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AMD and Intel Notebooks Head to Head
An anonymous reader writes "The two chip giants go head-to-head in this review of notebook computers which features 10 different models." From the article: "To be blunt, sourcing high-performance AMD-based notebooks for this test was less difficult than extracting teeth from a fully grown chicken -- but only just. After much chasing, only two vendors submitted an AMD-powered product -- MSI and Asus. Interestingly, both vendors had their Intel-powered notebooks at the Lab with no chasing needed. We should point out that the rarity of AMD product is not the fault of AMD, rather vendors, in Australia at least, do not seem to stock adequate quantities of high-performance AMD-equipped notebooks. Acer, for example, has a humdinger of a notebook the Acer Ferrari 3400 that is equipped with a mobile Athlon 64 but the company was unable to ship a single unit to the lab during the entire month of May."
A consipracy I tell ya. Intell must have jinxed the compiler preventing the vendors from shipping AMDs.
The waiting list for a Ferrari is months or years!
Fewer ads 'n' whatnot: Clicky.
I want to drag this out as long as possible. Bring me my protractor.
It could be that the demand for high performance AMD notebooks is high. Compared to the amount of notebooks produced maybe, but still. THey are being shipped to customers rather than to test labs. :)
Is this sort of situation fodder for the pending lawsuits or just a reflection of consumer demand (or the lack thereof)?
Agile Artisans
Gee, after reading enough articles like this, I'm starting to think AMD should start checking /. for arguments in their Intel-monopoly lawsuit ;)
Perfecting Discordia
www.stevenvansickle.com
I suppose they were too good to just grab one from a retail place and see what us commoners would get ;)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82 E16834115194
Marky Mark Killed Jason Bourne!
Interestingly, the Intel Pentium M processor, especially the 2 Ghz model, is a very good choice for a desktop computer with low power consumption and equal, and often better, performance of processors clocked much higher (I'm talking more than 1 Ghz more). Definitely a recommended chip for media center PCs, and even good enough for gamingm the only real hiccup being the price of both the chip and motherboards supporting it. Socket 476 adapters do exist, though.
Because the machine code is more optimized if I use my Intel compiler.
\u262D = \u5350
Given the limited number of experienced corperate notebook vendors using AMD, it's no wonder an Intel laptop won. Until the likes of IBM, Toshiba, Sony and others are shipping AMD notebooks then AMD based portables are going to be second best.
When I got my AMD64 notebook, eighteen months ago (yes, early adopter, I know) I was told it would be unreliable, run too hot, etc. etc. It has so far survived eighteen months of commuting and abuse, especially the abuse of using it as a test vehicle for a complete web server and development platform. It's still on the first HDD ("Won't last eight months...") And so far the only thing to go wrong is a little rubber foot came off (replaced with superglue.) Even though my other notebook is a P-M Thinkpad, I would recommend the AMD64 to anyone who actually needs performance.
Panurge has posted for the last time. Thanks for the positive moderations.
If you want to see more for yourself - look at:
http://www.newegg.com/
vs
http://www.auspcmarket.com.au/
"Sure there's porn and piracy on the Web but there's probably a downside too."
a bad reputation in Australia. I haven't really noticed a lot of talk about them to be honest - most of the stuff you hear about is Intel.
Then again, maybe the retailers in Australia just don't provide the same support for AMD as for Intel. Lawsuit, anyone? *removes tongue from cheek*
In all likelyhood, I'll have to settle for an Apptel Powerbook and give up on Turion/NVidia. This assumes, of course, that they offer a new display on the 17". I just hope they make it out of something besides soft metal in the next revision.
Being able to ship a product may = winning in some cases but I thought the article was a review based on the quality of the product and not on whether the person was able to obtain one easily.
...serious bonus points for using the word "humdinger" in a tech review.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
acer does not sell every model everywhere. There are a lot of laptops that aren't sold in north american and vice versa. I had no problem getting an acer in canada, but some other laptops I wanted were only available in the EU. Maybe nobody sells amds in australia beacuse there isn't much demand for it or it's too expensive to build and send there
did you forget to take your meds?
