance hit (though not a colossal one) in order to get better battery life. There are other advantages to a Pentium M, but the real one is battery life. If you're gonna be off the cord a lot, then you want a Pentium M.
A
*waves his hand* (Score:3, Funny)
Re:*waves his hand* (Score:3, Funny)
Re:*waves his hand* (Score:5, Funny)
It all starts with benchmark fiddling. . . (Score:5, Funny)
Re:It all starts with benchmark fiddling. . . (Score:3, Funny)
It's only when the benchmarks are nothing to trumpet about that we start to get the fiddling
Re:It all starts with benchmark fiddling. . . (Score:2, Funny)
Re:It all starts with benchmark fiddling. . . (Score:2)
Pun probably intended. Fiddling, fiddle, violin, viola...
(il la viola)
But seriously, who still uses passé simple? It's simply so out of date.
Re:It all starts with benchmark fiddling. . . (Score:2)
It is not "viola", it's "voila" (voilà).
Hooray for not getting the joke! It provides as much humour as the joke itself
hint: http://dict.die.net/viola/ reference 3
Re:It all starts with benchmark fiddling. . . (Score:5, Funny)
Please, we geeks are non-violent people. Where's all this sax and violins coming from?
Re:It all starts with benchmark fiddling. . . (Score:3, Funny)
There's a reason AMD is scared (Score:4, Insightful)
But hell, in the desktop market they're kings, and everybody knows that. It's too bad they had to resort to benchmark fixing for a mobile processor.
Re: Reading Comprehension (Score:2, Informative)
Not "one-third of".
Re:There's a reason AMD is scared (Score:2)
What does it speed step down to?
My last Centrino laptop got decent battery life, but only by stepping down to something pitiful like 533 MHz. I was constantly overriding it to stop it going glacial on me.
*Anything* can last a long time if you slow it down enough.
Re:There's a reason AMD is scared (Score:2)
Re:There's a reason AMD is scared (Score:2)
Re:There's a reason AMD is scared (Score:5, Informative)
Re:There's a reason AMD is scared (Score:2, Informative)
Re:There's a reason AMD is scared (Score:2, Informative)
Even using it for real world useage. [By which I assume you mean; running JBoss, and Eclispe with Safari, Mail, and Word also open while listening to Internet Radio with iTunes over my 802.11g wireless connection
I do keep the screen turned down. I find that it is just too bright normally anyway. And, of course, it is only a 12 inch screen.
Just my personal experience.
Perhaps I am just a lucky apple bunny?
Re:There's a reason AMD is scared (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:There's a reason AMD is scared (Score:2)
Re:There's a reason AMD is scared (Score:2)
Hello, mr Polly Parrot! I've got some fresh bananas for you! Awakey-wakey!
Re:There's a reason AMD is scared (Score:2)
From the article: "The answer is that the battery life isn't so good," Reynolds said, adding that Turion-powered systems could have up to one-third less battery life than laptops running on Intel's ultra low voltage products.
In other words, if your Pentium-M gives you 5 hours, your Turion will give you 3 hours and 20 minutes.
It would've been better if the nice editors at TheRegister reformatted the line to "two thirds of the battery life of laptop
Realisticaly (Score:5, Insightful)
Why wouldn't they? (Score:5, Insightful)
They make some of the best chips on the market. Doesn't keep them from being 'just another business'.
Re:Why wouldn't they? (Score:5, Insightful)
(Obviously not enough, though.)
Re:Why wouldn't they? (Score:2)
But I am still trying to imagine them in a lab slapping a refrence system together.
Custom power supply, etc.
I'm sure the power pull will be ok, I guess I'm just a fanboy rooting for my team but I think their fudging remains to be seen.
Nvidia 5800 fudging was ugly but if the 9700 had hit while the GeForce 3 was still shipping we would all have been screaming fudging murder.
Pentium M is a unique and badass architechture, but it lends itself to benchmark fudg
Re:Why wouldn't they? (Score:2)
Only in the long term. Investors, however, want short-term profits.
That depends on your investor. (Score:2)
That's not the way it used to be, though, and not everyone takes that view. Implying that all investors -- and all investment companies -- are alike in their outlook is misleading.
Re:Why wouldn't they? (Score:3, Insightful)
According to the article, their laptop processor beat out the intel processor only by a 'small margin'. They have to release benchmark press releases, so, being a business interested in profit, they stack things.
