Gateway AMD and Intel Laptops, a Platform Analysis
by Jarred Walton on August 12, 2009 2:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Laptops
Test Setup
In the interest of full disclosure, here are the specific configurations of the two test laptops we received.
| Gateway NV5214u Test System | |
| Processor | AMD Athlon 64 X2 QL-64 (Dual-core, 2.1GHz, 2x512KB L2, 65nm, 35W, 667MHz FSB) |
| Memory | 2x2048MB Hyundai PC2-5300 @ DDR2-667 5-5-5-15 (Hyundai Electronics HMP125SEFR8C-Y5) |
| Graphics | Integrated ATI Radeon HD 3200 Driver version Cat 8.582-090203a (Feb 03, 2009) 40 (8 x 5) Shaders at 500 MHz |
| Display | 15.6" Glossy WXGA (1366x768) AU Optronics B156XW02 |
| Hard Drive | Seagate Momentus 5400.6 320GB 5400RPM 8MB (ST932032 0AS) |
| Optical Drive | 8x DVDRW (LG Electronics GT20N) |
| Battery | 6-Cell 10.8V, 4400mAhr, 47.5Whr |
| Operating System | Windows Vista Home Premium 64-bit |
| Price | NV5214u available at Best Buy for $500 |
| Gateway NV5807u Test System | |
| Processor | Intel Core 2 Duo T6500 (Dual-core, 2.1GHz, 2MB shared L2, 45nm, 35W, 800MHz FSB) |
| Memory | 2x2048MB Micron PC2-5300 @ DDR2-667 5-5-5-15 (Micron Technologies 16HTF25664HY-667G1) |
| Graphics | Integrated Intel GMA 4500MHD Driver version 15.13.4.64.1829 10 Shaders at 475 MHz |
| Display | 15.6" Glossy WXGA (1366x768) LG LP156WH2-TLE1 |
| Hard Drive | HITACHI Travelstar 5K500.B 320GB 5400RPM 8MB (HTS545032B9A300) |
| Optical Drive | 8x DVDRW (TSST Corp TS-L633B) |
| Battery | 6-Cell 10.8V, 4400mAhr, 47.5Whr |
| Operating System | Windows Vista Home Premium 64-bit |
| Price | NV5814u available online starting at $580 |
If you've been paying attention to the various parts, there are a few differences between the two laptops. While both have the same size and rotational speed hard drive, the Intel model includes a Hitachi hard drive and the AMD model uses a Seagate hard drive. The optical drives are also different, and in fact even the LCDs come from different manufacturers (AU Optronics for the NV5214u and LG Philips for the NV5807u).
You might be tempted to cry "foul" right now in terms of having "identical" laptops, but we did do some (limited) testing to make sure that the differences in component choice did not affect the results. Changing the hard drive and display did not affect performance or battery life by more than 1% - well within the margin of error. Our guess is that users will find a variety of similar components from different manufacturers, based on whoever happened to provide Gateway the best price/availability. It is common for large OEMs to source similar parts from several vendors in order to meet their capacity requirements. Outside of low-level benchmarks, the differences are transparent to the end-users.
One other item that bears mention is that we also swapped batteries between the two laptops to ensure that the batteries did not have an impact on battery life. We reran the battery tests and confirmed that the overall change was less than 1%, which is again within the margin of error for our tests. As you will see, the difference in performance and battery life is far greater than a few percent, so it will take a lot more than a mere change in component manufacturer for either side to make up the deficit.
For our tests, we are going to have two sets of results to report. We will start by comparing the Gateway NV5214u (AMD) with the Gateway NV5807u (Intel). These tests are all run several times and we take the best score, and the results are as "apples-to-apples" as we can make them. After we have shown how AMD stacks up against Intel using our Gateway laptops, we will put things in context by showing how performance of both laptops compares to several other previously tested laptops. Both of these are budget laptops that cost less than $600, so it's no surprise that $1000 laptops are able to run circles around them in many of the tests.
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7Enigma - Wednesday, August 12, 2009 - link
Agreed. People are not going to be gaming on the latest (or even last-gen FPS') but most certainly would probably be doing MMO games. And of all the games The Sims (2 or 3) should be included. That is probably the largest non-MMO game out there for the casual gamer, of which these laptops are perfectly suited.KidneyBean - Wednesday, August 12, 2009 - link
Or how about Source games like Half-Life 2, Team Fortress 2, and Counter-Strike 2?Those should run faster than the latest FPS.
hyc - Wednesday, August 12, 2009 - link
Very few vendors actually sell comparable models of AMD and Intel notebooks. I don't think HP's dv5z (which I own, and is already discontinued) is really comparable to their dv5t.And I've yet to find anyone selling an AMD laptop with 15.4" WUXGA screen. So far the only possibilities have been Dell or Lenovo, and they're all Intel. It's pathetic that AMD has the best graphics cards now but you can't get an AMD combo paired with the best screens.
Show me an AMD notebook with 15.4" WUXGA LED-backlit screen. (Oh, and backlit keyboard too, please.) I'll buy it. I'm sick of seeing AMD designs getting the poor cousin treatment, I want all the same top notch feature choices the Intel models get...
strikeback03 - Thursday, August 13, 2009 - link
You realize you can get an AMD discrete GPU with an Intel CPU/chipset, right? Which this article has shown that the GPU is really the only part of the AMD system worth owning.cactusdog - Wednesday, August 12, 2009 - link
Nice review, it answered some questions i had.cfaalm - Wednesday, August 12, 2009 - link
Talking about a price premium over a $ 500 - 580 notebook:
damianrobertjones - Wednesday, August 12, 2009 - link
Or if Dailytech really isn't one sided towards Apple, then maybe the reviewer could also add a Linux build to the scene.. Standard laptop, linux.. what would the battery life be?????hyc - Wednesday, August 12, 2009 - link
Likely worse on the AMD system. At least, the open source ATI drivers' support for power management still doesn't handle all of the power save features that the chipset offers.medi01 - Wednesday, August 12, 2009 - link
Why not compare to intel notebook with nvidia graphic card?samspqr - Wednesday, August 12, 2009 - link
the labels on the x axis of the power consumption graph are completely deceiving