Mobile Platform Wars: AMD vs. Intel
by Jarred Walton on October 5, 2007 9:10 AM EST
Introduction
AMD has fallen on some hard times, dating back to the launch of Intel's Core 2 lineup in the fall of 2006. Many enthusiasts have been feeling quite anxious, holding out hope that Barcelona would mark the return of yesterday's AMD, where the K8 architecture basically scored a knockout punch for the underdog, but the chances of that occurring are becoming increasingly unlikely. At least in terms of raw performance, Intel has a roadmap in place that should keep the heavyweight belt firmly in their grasp. However, as many people are ready to point out, performance isn't everything. Is there some truth to that statement, or is it a convenient phrase that merely serves as an excuse? That's what we're here to find out.
It's no secret that the mobile PC market trails the desktop and server markets quite a bit in terms of computational power. Quad-core desktop systems are becoming increasingly common, and octal-core workstations and servers are more affordable than ever before. Bounce back to the mobile market and you will find plenty of dual-core offerings, but only at lower clock speeds. Laptops also come with slower memory, hard drives (with the exception of the new solid-state models), graphics chips, and system buses. Not surprisingly, for about $1500 you can build a high-quality desktop system that is capable of outperforming even the fastest notebook currently on the market. On the other hand, you can't easily take such a system on the road with you - and you certainly can't use it in an airplane or car. And if you want to talk about performance per watt, many notebooks are able to offer competitive performance to desktop systems that consume two or three times as much power.
In fact, compared to one year ago, about the only significant changes to the desktop performance landscape are the addition of quad-core CPUs and extreme performance graphics chips, neither of which are really necessary for a large number of computer users. Businesses in particular don't require such amenities, as they are rarely running their computers at full load and they don't tend to run a lot of 3D applications (aka "games"). Adding higher performance parts to such an environment would simply increase energy usage without necessarily increasing productivity. Throw in the mobility factor of notebooks, and there are a lot of businesses that are getting away from traditional desktops and moving towards using laptops for most of their employees. (There are exceptions of course, so we are speaking about typical businesses - game developers, 3D animation studios, and other high-performance computing companies can and do continue to use desktops and workstations.)
A couple months ago, AMD quietly launched their newest update to their mobile Turion X2 processor line. The latest addition is the TL-66, which increases the maximum clock speed to 2.3GHz, an admittedly small bump in performance relative to the TL-64 that runs at 2.2GHz. However, the TL-66 also holds the distinction of being one of the first 65nm Turion X2 parts to hit the market. The Brisbane core was AMD's first 65nm part, and while that part wasn't much faster than the previous 90nm offerings it did lower power requirements somewhat. With a more mature 65nm process, it certainly makes sense for AMD to migrate their mobile CPU production to the new fabrication facilities. We've got HP's 6515b business laptop in-house for testing, equipped with both a TL-60 and a TL-66 processor, so we will be able to see exactly what has changed (if anything) with AMD's new mobile CPU.
Naturally, we also want to look at how AMD's fastest Turion X2 compares to Intel's latest Core 2 Duo laptop processors. As we want to keep the system configurations as similar as possible, we will be focusing on performance compared to HP's dv6500t, which is based off of Intel's Santa Rosa platform. It's also noteworthy that both of these notebooks use integrated graphics, so we will also take a moment to look at the current state of IGPs. These are not strictly apples-to-apples comparisons, but by the time we're through with the benchmarks we should have a fair idea of how the two mobile platforms currently compare to each other.
AMD has fallen on some hard times, dating back to the launch of Intel's Core 2 lineup in the fall of 2006. Many enthusiasts have been feeling quite anxious, holding out hope that Barcelona would mark the return of yesterday's AMD, where the K8 architecture basically scored a knockout punch for the underdog, but the chances of that occurring are becoming increasingly unlikely. At least in terms of raw performance, Intel has a roadmap in place that should keep the heavyweight belt firmly in their grasp. However, as many people are ready to point out, performance isn't everything. Is there some truth to that statement, or is it a convenient phrase that merely serves as an excuse? That's what we're here to find out.