They make some of the best chips on the market. Doesn't keep them from being 'just another business'.
The problem is that when they stack things, it backfires. If they just presented the benchmarks as they really should be, everyone would be fine with the fact that the Turion has slightly better
How much does power consumption differ here? (Score:4, Interesting)
*shrugs* Then again, AMD might just be flat out decieving on the benchmarks because they are thinking of their shareholders rather than their customers.
--
Free iPod? Try a free Mac Mini [freeminimacs.com]
Or a free Nintendo DS, GC, PS2, Xbox [freegamingsystems.com]
Wired article as proof [wired.com]
Re:How much does power consumption differ here? (Score:5, Informative)
Processors hardly ever actually eat this much power, especially mobile processors that have C-states, underclocking, and undervolting to save power. My laptop has a 62W Athlon 64 in it, but under light load I can run the whole system on 22W or so.
Then there is the whole problem that the AMD chips have onboard memory controllers while the Intels don't, the question of how much performance gets lost when the processor underclocks, etc., etc.
Re:How much does power consumption differ here? (Score:2)
Re:How much does power consumption differ here? (Score:2)
As a sidenote, on the Athlon 64 the internal memory controller doesn't scale with the processor -- all the scaling is done by fiddling with the multiplier.
Re:How much does power consumption differ here? (Score:2, Informative)
personally, I can't imagine why anyone cares. laptops are for portability and speed is nearly irrelevant (my PIII/733 is plenty). if you really want a desktop in a quiet, tidy formfactor, why would you care about battery life?
Re:How much does power consumption differ here? (Score:2)
IMHO, we could see just the same benefit if we outfitted everyone with Mac Minis. For me, that would be even better since the mini could fit in my briefcase, so I wouldn't have to carry a second bag around.
overestimating the public? (Score:4, Interesting)
This kind of trickery in the benchmark game does little for the vendor.
I have to disagree with this one. Fudging benchmarks almost always helps the vendor, except with very specialized (/.) audiences.
Remember, most people just see a bunch of random numbers when they shop for laptops, and compare processors based on GHz. They're more likely to read a blurb (or hear from the salesperson) that Turion outperforms it's competitors than they are to search blogs about the truth to the claim.
Now, by making enough of a fuss over this, we can create negative publicity, but why rag on AMD when, as the article states, all the other companies have set precedent?
Re:overestimating the public? (Score:2, Funny)
There's no such thing as negative publicity.
Signed,
AMD Publicist.
Re:overestimating the public? (Score:2)
Slashdotters and hardware site readers are the guerrilla marketers of the computer industry.
I do say we wait until they ship a system before we get up in arms but if they HAD to fudge it and if they spread lies they are faster, well then they'd be lies and we should go for the jugular.
2 cents.
Prevalent (Score:5, Interesting)
For example, Half-Life 2 is a very popular game. If nVidia starts messing with their drivers to run HL2 better, but ATI does not, then guess who HL2 fans are going to buy from?
I know -- the case mentioned in this article is completely different and not a useful change -- but it just got me thinking about past occurances.
It seems like drivers for GPUs should be able to run well in general, and applications should be catered to them, rather than the other way around, but I guess it's just not a viable option.
Re:Prevalent (Score:4, Interesting)
And this is, of course, just another one of the many wonderful reasons why graphics drivers should but never will be opened up.
And give us the goddamn specs, you bastards! Part of the reason ISAs (it'd still be an ISA, even though a GPU is not really a CPU, right?) exist is so that one does not need to know the microarchitecture to use the damn hardware!
This kind of crap has to stop.
Re:Prevalent (Score:2)
Instead of joining 'em, beat 'em.
Re:Prevalent (Score:2)
Nice. (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Nice. (Score:3, Funny)
Fruit (Score:3, Funny)
Actualy there's a bigger one (Score:5, Interesting)
I wonder how it will perform with 64-bit linux. Well, I'm going to see when some brand name shows up with Turion in his higher class.
Re:Actualy there's a bigger one (Score:2)
Re:Actualy there's a bigger one (Score:3, Insightful)
My NewCastle 3200+ sits idling at 1Ghz most of the day [except when issuing a build or playing a game] and roasts at a blistering
My P4 [Northwood 2.8Ghz] would idle at a reduced clockrate (as low as cpuspeedy w
Total power use comparison? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Total power use comparison? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Total power use comparison? (Score:5, Informative)
It does contain the memory controller. There does not exist an AMD64 chip without one. It's an integral part of the design.
