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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KidneyBean - Wednesday, August 12, 2009 - link
It's nice to see some humor in these articles. Nice to change it up. Reminds me of reading Mark Minasi tech books, and how much easier occasional humor makes it for me to read tech info.IntelUser2000 - Wednesday, August 12, 2009 - link
Jarred, the 475MHz core clock on the GMA 4500 is wrong. That has been the clock speed for pre-launch platforms. The GM45's GMA 4500MHD runs at 533MHz. Minor mistake but still a mistake.HexiumVII - Wednesday, August 12, 2009 - link
Can anyone comment on the performance of Aero with comparing the G45 with the X3200? I had a tablet with an X3500 that was a bit clunky with Win7 Aero Beta. It got a little better with RC drivers, but still not as snappy as 2D mode or dedicated graphics.JarredWalton - Wednesday, August 12, 2009 - link
I didn't notice any issues with normal applications in Windows Vista, but I don't know about Win7 yet. I will try to find time to do a follow-up looking at Win7 performance, and from what I've heard it's overall better than Vista (Gary for instance has it running on a netbook and he's very happy, whereas he hated Vista on the same netbook). Intel's Win7 drivers are likely still a work in progress as well, but at least you can get regular IGP driver updates from Intel.JarredWalton - Wednesday, August 12, 2009 - link
All I know is that GPU-Z reported the GMA 4500MHD as 475MHz. I would guess that either the utility is wrong (possible), or Intel gives vendors some leeway in the GPU/chipset clocks (also possible). If you have another utility that will be more reliable for determining the Intel IGP clock, let me know.IntelUser2000 - Wednesday, August 12, 2009 - link
Just take a look at the datasheet, its that simple: http://www.intel.com/Assets/PDF/datasheet/320122.p...">http://www.intel.com/Assets/PDF/datasheet/320122.p...The GPU-Z utility is bad. It's nowhere near the CPU counterpart. That aside, Intel doesn't really give out reading the GPU clock easily, and the 475MHz was also what was used in the pre-launch(ie. beta) GM45 platforms.
I heard Everest is more accurate, but in terms of actually measuring, there probably isn't one that measures the Intel IGPs properly.
IntelUser2000 - Wednesday, August 12, 2009 - link
http://www.beareyes.com.cn/2/lib/200810/13/335/gpu...">http://www.beareyes.com.cn/2/lib/200810/13/335/gpu...Please see how G45(desktop version) shows on the GPU-Z. It should show similar thing to above, unless the newer version updated to change that its 800MHz.
In reality, it isn't really measuring the clock.