It would be nice to have a decent picture for each model too. Personally I like to have a decent looking notebook too. I've been to quite a few meetings where people were distracted by weird looking notebooks.
"God fights on the side with the best artillery." - Napoleon, Marshal of France - speaking truth to power
I live in Italy, and often travel to USA: I noted that ASUS notebooks (that are quite common here - my university also bought a dozen to lend to students writing thesis) are not usually found in USA (actually it was a professor there who also noted and commented "I see all you italians arriving with ASUS notebooks that here are nowhere to be found). I wonder why.
Do you even read what you type???
Now his troubles are all great and nice and whatnot, don't get me wrong, but isn't the point of him writing an article so that we don't have to go through the same trouble he did? I'd rather hear something in the summary about which one actually did better....
And they're easy to buy. Just go to HP's online shopping kiosk. I've been using a Presario R3240 for about6-7 months (athlon64 3200+) and am quite happy with the performance.
Cheers,
Well, not really built, just bought a bare AMD 64 Uniwill laptop from coboc.com, and inserted an AMD 64 3700+, 1.25 GB RAM, a wireless abg mini-PCI card, a 100GB 5400 Momentum Seagate drive and a DVD writer.
There was no shortage of bare AMD 64 laptops, the package arrived in one day.
I had lots of spare components, I only had to pay about $750 (CA Tax and shipping included). I did not have to buy a CPU,HD, DVD-writer or a wireless card, all these components existed already in our lab. I had no spare laptop memory; however, I managed to 'extract' 1GB+256MB RAM cards from other laptops in our lab.
I installed two 64 bit OS-es, Suse 9.3 64bit+ Solaris 10. Works great.
Some of those laptops are real toasters judging by the thermal tests there. The Toshiba Tecra is 45.6C under the base and exhaust air is 43C. Wouldn't want that sitting on my lap too long. Cooler models would probably yield increased battery life as well (more efficiency, less energy loss to powering fans).
One thing I'd like to see taken into account in these types of tests is how hot laptops such as this perform outside the lab. In Australia, 37C temps are not uncommon outdoors during summer. If this Tecra tested that high in a lab, how will it hold up outside in that kind of heat? I mean, half the benefit of having a laptop is being able to use it outside the nice, comfortably AC'ed office. If I got BSODs due to thermal problems, I'd be pissed.
This company used to sell alot of AMD notebooks but I know 3 people with them and all 3 laptops suffer from overheating (thats what you get when you stick a 3700+ in a laptop I guess) they have stopped selling some of the top models :(
No. We have nuclear weapons. The Australians have koala bears. End of story.
The pricing on laptops is stubbornly high. Walmart has had a $500 laptop for some time but it seems to have had little effect in forcing the market lower.
I think the pricing on laptops is based on what the market can bear rather than on actual competitive market pricing. Or to put it another way, price does not seem to be the major determinant in a buyer's decision.
I suspect that most laptops are bought for work and that the cost is mostly a tax write-off.
But what I want to know is if a similarly-clocked DEC Alpha 21164 system is equivalent to a similarly-clocked Pentium 3 as advertized here.
I can't believe Intel and AMD sucked all key IP from Alpha and abandoned such an efficient architecture. Still, they gotta recover from the unnecessary research to compete against eachother, instead of actually scaling Alpha with refabs.
I, for one, don't welcome these Intel and AMD overlords!
buy a powerbook any day of the week
If your seasoined linux geek the advantages of Intel over AMD should be fairly obvious.
I am not talking about cpus per say... AMD64 cpus rock (and pentium-m is great for embedded stuff) but for the entire platform.
For instance the Intel Sonoma platform...
You have updated graphics with good compatability and full Free Software (tm) DRI support for the GMA 900 series and probably for GMA 950.