I really don't see the problem here. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:I really don't see the problem here. (Score:2)
Re:I really don't see the problem here. (Score:2)
Re:I really don't see the problem here. (Score:4, Insightful)
In which case it is totally a valid comparison, and The Register has made itself look stupid yet again. Maybe when ATI release their integrated graphics chipset for Intel there will be an opportunity for a closer comparison of the two platforms.
AMD do offer a 25W 1.8GHz Turion, and that includes the memory controller part of the northbridge, which possibly makes up for the fact that Intel chipsets are quite efficient power wise - I don't know how good the ATI chipset is in regards to power consumption however. Maybe all this means is that AMD think that their 35W Turion is a match for a 27W Pentium-M + the memory and bus units on the Intel chipset, especially given that Intel use TYPICAL TDP and AMD use MAX TDP in their TDP measurements.
Also, The Register article wittered on about ULV Pentium Ms, forgive me if I am incorrect, but an ULV P-M runs at 1.1GHz, maybe 1.2 or 1.3 now, and has way lower power consumption because of this limitation (16W?). It isn't surprising that an ULV P-M will run longer than a 25W or 35W TDP processor, sheesh!
Looking at both specifications I think they are reasonably fair. The P-M had more memory bandwidth and L2 cache available for example.
TDP is relative (Score:5, Informative)
Intel shows it's thermal design power (TDP) at 27 watts for the 2Ghz chip, while AMD shows 35 watts. This is, however, an apples to oranges comparison. Intel's Prescott P4 at 2.8Ghz has a TDP of 89 watts, the same as an Athlon64 2800+. But according to this link [silentpcreview.com], the P4 will actually draw 179 watts compared to the Athlon's 115. So, if the "marketing delta" holds true for the mobile line as well, we can expect the AMD solution rated at 35 watts to use roughly 45 watts of power at load, while the "27-watt" Pentium M will take 54 watts.
According to TFA, Turion notebooks might have 1/3 the battery life of Intel's Ultra Low voltage products. Now, Intel has a separate line of ultra-low-voltage Pentium M's, not to be confused with normal Pentium M's. The ultra low voltage Pentium Ms are only available at 1-1.2 Ghz, Turion's bottom out at 1.6 Ghz. So it's not a fair comparison. Regardless, with the power taken from the LCD and hard drives and stuff, I doubt it's even possible for an ultra low voltage Pentium M having 3 times the battery life of a Turion using the same battery.
Re:TDP is relative (Score:2, Informative)
did you RTFA you linked to? (Score:2)
The power draw on SPCR was for _whole_ _systems_ built around those CPUs. They even say they include the:
- PSU, which probably accounts for some 30%+ of the total power draw. And here's the fun part: the PSU efficiency is not constant, but depends on the load. So did it contribute more or less to the P4 systems than to the A64 ones?
- IBM
Re:TDP is relative (Score:3, Insightful)
1. Total digits of pi calculated.
2. Total seconds of mp3 encoded.
3. Total minutes of DVD played.
4. Total number of frames rendered in some 3D project.
etc.
Then we don't fight over how many watts this model uses and the various tradeoffs involved. If it uses less power it will have more time to work. If it goes faster it will get more done in less time. Give the consumer all the numbers and he can figure out wheth
So? (Score:4, Insightful)
It would certainly have been less misleading to use an Intel laptop with a similar video card at least, but it isn't like you are going to see these benchmarks on television ads or anything. I doubt any big buyers will care about benchmarks of pre-release products anyway.
Granted, this is rather shady of AMD, but it doesn't even approach the raw evil of, say, a company joining BAPCO and systematically removing all benchmarks in their Sysmark tool in which AMD wins [storagereview.net]. No, that would be unprecedented in this industry's history.
It's also noteworthy that TheRegister has a partnership with Tom's Hardware in the U.S., and some editors of Tom's have been noted as being overtly biased towards Intel, though Tom's itself seems to be getting better, having articles like the used to--real tech info rather than the sensationalized, poorly written crap which had infested my once favorite hardware site.
Granted, both AMD and Intel are "evil" for-profit companies, but something like an unfair benchmark hardly brings tears to the eye when you consider some of the staggering bullshit actions of the past.
