AMD and Intel Mobile Rematch: Gateway NV5933u vs. Acer 5542
by Jarred Walton on June 18, 2010 1:14 AM ESTGraphics Performance Compared
First, let's get this out of the way: current IGP solutions (outside of the G320M in the latest MacBook) are weak contenders in terms of graphics performance. NVIDIA's old 9400M was already about 50% faster than the AMD HD 4200, and the G320M tripled the number of CUDA cores to provide the most potent IGP we've ever seen. Sadly, NVIDIA's IGP are now stuck in the position of only working with an outdated platform. Given Core 2 CPU performance is still more than fast enough for most users, we'd be interested in seeing non-Apple laptops use the G320M chipset as well, but that doesn't seem likely.
As far as the HD 4200 and Intel HD Graphics in our two test laptops, their performance characteristics are interesting to say the least. When we first played around with Intel's HD Graphics on a notebook, quite a few of the games we tested failed to run properly. Mass Effect 1/2 had major graphics corruption, GRID and DiRT 2 played the intro movies but then showed a black screen, Fallout 3 and Oblivion crashed when we tried to enter the game world (but worked in the menus), Battlefield Bad Company 2 also crashed when we tried to start a game, and the Unigine tests also had some issues. During the last few driver releases, we've seen nearly all of these issues fixed. As for Fallout 3, a hacked D3D.dll that identifies the GPU as something other than Intel graphics is all that's needed—Bethesda apparently hard-coded in a "don't run on Intel" command. That's not to say all games work properly—Bad Company 2 is still a known issue that Intel is working to address—but it's far more than we've experienced in the past from Intel graphics driver team.
For our graphics tests, we first ran a larger selection of games at minimum detail and 800x600 to see how the two platforms handle "reasonable" settings. Where appropriate, we've also included results from the old HD 3200 and GMA 4500MHD laptops to show how things have changed. We'll also show 3DMark results, though we again place far more emphasis on the games than on synthetic benchmarks. On the next page, we'll put graphics performance in perspective by comparing these IGPs with a variety of other laptops at the native 1366x768 LCD resolution.
At our minimum performance settings, AMD's HD 4200 leads in most titles by anywhere from 3% to 20%. There are a couple titles where Intel HD Graphics takes the lead, however: 3% in Borderlands, and a very large 37% lead in FEAR 2. We're not talking about stellar performance in any of the games, but nearly all of the titles are at least playable in a pinch. The exception (not shown above) is Battlefield: Bad Company 2, which failed to run on the NV59 with the latest drivers. It requires a minimum resolution of 1024x768, and while it worked on the 5542, performance was dismal (around 13FPS). That's the good news: gaming is possible, and if you stick with pre-2008 titles you can find plenty of games that will run acceptably. The bad news is that in most cases you won't be running at native resolution, which is something the GeForce 9400M could at least manage. Note also, as one reader pointed out, that the i3 mobile processors run the IGP at 667MHz max, while the i5 series bumps that up to 766MHz; that 15% increase in clock would close the gap in many of the game results, though HD 4270 would likewise improve performance with its 590MHz clock.
As for 3DMark, the Intel platform leads in all four versions. 3DMark05/06 are in a dead heat, 03 gives Intel a 21% lead, and Vantage delivers a theoretical 86% lead. We find that last a questionable result, and it indicates that Intel may have spent more time working on 3DMark optimizations than on actual gaming compatibility and performance. Ultimately, we don't really care too much about 3DMark performance, regardless of which version you want to run. Some users might like competing for top ORB results, but you're not going to come anywhere near the leader board with any notebook. So let's look at performance at native LCD resolution next, compared with a larger selection of laptops.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
38 Comments
View All Comments
Shadowmaster625 - Tuesday, June 22, 2010 - link
Athlon II P320 15" notebook on newegg for $400. No rebates. The deal expired quickly, but there will be more. I think it is a safe bet that AMD 25W dual core notebooks are going to be easily found all summer long for $400, and probably $300 by the time back-to-school starts. And I predict that next you will compare a P320 to a i330 that still costs twice as much.Roland00 - Tuesday, June 22, 2010 - link
While the p320 is a better battery life processor. Newegg also has the lenovo g555 (same laptop as the fry's ad) for $379.99 with free shipping (and no tax in most states).Only 3gb of memory and 160gb harddrive, but still $379.99
JarredWalton - Tuesday, June 22, 2010 - link
Next up is a Toshiba with Phenom II P920 quad-core (25W) with switchable HD 5650 graphics. I'm not sure it's the best option out there for AMD, but it's what AMD is sending me. It will at least be interesting to see how performance compares against i5-430M with the same GPU, and I'm told that the HD 4200 mode with the P920 will actually deliver better battery life than the M600/M300 stuff. We shall see.Personally, I would *love* to get one of the $400 P320 laptops for testing, but that's not happening yet unless I go and buy one. And we might just do that....