It's no secret that the mobile PC market trails the desktop and server markets quite a bit in terms of computational power. Quad-core desktop systems are becoming increasingly common, and octal-core workstations and servers are more affordable than ever before. Bounce back to the mobile market and you will find plenty of dual-core offerings, but only at lower clock speeds. Laptops also come with slower memory, hard drives (with the exception of the new solid-state models), graphics chips, and system buses. Not surprisingly, for about $1500 you can build a high-quality desktop system that is capable of outperforming even the fastest notebook currently on the market. On the other hand, you can't easily take such a system on the road with you - and you certainly can't use it in an airplane or car. And if you want to talk about performance per watt, many notebooks are able to offer competitive performance to desktop systems that consume two or three times as much power.
In fact, compared to one year ago, about the only significant changes to the desktop performance landscape are the addition of quad-core CPUs and extreme performance graphics chips, neither of which are really necessary for a large number of computer users. Businesses in particular don't require such amenities, as they are rarely running their computers at full load and they don't tend to run a lot of 3D applications (aka "games"). Adding higher performance parts to such an environment would simply increase energy usage without necessarily increasing productivity. Throw in the mobility factor of notebooks, and there are a lot of businesses that are getting away from traditional desktops and moving towards using laptops for most of their employees. (There are exceptions of course, so we are speaking about typical businesses - game developers, 3D animation studios, and other high-performance computing companies can and do continue to use desktops and workstations.)
A couple months ago, AMD quietly launched their newest update to their mobile Turion X2 processor line. The latest addition is the TL-66, which increases the maximum clock speed to 2.3GHz, an admittedly small bump in performance relative to the TL-64 that runs at 2.2GHz. However, the TL-66 also holds the distinction of being one of the first 65nm Turion X2 parts to hit the market. The Brisbane core was AMD's first 65nm part, and while that part wasn't much faster than the previous 90nm offerings it did lower power requirements somewhat. With a more mature 65nm process, it certainly makes sense for AMD to migrate their mobile CPU production to the new fabrication facilities. We've got HP's 6515b business laptop in-house for testing, equipped with both a TL-60 and a TL-66 processor, so we will be able to see exactly what has changed (if anything) with AMD's new mobile CPU.
Naturally, we also want to look at how AMD's fastest Turion X2 compares to Intel's latest Core 2 Duo laptop processors. As we want to keep the system configurations as similar as possible, we will be focusing on performance compared to HP's dv6500t, which is based off of Intel's Santa Rosa platform. It's also noteworthy that both of these notebooks use integrated graphics, so we will also take a moment to look at the current state of IGPs. These are not strictly apples-to-apples comparisons, but by the time we're through with the benchmarks we should have a fair idea of how the two mobile platforms currently compare to each other.
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Pirks - Saturday, October 6, 2007 - link
Jarred, you wrote "Even better would be a midrange HD 2600 or GeForce 8600M/8700M, though those tend to only be found in laptops that cost over $1500" - this is totally not true. I've got myself a nice Dell Vostro 17" laptop last week, with Vista, Core 2 Duo, all the shebang... AND A REAL NVIDIA 8600M GT 256M VRAM inside, for <drumroll> $1049 </drumroll>So why don't you change your number from $1500 to $1000?
JarredWalton - Saturday, October 6, 2007 - link
There's a difference between "tend to be" and "absolutely are not available for less than..." I checked out the Vostro 1700, configured a minimum cost version with the 8600M GT 256MB, and ended up at a price of $1249. That's with a Core 2 Duo T5270 (1.4GHz 2MB cache). I'd say T7100 is a better minimum choice, and probably would look for a T7300 instead personally. That would put the price pretty darn close to $1500 ($1459 with the T7300). That's also with a current rebate to bring the price down from $1881 ($1671 minimum cost), which may not always be available.I'll take out the word "only" as it's superfluous, but I stand by the statement that most laptops with 8600M -- that aren't on sale -- will be very close to $1500 total (shipped).