What it all comes down to is preference--The Turion is going to be a 64-bit chip (isn't it?) with the benefits of AMD64 mode (most of which involve the fact that it has double the general-purpose registers in the chip, and not from the fact that those registers are 64-bits wide). The Turion will likely outperform the Pentium-M in most test, like the Athlon64.
The Pentium-M, however, will perform just fine thankyou, and will drain less battery power and thus be in cooler-running laptops with better battery life.
I'd pick the Pentium-M myself, since to choose a product based on anything other than overall effectiveness/price ratio set is usually either fanboyism or poor research.
Re:So? (Score:2, Interesting)
No shit, Sherlock!
I always thought TheRegister was really cozy with Intel too. Especially Ashlee Vance, who seems to be a real Intel fanboy.
Do you remember how they always gave Intel's IA-64 processor a really easy ride - by calling it a cute name like "Itanic" and running suck-up stories like Itanic: Enron's Golden Albatross [theregister.com], Dell 1 [theregister.co.uk]
Seen it before... (Score:5, Interesting)
Games especailly are bound to the video card in terms of performance.
Fair?
Yeah, right.
different type of fiddling than ATI/nVidia (Score:4, Interesting)
Technically AMD didn't falsify their benchmarks by disabling certain features. They just chose a easier opponent to fight with. (sorta like when one picks a fight with someone that looks way weaker than you to guarantee you a win).
What I find weird benchmarks usually don't just give out percentages, but actual figures. Like # of flops per second, etc. I'm not sure if any other graphs were provided, but from the links that were in the opening topic, they were all percentages. If the benchmark had listed actual results, it would've been easier to do actual comparisons with other cpus which were not benchmarked against.
Saying all that, I don't believe AMD falsified any information (unlike nVidia or ATI). What they did was purely comparing a weaker opponent. Sorta like taking the ATI Radeon 9800 and comparing it to the nVidia Geforce MX440. But comparisons like that do exist when you do a wide range of benchmarking. That's why I always make sure I know what the heck is being benchmarked or else, it'd be just throwing #s at me. It's nice that newer benchmarks tell you if higher is better or if lower is better. Sometimes it's quite easy to get confused on if something w/ a higher # is better or not.
The article more flawed than the benchmarks? (Score:5, Informative)
"The answer is that the battery life isn't so good," Reynolds said, adding that Turion-powered systems could have up to one-third less battery life than laptops running on Intel's ultra low voltage products.
Turion is not an ultra low voltage CPU and does not claim to be. Guess why Intel's ultra low voltage products are ultra low voltage products? It's because their clock speed is limited to a mere 1.2GHz so the voltage can be lowered to reduce power consumption and increase battery life. Had AMD compared the 2GHz Turion to a ULV 1.2GHz Pentium M, yes, Turion battery life would be lower, but AMD's benchmarks would have been a legitimate 50+% higher.
two things (Score:4, Funny)
McDonald's has a sandwich called the big'n'tasty. Does this mean that I will soon be able to get my McAthlon with fries (and greasy thermal paste on top)?
I don't know about you, but I think the future will taste delicious!
Secondly, (and more seriously) does this question the validity of the performance their other products, such as athlon64? Or have those other lines of products so far been tested true?
It makes me concerned because I was dumb enough to spend more money than I should've on an athlon64 3400+ (I should've waited until the price dropped. But, I really wanted it!)
In any case, I still prefer athlons over pentiums.
That register hack is FOS (Score:4, Insightful)
They are both absolute base systems that share clockspeed, memory and price.
It's not like we are comparing G4s to P4s here.
As for power consumption, had he bothered to actually dive into the whitepapers, he would find that particular Turion at 35 w while the Pentium M is 27.
No mention is made of the Turions available at 25w.
But he does mention the 9 watt Pentium M that runs at half the clockspeed taking it completely out of this class.
Mentions the 35,27 and 9 but not 25.
No, no, that might be a favorable data point.
Might as well be a Fox Spinner.
Review fiddling (Score:5, Insightful)
From the article, "An AMD spokeswoman insisted the company picked 'the most comparable offering from the competitor' that it could find, even though it didn't actually do that."
Well, AMD doesn't make any integrated graphics solutions, and the Radeon Xpress 200 series is one of the only integrated graphics options available. Benchmarks of the Radeon Xpress 200 can be found in this(http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc
AMD rigging benchmarks? Maybe. But the proposition that AMD did not choose the closest video to Intel's offering -- that it had availale -- is false.
