Mobile Platform Wars: AMD vs. Intel
by Jarred Walton on October 5, 2007 9:10 AM EST
Closing Thoughts
At least in the mobile sector, we've got good news and bad news for AMD. We'll start with the bad news first.
While battery life and power requirements look to be reasonably competitive with Intel's offerings, in terms of raw performance AMD gets beat pretty easily. This occurs even when comparing AMD's latest $400 Turion X2 TL-66 to a system using Intel's $250 Core 2 Duo T7300. If you are concerned with mobile CPU performance, AMD is essentially unable to compete at all with Intel's current Core 2 Duo laptops. While you can typically find AMD-based solutions for less money than Intel-based notebooks, features often end up being cut in order to reach a lower price point, and similarly equipped notebooks usually end up favoring AMD by a mere $50. With potentially 25% more performance on tap, we would recommend most spend the extra money to get a Core 2 Duo notebook.
So what's the good news? First, AMD's 65nm process does show improvements over the 90nm process, even if the improvements are relatively minor. The TL-66 does manage to use a bit less power than the TL-60 when both are idle and running at the same 800 MHz clock speed. Given the maturity of the 90nm process and the relative newness of AMD's 65nm process, we expect that AMD can make further improvements that will both increase clock speeds as well as further reduce power requirements. However, it's unlikely that the current Turion X2 will ever be competitive with Core 2 Duo, at least when CPU performance is the criterion used to judge.
Perhaps the more important good news is that AMD's integrated graphics still come out as being superior to Intel's latest offering. The margin has narrowed considerably since the GMA 950 era, and even the past several months have helped Intel a lot in terms of improving performance on the GMA X3100. That being said, the Intel drivers since the launch of the G965/GM965 chipsets (and Q33/Q35/G33) have been more than just a little painful when it comes to running 3D applications. Users have been promised numerous updates, and while compatibility and performance has certainly improved, there's still a lot of work to be done. Let's not even talk about the delays with releasing G35... though perhaps the drivers will finally be ready when those motherboards hit the market. (We can hope, at any rate.)
There's another fringe benefit for AMD when it comes to notebook graphics, of course. As we've shown, both the Radeon X1250 and the GMA X3100 are painfully slow at running 3D graphics when compared to even a relatively inexpensive Radeon Mobility HD 2300. Anyone that needs more GPU performance in their notebook than the current IGPs offer will need to pick up a discrete graphics chip, and that means AMD has a chance at selling one of their mobile GPUs even if they don't provide the CPU or chipset. They'll have to compete with NVIDIA here, but ATI has always had a pretty strong presence in the mobile graphics market.
Looking to the future, we're still waiting to finally see how Phenom actually performs on the desktop, and after that launch we will probably have to wait a few more months before we see the new Griffin mobile architecture. Griffin is based off of K8, so it may not be all that different from current Turion X2 offerings, but we'll have to wait and see. Long-term, we would expect more of the Barcelona technology to make its way into a mobile CPU (assuming Barcelona ends up competing well against Intel), when that might occur is not yet known. Let's not get ahead of ourselves, though. Early indications are that Phenom will be more competitive with Intel's Core 2 Duo/Quad, but we're skeptical that they will actually be able to lead in any benchmarks. Unless Griffin sports some significant changes, we also don't expect it to close the gap in the mobile sector. As usual, time will tell.
While we would definitely prefer a Core 2 Duo notebook over a Turion X2 notebook at this point in time, one of the bigger factors is going to be price and features. The truth is that even though the HP 6515b is clearly slower than the HP dv6500t in our benchmarks, in typical use it would be very difficult for most people to tell the difference. A moderately fast dual-core processor with 2GB of RAM packs more than enough performance for most home and business users. Far more important than the raw performance numbers will be the design and features of the notebook. Laptop bargains come and go, so if you happen to find a good sale on any Core 2 Duo or Turion X2 notebook, outside of gaming performance such a notebook will be more than sufficient.
At least in the mobile sector, we've got good news and bad news for AMD. We'll start with the bad news first.
