Mobile Processor Showdown 192
AnInkle writes "The Tech Report has a head-to-head comparison between the Pentium M760 and the Turion ML-44. From the article: 'AMD has done well with Opteron in servers and the Athlon 64 in desktops, but surely AMD's K8-derived mobile competitor doesn't match up with the Pentium M. Does it?' Conventional wisdom (or marketing genius) says Pentium M's power-saving features and performance-per-watt leave AMD's Turion 64 gasping for batteries. Even though the next-gens are just around the corner, countless mobile systems will sell with these chips over the next year; find out which to choose, whether for performance, battery life or a combination of both."
mTurion MTs (Score:5, Interesting)
That's lower power, and faster, than even the infamous Core Solo (T1300 1.66GHz 27W TDP).
There is a 1.666GHz Core Duo LV which is lower power. But, if you don't have much use for dual-core, AMD seems the way to go.
With all the talk about AMD not yet on 65nm it would seem AMD is still, not just competitive, but ahead of Intel in low-power CPUs, and performance. (It seems like nobody is talking about the benefits of SOI, for some reason)
Re:What about heat saving? (Score:3, Interesting)
AMD's impressive improvements (Score:4, Interesting)
They still have a bit of work to do with the maximum power consumption, but they've managed to get the idle consumption down to where the Pentium M is with similar overall performance. Good work AMD.
no centrino duo? (Score:5, Interesting)
Conclusion? Perhaps not fair (Score:5, Interesting)
Not to mention that while Conroe and Merom will be based on the same design principles it is a fresh design.
I believe the key to Intel's new design will not be its close approximation to the Athlon in performance. The secret is in performance per watt, as they say. High performance computing with as little engergy consumption and heat dissipation as possible. The Athlon 64 architecture looked cool compared to the toaster oven called Netburst, but even against the old Pentium III it is quite hot and hungry. Lifestyle PCs, laptops, and blade servers will all favor the much cooler design from Intel.
While Athlon 64 will continue to compete on performance and price, without a major architectural change they will be stuck in the hot seat for the next couple of years. And it will only get worse before it gets better because Intel's chip design is truly superior, only held back by a dated bus architecture slated for replacement in 2007.
While Intel will "win" technologically, they will burn a lot of capital to remain competitive until they do. Lots of Pentium M chips have been stockpiled. By the time Yonah reaches mass production it will be replaced by Merom. Lots of stockpiled Pentium D chips that will be replaced by Conroe. Intel will need to slash prices for processors nobody wants anymore only to flood the market with brand new PC's that don't need to be replaced by the superior technology they so desperately need to release.
Maybe Intel will sooner push the P4's into a landfill than cut their own throats? Or maybe 2006 will be a good year to start up your own server farm in the basement.
Re:What about heat saving? (Score:3, Interesting)
So true. All of the power consumed by the CPU is converted into heat. Overheating, though, depends on how well the cooling system works. But even then, higher power requires more cooling, which usually means more noise and bigger size.
This is why the the Turion's higher power under maximum load concerns me; I often leave my laptop doing something CPU intensive for hours. The system should of course cope with maximum CPU load for extended periods, but I don't want a huge cooling system in my laptop. I'd prefer something small and quiet, even if it means a little slower CPU.
Be careful, your ignorance is showing (Score:2, Interesting)
Centrino is not a processor, but a group of Intel technologies [intel.com] bundled under one brandname.
Not only that, but isn't comparing the Intel Core Duo to the single core Turion like apples to oranges? Single core vs. single core makes for an even comparison.
Re:But it didn't... (Score:1, Interesting)
How about CPU Idle instead of mobile processors (Score:3, Interesting)
no there's not (Score:4, Interesting)
As to the "more under the pedal" stuff of the GP, I can see why you say that, but it's really because the dual-core machine cannot hand all its horsepower to a single process even if it wants to. A single core chip can do so, and will in the case of a single CPU consumptive task. An OS could be designed to never hand over all the CPU to a single task and then a single core would have "more under the pedal" too. But it turns out to generally reduce performance overall.
I have had several single processor machines and several dual processor ones. I have never felt like I would never want to go back to single processor. Dual processor is nice (my current machine is dual core) but until recently, dual processor (core) just didn't make financial sense. A single core has almost always been much more cost effective than two slower processors because the two processor setup not only requires two chips, but also requires specialized motherboards (and recently big power supplies too).
But with affordable dual-core single-chip solutions that fit on run-of-the-mill motherboards it seems pretty likely that I'll have more dual-core machines in the future.
Re:mTurion MTs (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Intel is the clear winner (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:mTurion MTs (Score:3, Interesting)
/me peers through the mists of time...
When intel was king computers cost $3000-4000 and people had no options.
Until recently laptops have cost approximately $2000.
Flash forward to 2006 and you see the $100 laptop and you wonder why there aren't good (feature complete, (80 gig HD, DVD burner, firewire, usb) reasonable performance laptops to match their desktop counterparts.
The desktop price wars are stagnating and will continue but AMD seems to be releasing $700-800 laptops when those laptops hit $500-600 desktops will need to hit $300.
Most laptop owners don't need 300 fps in Quake 3. So what we want is a stable processor design that consumes less and less power, with competition between intel and AMD that is what they'll end up offering, not better performance.
Re:mTurion MTs (Score:3, Interesting)