Shadowmaster625 - Thursday, June 24, 2010 - link
Wow a 1.6GHz quad core with 512k cache? I can already see that thing getting walloped by a SU7300 in everything except video encoding. (And who would do that on a notebook?)Has it occured to you that Intel makes backroom deals with companies to get them to send reviewers only these oddball AMD notebook configurations specifically to make AMD look bad? Despite losing a billion dollars by engaging in these tactics, I am sure that Intel regards it as merely a cost of doing business. No doubt they've made $10 billion through these shady tactics.
Roland00 - Thursday, June 24, 2010 - link
512k cache per core. 2mb total cache. AMD processors have each individual core possessing their own l2 cache. The new Core I series is the same way from intel. The old Intel Core2Duos and Core2Quads shared their l2 cache between 2 of the cores.Regardless 25w for 4 cores is extremely good energy wise per core. That is 6.5w per a 1.6 ghz single core or pretty much atom territory. Sadly the p520 (2.3 ghz dual core, 1 mb l2 cache per core, 2 mb l2 cache total) is going to be faster in most things, for not enough things are coded for quad cores yet.
JarredWalton - Thursday, June 24, 2010 - link
Actually, AMD sent this laptop after buying it from the manufacturer, so unless Toshiba somehow convinced AMD to send the A665, I doubt Intel had anything to do with the choice. It's doing okay on battery life (226 minutes idle with a 48Wh battery). Unfortunately, the notebook just died this morning (after less than 24 hours) while I was trying to watch the World Cup online (Flash video).I don't know if the laptop was just banged around in shipping, or if the GPU had a glitch, or what, but I do know that it is dead. It locked, I force restarted, and now the fans turn on and nothing ever shows up on the LCD. Weird. But a replacement is on the way, so the review should still come in the next 10 days or so.
Hrel - Thursday, June 24, 2010 - link
If someone could do a review on the laptop that I currently suspect is the best "bang for your buck" out there. It's made by compal, and available on Cyberpower.com who's machines you've reviewed before. If you'd like it configured like I did, which I think is the best bang for buck, do this: Go to the website. mouse over 15.6" Laptops and click on the $999 Xplorer X6-8500. It has a 1080p screen. (I'm not sure why the people who run this site do this, but even though the other configurations use the same chassis when personalized they come out to cost more than this one; annoying since it makes me configure all 3 or 4 machines built on the same base chassis to figure out which one is cheapest/best for me.) Then I configured it with the Core i7-620M CPU. (to get it over 1K so I can take advantage of the 5% off.) 4GB 0DDR3-1333, hopefully 7-7-7-21, probably not, but hopefully. ATI MR HD5650 1GB GDDR3 320GB 7200rpm HDD (I did this cause I'm gonna take that HDD out and use the Seagate Momentus XT 500GB, thanks for that review!!) Everything else on that page I left untouched. The only thing I did on page 2 was switch to Intel wifi with bluetooth; Though I'm curious if the MSI option is equal/better; 17 bucks isn't nothing. It has HDMI out and a fingerprint reader. This page says 3 USB ports, the specs sheet says 4USB ports; not sure which is true. (I do wish they were USB 3.0 ports, but I was hoping you guys would test some stuff and tell me if that even matters for use with an external hard drive, mechanical disk 7200rpm. Transferring large files like movies and games mostly.) On page 3 I select "none, format only" for the OS. And select "LCD perfect assurance" cause even 1 dead pixel is unacceptable to me. This brings the total to $1008.90 after 5% off, or $992.75 if you get the MSI network card. So yeah, I really hope you guys can get a hold of one of these for review; as a loner or given as a review unit or maybe someone will just buy one and review it cause it's really tempting me right now... like a lot! If you're review is good I'm gonna start saving up and hopefully be able to buy it around Christmas. Thanks guys! A loyal reader. - Brianshady28 - Sunday, June 27, 2010 - link
I went looking for a p920 review (quad core Phenom II for laptops) and all I'm seeing is a comparison of Intel's latest i3/i5 vs 2 year old Turion Ultra CPUs. I have a laptop I bought almost 2 years ago that is a Turion Ultra / 2.2Ghz with ATI 3200 video that is just as good as the AMD system in this comparison.
These quad core Phenoms are showing up for $700 at Wal-Mart with ATI 4250 GPUs. Wouldn't that be a more interesting comparison???