The more sensational the report, the more hits the Register will recieve. It is ironic that while chastising AMD for fiddling benchmarks to sell more units, it fiddles with rhetoric to increase popularity.
(I type this at a Pentium M laptop, this is not AMD fanboyism)
Re:Review fiddling (Score:2)
Re:Review fiddling (Score:2)
I'm not too worried... (Score:5, Interesting)
AMD has made some major headway in the mobile processor market and I believe they will continue making improvements. Just look what they did with desktop processors and look what they have already done with their mobile processors. Its unfortunate that the test setup was flawed, but the 'centrino' package is being pushed very hard in advertising. I'm not trying to make any excuses, and I admit that I haven't done much research since I got my notebook, but are there many notebooks offered with the 25 watt pentium-M that isn't centrino based?
Not fiddling when compare any two chips (Score:5, Insightful)
Does this mean that it's "fiddling" to compare a high wattage Prescott core Pentium 4 with a lower
wattage Athlon 64?
Would it be "fiddling" if you matched laptop wattage overall? (The P-M needs more support chips after all). Would it be "fiddling" if you matched chips based on equal price? Would it be "fiddling" if you matched laptops based on equal weight?
No. The comparison of the chips is fair.. AMD wasn't being deceptive about which chips they were comparing. The price, weight, frequency, cache size, wattage, and instruction set support of both chips are not secret.
The Register is just making noise to get notice and readers.
Re:Not fiddling when compare any two chips (Score:2)
Will someone PLEASE edit the parent?!! (Score:4, Insightful)
One way or the other (Score:2)
"The answer is that the battery life isn't so good," Reynolds said, adding that Turion-powered systems could have up to one-third less battery life than laptops running on Intel's ultra low voltage products.
so this Gartner analyst is trying to shift from the 25W pentium M that is often benchmarked to the 5W ULV one
35W CPU+memory vs 27W CPU + ??W memory (Score:2, Informative)
hmm not a big deal (Score:2)
Not an AMD fanboy for the record
The Register has it wrong (Score:3, Insightful)
The stuff in the article about battery life is simply rubbish - even if you assume that the P-M combo is only 30W in total, when the screen, hard disk, networking etc. is added in you are probably looking at a difference in average power of only a few percent. The article is clearly an Intel plant, or written by someone who has no idea at all of how laptop computers function.
Up till now, though I use an AMD64 laptop myself as a development tool and am very happy with it, I have been advising other people to buy P-M, based on their need for battery life and the undoubted benefits of the 2Mbyte cache versus the 1Mbyte in the majority of AMD64s. (a 2Mbyte cache allows me to run a demo of our server application on a notebook at quite convincing speed.) But with the coming WinXP64 release, the new AMD processors look like having a bit more future proofing and no obvious downside. I guess this one, outside the corporate We-buy-Dell-because-nobody-ever-got-sacked-for-buy ing-Dell arena, will be decided on price. And I am not alone in this. Have you noticed how cheap P-M notebooks have been getting recently? Doubtless Intel too is preparing an interesting release and wants all the old stock off the shelves.
Re:Ick, pdf (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Ick, pdf (Score:2)
Re:Ick, pdf (Score:2)
Re:Ick, pdf (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Ick, pdf (Score:4, Informative)
Re:I'll then reiterate for all AMD fanbois (Score:2)
Architecture has some bearing on performance too, there's more to life than L2 cache.
Yeah, according to AMD performance rating (Score:2)
Perhaps you should read more? (Score:4, Interesting)
Let's take a look at the specs of test systems side by side, shall we?
Intel system has this shitty "Extreme" integrated graphics with no dedicated RAM. If you've ever used a system with Intel Extreme integrated graphics, you know it's dog slow. Putting it into a laptop with slowish system bus doesn't make it any better.
Now let's look at AMD system. It has integrated GPU (!) from one of the leaders in computer graphics hardware with _32M_ of _dedicated_ Video RAM. I wonder if I've emphasized this clearly enough to get through your thick skull.
You don't have to be a genius to say that AMD system has an advantage when it comes to 3D graphics.
Wouldn't it be cool if instead of cooking the benchmarks AMD put the processors head to head and made them use the same Radeon Mobility 9600 card with 128M RAM? Why didn't they do this? Were they afraid of something?