You may need to hit up the cvs servers for the latest in GMA 950 support at this time.. but both the DRI in X and the DRM in the kernel (as of 2.6.12) are aviable in the form of 915 drivers.
Intel released documentation to DRI to get this to happen...
Intel's Wireless support is also good for Linux. No fucking around with Linuxant for the official 'centrino' platforms (beware of vendors sticking in their own broadcom wifi units.. always pick intel).
ACPI support should be good.. if not it will be.
With AMD platforms you have to deal with a mixture of random wifi cards and random ATI or Nvidia graphics.
Nvidia support is OK, thru their excelent (+5 points) and closed source (-5 points) drivers for Linux. ATI sucks (-5 points) and closed source drivers (-5 points) should be avoided at all costs... and it's very difficult to find Nvidia on a laptop platform.
So if your looking for a new Linux laptop and you know what your doing and you want good support for your hardware thru free software then pick out Intel Centrino 'sonoma' laptops with GMA 900 or GMA 950 graphics (don't bother with ATI, and get Nvidia if you need the upgraded 3d speeds) and Intel wifi.
Fast, good performance, decent 3d performance (enough for quake3 and 90% of decent games for Linux) good battery life (better then the ibook (the latpop I currently use)) and it's generally more expensive and/or more lightweight then going after a AMD-based laptop.
Now if your building a desktop... AMD almost always. AMD64s are better then Pentium 4's...
I have one of them myself, and have been very happy with it so far.
Karma: Chameleon - mostly influenced by bad '80s New Wave music
Well this is just about as trustworthy as nothing :)
Problem Solved
HJ
would this have cost had you not stolen most of the components? (Serious question.)
I am very small, utmostly microscopic.
So they only test laptops they are given? Why should we trust them to have an unbiased opinion or that they have actually done the best AMD/Intel comparision possible in that case? They should buy commercial laptops just like any individual or admin would do and test those, not just what they can get given to them by potential advertisers.
Or it's because it's been replaced with the Acer Ferrari 4000, which is a much nicer design.
Though if you're looking for Overkill, you can't beat the Clevo D900K series.
When I got my AMD64 notebook, eighteen months ago (yes, early adopter, I know) I was told it would be unreliable, run too hot, etc. etc. It has so far survived eighteen months of commuting and abuse, especially the abuse of using it as a test vehicle for a complete web server and development platform. It's still on the first HDD ("Won't last eight months...")
Usually followed by the computer salesman's pitch for their extended warranty.
My last few computers (desktop and laptop alike) have been AMD powered, and I've been very impressed with the reliability and performance that they have brought to me. For example, my Athlon64 3000+ laptop has been running like a champ for the past 3 months...my new P4 work box is two months old and has already needed to be replaced once and repaired twice.
I'm never switching back, never, never, never. I need to get my hands on a PPC PowerBook soon, because the Intel jump at Apple concerns me...
"How like you to drag your keyboard to a gun fight." - Aaron Bedard (BANE)
Seems AMD was right about Intel's anti-competitiveness. I haven't been able to get an adequate AMD notebook either, and when I've found one stock has been extremely low to non-existant.
besides it being hard to find AMD64 laptops to compare to, they all have the Radion 9700 chipset. Dangit, where is my PCI-Express AMD64 laptop?
Accepting ATI is not an option
Introducing Microsoft Vacuum 1.0 The first Microsoft product that doesn't suck.
For your info, that machine's primary O.S. is Ubuntu 5.04 64 bit. I've not had any problems getting the Radeon drivers up and running in Ubuntu. I did have a problem getting the 802.11g drivers working in Ubuntu, but I had a different mini-PCI Wifi card available that I knew worked. Other than that (and some minor problems getting things to suspend to memory), it works.
Karma: Chameleon - mostly influenced by bad '80s New Wave music
Drop a powerbook 6" from a tile kitchen floor. If it hits perpendicularly on a corner, it will blow apart if you're unlucky, or simply dent if you are lucky. If it lands somewhat obliquely, the case will be permanently bent.