While battery life and power requirements look to be reasonably competitive with Intel's offerings, in terms of raw performance AMD gets beat pretty easily. This occurs even when comparing AMD's latest $400 Turion X2 TL-66 to a system using Intel's $250 Core 2 Duo T7300. If you are concerned with mobile CPU performance, AMD is essentially unable to compete at all with Intel's current Core 2 Duo laptops. While you can typically find AMD-based solutions for less money than Intel-based notebooks, features often end up being cut in order to reach a lower price point, and similarly equipped notebooks usually end up favoring AMD by a mere $50. With potentially 25% more performance on tap, we would recommend most spend the extra money to get a Core 2 Duo notebook.
So what's the good news? First, AMD's 65nm process does show improvements over the 90nm process, even if the improvements are relatively minor. The TL-66 does manage to use a bit less power than the TL-60 when both are idle and running at the same 800 MHz clock speed. Given the maturity of the 90nm process and the relative newness of AMD's 65nm process, we expect that AMD can make further improvements that will both increase clock speeds as well as further reduce power requirements. However, it's unlikely that the current Turion X2 will ever be competitive with Core 2 Duo, at least when CPU performance is the criterion used to judge.
Perhaps the more important good news is that AMD's integrated graphics still come out as being superior to Intel's latest offering. The margin has narrowed considerably since the GMA 950 era, and even the past several months have helped Intel a lot in terms of improving performance on the GMA X3100. That being said, the Intel drivers since the launch of the G965/GM965 chipsets (and Q33/Q35/G33) have been more than just a little painful when it comes to running 3D applications. Users have been promised numerous updates, and while compatibility and performance has certainly improved, there's still a lot of work to be done. Let's not even talk about the delays with releasing G35... though perhaps the drivers will finally be ready when those motherboards hit the market. (We can hope, at any rate.)
There's another fringe benefit for AMD when it comes to notebook graphics, of course. As we've shown, both the Radeon X1250 and the GMA X3100 are painfully slow at running 3D graphics when compared to even a relatively inexpensive Radeon Mobility HD 2300. Anyone that needs more GPU performance in their notebook than the current IGPs offer will need to pick up a discrete graphics chip, and that means AMD has a chance at selling one of their mobile GPUs even if they don't provide the CPU or chipset. They'll have to compete with NVIDIA here, but ATI has always had a pretty strong presence in the mobile graphics market.
Looking to the future, we're still waiting to finally see how Phenom actually performs on the desktop, and after that launch we will probably have to wait a few more months before we see the new Griffin mobile architecture. Griffin is based off of K8, so it may not be all that different from current Turion X2 offerings, but we'll have to wait and see. Long-term, we would expect more of the Barcelona technology to make its way into a mobile CPU (assuming Barcelona ends up competing well against Intel), when that might occur is not yet known. Let's not get ahead of ourselves, though. Early indications are that Phenom will be more competitive with Intel's Core 2 Duo/Quad, but we're skeptical that they will actually be able to lead in any benchmarks. Unless Griffin sports some significant changes, we also don't expect it to close the gap in the mobile sector. As usual, time will tell.
While we would definitely prefer a Core 2 Duo notebook over a Turion X2 notebook at this point in time, one of the bigger factors is going to be price and features. The truth is that even though the HP 6515b is clearly slower than the HP dv6500t in our benchmarks, in typical use it would be very difficult for most people to tell the difference. A moderately fast dual-core processor with 2GB of RAM packs more than enough performance for most home and business users. Far more important than the raw performance numbers will be the design and features of the notebook. Laptop bargains come and go, so if you happen to find a good sale on any Core 2 Duo or Turion X2 notebook, outside of gaming performance such a notebook will be more than sufficient.
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tomycs - Sunday, December 9, 2007 - link
Since we talk about bargains i guess a comparison between the previous generation mid-range (Geforce 7600, ATI X1600) and the entry level graphic chips (Geforce 8400, AMD/ATI HD2300) would have been nice.I find myself choosing between 2 HP's almost equal specs (almost no differences between AMDX2 TL60 and Intel T5500) but one with ATI X1600 and the other with the 8400GS. I'm almost sure i will takle the X1600 because of build quality and screen, but i would have liked some numbers regarding 3D performance.
mobileuser2007 - Wednesday, October 10, 2007 - link
Nice summary Jarred.I was a little surprised to not see anything about video quality. I, for one, don't do any gaming on my notebook but I do watch DVD movies while traveling. It seems the only way AT measures the success of "graphics" is how well they play games. Any thoughts on comparing systems on other visual aspects?