BitJunkie - Friday, October 5, 2007 - link
First up, nice article.Second thing, did you notice if one system had any defining characteristics compared to each another? I've been pretty much an intel user for the last 18 months, but previously I was an AMD-holic. While P4s were about, you could notice that the UI responsiveness and load times were kind of strange for intel P4 systems compared to AMD Athlon systems - they would often be a pause or stutter on an intel system when an AMD system would just feel a lot smoother during UI operations and associated disk access. Okay, so that could have been due single core, possibly also due to cache misses and stalled pipeline on the P4, so this might be a useless braindump.....but a quick throw away comment in response to this post as to whether the architechtural differences translate in to a different feel when you're driving a system would be cool...even if it's to tell me to get a grip :)
JarredWalton - Friday, October 5, 2007 - link
Generally speaking, both laptops perform fine in Windows Vista. Without running stress tests or benchmarks, only the exterior would really let people know the difference. Interesting to note is that the Intel setup gets a 3.5 Windows Experience score while the AMD gets a 3.0, with the low score on both coming in the graphics department. Apparently, the lack of SM3.0 limits the AMD setup to a maximum score of 3.0 (the same score I get with an X800 desktop system).The bigger differences are in the styling and keyboard layout. Obviously, being a business laptop the 6515b is pretty boring looking. Honestly, though, I didn't mind that part. The dv6500t does come with better speakers as well as two headphone jacks. I think the display on the 6515b might look a bit nicer, but neither LCD is all that great. If I were to choose, though?
dv6500t with T7500, 8400M GS graphics, 2GB RAM, 160GB HDD, 802.11n+Bluetooth, and a 3-year warranty runs about $1350 and represents a pretty good deal. Drop to a T5250 and you get the price down to $1300. The dv6500z with identical options (8400M GS, 2GB, 160GB, 3-year) based on an AMD platform with a TL-64 comes to about $1350. You can drop the CPU down to a TL-60 to save $100. You can also ditch the 3-year extended warranty to bring either option under $1100. The dv6500t ends up at $1092 with T5250 and the dv6500z costs $1062 with a TL-60.
$30 more and the Intel platform should be about 15% faster on CPU tasks. Not enough to really notice, true, but it's also only increasing the cost by around 3%. I'll spend the $30 for sure. Maybe some other company can do Turion X2 for less, but I doubt it. CPU cost is only a small part of the whole.
duploxxx - Sunday, October 7, 2007 - link
well since you would choose from the budget systems for the more expensive systemwhy don't you first give us an idea how the raw cpu performance will differ from T7500 vs T5250 and for sure a t5250 versus tl-60.
because in that budget round on price/performance you should think twice. The tl-60 will outperform the T5250 on everything exept power consumption.
JarredWalton - Sunday, October 7, 2007 - link
No it won't - not even close. Look at the results in this article. A T7300 outperforms a TL-60 by an average of 25%! Do you know what a T7250 is? It's a T7300 with half the L2 cache, which causes a loss of 5-10% performance for Intel (so we're down to 15-20% performance advantage on average). Both will run at 2.0 GHz, and clock for clock AMD is at a disadvantage. Sorry, but your guess is way off. A Pentium Dual-Core running at 2.0GHz would basically match the AMD dual-core offerings clock for clock, but those tend to be cheaper.JarredWalton - Sunday, October 7, 2007 - link
Sorry - I apparently put "T5250" in my earlier comment when it should have been "T7250" if you didn't notice. T5250 is another $100 off the price of the laptop, and would compete more against an AMD TL-50.BitJunkie - Friday, October 5, 2007 - link
Excellent, thanks for the reply.nitrous9200 - Friday, October 5, 2007 - link
AMD is improving on it's existing products but still can't touch Intel. You've still got some more work to do, guys.Another thing, I don't like macs but when I looked at the side profile view of the HP, I really though "ugh!" It's so thick and ugly looking. The manufacturers should start working on aesthetics just a little bit.
JumpingJack - Friday, October 5, 2007 - link
Performance isn't everyting only when you are not the performance leader :) Price/performance is pretty much the ticket, how you define performance may vary, but in mobile that is usually a convolution of computational prowess and battery life.
I am sure if, or when, Intel no longer holds the performance "heavyweight belt", then Intel will be the one who claims performance isn't everything and AMD will be droning home what performance is all about.