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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nofumble62 - Friday, August 21, 2009 - link
so he can play more games. LOLThat student probably won't stay in school very long.
Smell This - Monday, August 17, 2009 - link
The author makes the point of the importance of battery life and claims "Intel has the better mobile solution at pretty much all price points - i.e. better battery life ..."With the difference in price between the two "units" in your "comparison" you could purchase a second battery for the AMD laptop.
JarredWalton - Monday, August 17, 2009 - link
Which doesn't change the fact that Intel will still offer better battery life to the tune of 28% more unplugged time. From the conclusion: "Using a higher capacity battery on an AMD platform could give you equivalent battery life, but then you're lugging around a heavier laptop and many high capacity batteries cost far more than $80." Carrying two batteries is fundamentally the same thing, except that you have to hibernate and swap batteries at some point.The point of this review: look at AMD and Intel platforms, apples to apples. Intel wins on CPU and battery performance. 16% more cost yields 25% better performance and power. They also win on heat and noise, though it's not a huge margin there.
On the other hand, AMD/ATI wins the graphics competition and they cost less. They're somewhere in the realm of twice as fast at GPU intensive tasks, they can handle 1080p H.264 playback (where Intel would need something like PowerDVD Ultra to get the proper acceleration), and they cost 16% less.
If price is the determinant of what you buy, go for the AMD unit. If gaming is your number one concern, get a discrete GPU in a ~$700+ laptop. If you want a cheap lappy that can play *most* games at low detail, then AMD's current lineup also works okay. For all other options, right now it looks like Intel wins.
I've heard from many readers that feel battery life is very important; they're sick of the sub-three-hour options out there, and they're more than willing to give up gaming. If we look at the entire laptop market, I'd say such people are in a comfortable majority. If you're a college student on a shoestring budget, you'll probably be a lot happier with a somewhat slower office computer that can play more games.
BOTH opinions and options are right. There is no dictating that you MUST have better battery life, or that you MUST have better integrated graphics. Buy what you really need, after you look at the market and truly understand what the options are. That's my conclusion. For me, my needs and wants make the NV58 the winner, but I know plenty of users that would prefer the NV52 (like yourself), and I know still others that prefer even more graphics power.
ALCX - Saturday, August 15, 2009 - link
I don't post much, 'cause usually someone has said what I thought already. But after reading all the 'jibber-jabber' going back and forth, I thought I would just say thank you for the article, I'm looking at buying a laptop for my daughter for school and this hit the spot.Again....Thanks
yehuda - Saturday, August 15, 2009 - link
I agree, it's clear a lot of effort went into the making of this article.evilspoons - Wednesday, August 12, 2009 - link
Nice article. It confirmed my suspicions about AMD laptops. They're fine for the money but the Intel does pretty much everything better - if you can get an Intel with nVidia or ATi graphics, you're set.It's really just a stupid nitpick, but I'd like to point out you forgot to mention a car model for your little Kia vs Hyundai analogy. The Kia Spectra is a piece of crap, but a Hyundai Genesis Coupe with the V6 and Track Package will give Nissan 370Zs a run for their money (at $20,000 less!) so the analogy doesn't really work well given this fact.
I'd compare the Kia Spectra to a Chevy Aveo, myself. Ugh.
strikeback03 - Thursday, August 13, 2009 - link
In the US at least, the MSRP for the Genesis Coupe with Track Package is higher than the base 370Z, and even the Nismo Z is only ~$9k higher. So unless Hyundai is already kicking in rebates or Nissan dealers are charging significantly more than MSRP, you have to drop all the way back to the base 2.0T coupe to get close to a $20k difference to a 370Z coupe.JarredWalton - Wednesday, August 12, 2009 - link
I added the "Accent" part after Hyundai. My mom had an original Hyundai Excel hatchback... thing was horrible, but for some reason she loved it. I was so happy when it got totaled! :-)RandomUsername3245 - Wednesday, August 12, 2009 - link
Not to pick nits, but you say "Hopefully we will see some improvement with Windows 7, but so far Windows is still an order of magnitude behind OS X."An order of magnitude is defined as a factor of 10x. According to the three bar charts, the Macbook really doesn't beat the Windows laptops by 10x. (Sure it does beat the Clivo D901C by an order of magnitude on the last test, but that's hardly a basis for this type of general statement.) Realistically, the Macbook is beating the competition by no more than 2-3x.
I'd say your statement is inaccurate by nearly an order of magnitude :)
blackshard - Wednesday, August 12, 2009 - link
Take the "order of magnitude" as a "step further". MacOS X is a step further in power handling, expecially when the system is idling.