I mean, come on, we all know that they make the best desktop processors at this point. Their mobile chips, however, leave much to be desired, and with the release of this Turion chip status quo remains the same.
Re:Perhaps you should read more? (Score:3, Insightful)
But again, this whole article involves interviewing a Gartner analyst, and as far as I'm concerned Gartner lacks credibility.
Plus, no one should ever trust the benchmarks from the manufacturer. Anyone with half a brain has realized this years ago.
Re:Perhaps you should read more? (Score:4, Interesting)
Better to be an AMD fanboi with the facts than an Intel fanboi with the flames I guess. I mean after all your comment that "they "forgot" that Intel chip used integrated graphics" was shown to be completely false. Quite an embarrassment for a non-AMD fanboi like yourself, wouldn't you say?
Intel system has this shitty "Extreme" integrated graphics with no dedicated RAM. If you've ever used a system with Intel Extreme integrated graphics, you know it's dog slow. Putting it into a laptop with slowish system bus doesn't make it any better.
Now let's look at AMD system. It has integrated GPU (!) from one of the leaders in computer graphics hardware with _32M_ of _dedicated_ Video RAM. I wonder if I've emphasized this clearly enough to get through your thick skull.
What do you not understand? The systems were comparing integrated graphics performance? Is that a fair measure of CPU gaming performance? No. Is it a fair measure of gaming performance you can expect to get with an AMD and Intel laptop with integrated graphics? Sure is.
You realise Intel MANDATES that every Centrino using integrated graphics must use Intel integrated graphics, right? You realise that Intel has discouraged ATI and others from producing top-of-the-line integrated video chipsets for Pentium M because they are not allowed in Centrino bundles, right?
By the way "GPU" is just a fancy marketing name for graphics processor. ATI integrated graphics is no more of a GPU than Intel's integrated graphics.
Now let's look at AMD system. It has integrated GPU (!) from one of the leaders in computer graphics hardware with _32M_ of _dedicated_ Video RAM. I wonder if I've emphasized this clearly enough to get through your thick skull.
Better to have a thick skull with a brain in it than a normal one with none. In case you hadn't noticed Intel "forgot" to do the same to improve their performance. There is a tradeoff in battery performance. The good news is that you can get somewhat acceptable gaming performance without taking a much larger hit in battery life by using a discrete video card like the Mobility 9600 card with 128MB RAM.
Wouldn't it be cool if instead of cooking the benchmarks AMD put the processors head to head and made them use the same Radeon Mobility 9600 card with 128M RAM? Why didn't they do this? Were they afraid of something?
The gaming benchmarks weren't cooked as they compared the best integrated graphics chipsets on each platform in terms of features, performance and expected availability. But I do agree that benchmarks using the same video card would be interesting and more indicative of pure CPU gaming performance. As I mentioned in another post Pentium M performance is very competetive with Athlon 64 on desktop gaming benchmarks when a top-of-the-line desktop video card is used.
Re:I'll then reiterate for all AMD fanbois (Score:2)
Depends on the load. For most of my applications, I would say that the 64 KB L1 (32I + 32D) is suckage compared to the 256 L1 (128I + 128D) on AMD chips.
Re:It's only marketing... (Score:2)
Re:It's only marketing... (Score:2)
Same clock speed.
Integrated graphics, it isn't AMD's fault that the Centrino integrated graphics suck at 3D applications.
Same HD, same memory,
Same price, apparently.
AMD's TDP is theoretical max. Intel's is achievable max, which is about 80% of theoretical max. AMD's processor also includes a memory controller, which is 2.2W. So (35 - 2.2) * 0.8 = 26.24W, which compares pretty much EXACTLY with Intel's 27W TDP!
I think this test is extremely fair. And ye
Because "marketting" shouldn't mean "lies" (Score:3, Insightful)
As just an example of outright fraud: It's gotten to the point where, for example, a dishonest heatsink manufacturer can buy a 28 dBA Panaflo fan and sell it as a 21 dBA fan. And then start selling an even noisier ball-bearing fan instead and _stil
Re:The Intel is NOT CPU-bound (Score:3, Informative)
The Pentium M doesn't fare very well in games vs. the Athlon 64, even when using the same video card.
Anandtech did a test comparing the A64, Pentium M and Pentium 4, and gave them each the same high end graphics card. The Pentium M finished in the lower half of the pack on almost every benchmark.
http:// [anandtech.com]