JarredWalton - Wednesday, October 10, 2007 - link
I guess the real problem is that I think most laptop LCDs suck, which means that even if the video card does an excellent job at decoding DVDs or whatever, the display quality makes this a moot point. I didn't think the 6515b was any better or worse than the dv6500t (or any other notebook, really) when it comes to DVD playback. Of course, you can always just get a different DVD decoder application that can make a big difference. DVD decoding is now at the point where the CPU can do all the work and still only put a moderate load on a CPU, even with higher complexity decoding algorithms that improve image quality.Maybe I didn't pay enough attention, though, so I'll see if I can notice any difference with additional testing.
magao - Tuesday, October 9, 2007 - link
Thank you very much for this article.I've been looking for a new laptop for the several months, and have almost settled on one of the 6515b, 6510b (if I can find one in Australia) or (most likely) the 6710b.
I've been searching for months trying to find comparisons of the laptops with anything near the configuration I'm looking at (T7100/GMA X3100, or Turion X2/X1250). The 6515b is pretty much out of contention though since to get an X2 you have to go above the price of the T7100 in the 6710b (the cheap 6515b comes with an MK-38).
It's not going to be a desktop replacement, but it needs to be grunty enough for serious work, and needs good enough graphics to play things up to the level of Guild Wars at native resolution (1280x800). I had a work laptop recently with a T5500 and GMA 950, and GW was playable (but not great - 20-30 FPS most of the time), so I have reasonable expectations of the 6710b. Interestingly, my home server (E2140 with G33/GMA 3000 graphics) has worse GW performance than the GMA 950 - my understanding was that GMA 3000 is basically an upgraded GMA 950, but there appear to be significant differences (GW detects the GMA 3000 as DX8 but GMA 950 as DX9, even when both have the 14.31.1 driver).
I'll be *very* interested in the X3100 results you get under XP (with the 14.31.1 drivers).
BTW, one of the reasons I've settled on the HP laptops is their look and feel. They are simple-looking, no-nonsense designs, that aren't going to show marks, the keyboards feel very nice, the screens are good and the sound is quite good for a laptop.
JarredWalton - Tuesday, October 9, 2007 - link
I'll spoil the results a bit and say that under XP, GMA X3100 appears to best X1250 across the board. Shockingly (pardon the pun), it even runs Bioshock - okay, so it's at about 20FPS at 800x600 (minimum detail), but at least that proves it's mostly drivers under Vista keeping it from running the latest titles. I should have the final article done next week, showing X3100 XP results. Still, for $80 more you can get HD 2300 which remains about 2-3 times as fast, or 8400 GS which is also around 2-3 times as fast.yyrkoon - Sunday, October 7, 2007 - link
I honestly think your time would have been better spent covering some other aspect in the industry. Everyone knows that AMD is in a "rutt' at the moment, and this article really only tells us what we could have guesses on our own. Reasons for an article of this type in my own opinion would be; ground breaking news, or at the very elast a much shorter article just covering the import stuff such as AMDs mobile graphics superiority.There are lots of people out there, with myself included that would like to see you guys do an article on something like SAS IN DEPTH, or SATA Port Multipliers, with benchmarks, implementation, etc.
Also, just going from past experience of reading your articles, I cannot help but wonder why you guys do not have any how-to's such as 'how-to overclock an Intel core 2 CPU . . ', or 'how-to build a cheap storage solution with SAS/HPM technology . . ' , etc. I honestly think filling content with things such as the above mentioned how-to's, would be far more benificial to your readers, than the obvious re-iteration of things we already know.
zsdersw - Sunday, October 7, 2007 - link
Oh? So that's the only thing that's important? It's dubious that you'd pick one of the few bright spots in the article for AMD and tout it as "the important stuff".
yyrkoon - Sunday, October 7, 2007 - link
How would it be dubious that I do not care to hear about the same thing I have been hearing about for the last several months ?zsdersw - Sunday, October 7, 2007 - link
What you do and do not care about is not what's dubious. What's dubious is that the only thing you supposedly regard as "the important stuff" just happens to be the one area of mobile platforms where AMD generally fares better than Intel (mobile graphics chipsets).yyrkoon - Monday, October 8, 2007 - link
Look guy, if you're going to call me an AMD Nazi, fanboi, or whatever, why dont you just come out and say so, instead of making stupid comments that MAY imply *something*. You would be wrong by the way.