Take a sheet of thick aluminum (aircraft grade or not) and bang it with a hammer. It's going to dent, bend, and be nearly impossible to return to a flat surface without re-rolling it. Take a sheet of thick plastic, and bang on it for as long as you want to. It's going to maintain the same shape unless you shatter it.
Aluminum is a great material for structure, but not for finishes in panels, especially when it's as thin as it is in Powerbooks.
Most powersupplies are good.
The 80mm fans are quiet now for about 10 bucks.
The 120mm fans are dead quiet.
But the 50mm fans are very noisy and induce a lot of case vibration because they have to turn so fast. These are usually on the chip set. I have been unable to find a solution. Does anyone else have one?
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
Hey vendor, I want to do a "review" of your hottest stuff. So please send as much of it as you can so I can write my "review". I will return them when I'm done, honest. Right after the LAN party.
http://froogle.google.com/froogle?q=acer+ferrari+4 005wlmi
2.0GHz Turion ML-37 chip with a Mobility Radeon X700, 1680x1050 native resolution 15.4" WSVGA screen, multi-layer DVDRW, 1GB DDR333 RAM, 100GB (only 5400 rpm) HDD, 10/100/1000 LAN, 802.11b/g & bluetooth wireless and predicted 3 hr battery life.
I would like one of those, please.
i am readig this on your turion laptop with ati x700 pci xpress and you can't have it back. You can buy another here http://www.evesham.com/PCs/Info.asp?e=29C15A00-EB6 2-4198-BA26-D6E8D206A299
Okay, I'm invoking the powers of /. to find me a laptop. Here's what I'm looking for:
- 15" - 17" widescreen. I'd prefer non-reflective since it seems the glossy displays would be useless outside on my deck, for example.
- 1600x1050 resolution or better
- 2GHz Pentium-M or better (or AMD equivilant)
- 2 memory slots
- Trackpoint controller
- Battery life > 3.5 hours.
Let's call this a pseudo-desktop replacement machine - one that will become my primary workstation but one that from time to time will perform telescope control/image acquisition. To avoid possible ground loop issues, I prefer the laptop be self-powered rather than plugging into the same batteries powering the telescope(s) and CCD.
I fear the trackpoint requirement is going to eliminate most the affordable candidates.
...these are notebooks. Just to go over the difference again:5 8&cid=11906247
http://hardware.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1420
So, no, you wouldn't want this sitting in your lap, as they aren't laptops.
(Note also that the article only once mentions 'laptop', on the first page, in reference to typical application of a particular chipset.)
The 'buildt' laptop belongs to the university I work for, and the spare parts and the 'extracted memory' also belong to the university and thus I have not stolen anything.
The total price, including the spare parts would be about $1400. Labor would be nothing, the 'building process' lasted only 20 mins. It took much longer to install the operating systems.
I have owned a Compaq R3200 series with a 3200+ for about a year now. One thing I find frustrating is that reviewers rarely run the machine the way I do. I use my box for a LAN party machine (or did, before the integrated GeForce 4 lost sight of the curve), but it's always plugged in. I use it for some computational work, sound processing, and Blendering as a hobby -- but it's always plugged in.
/sys/... and I clock it where I want. I turn the brightness down, etc. Lo and behold, a year+ after purchase, I still get about 2.5 hours of battery life (vast approaching the 3 hours I got with a dopey 1.4ghz Pentium M I had at my last company from Dell).
Sure, it's warm, but it's also sitting on my coffee table, my kitchen table, my Panera table, my desk, or my mattress. The heat doesn't really bother me then. And it kicks every Pentium M's butt I've ever played with.
Yet, these reviewers don't do what I do when I unplug -- instead of running Windows benchmarks and all that crap, I run Linux. A simple echo out to
Who needs 2 ghz to pound away in emacs on the train?
-Ant Slayer-
D:
The technology gap between desktops and laptops used to be huge. It is getting smaller. For instance, all the boards I have bought lately have had on-board everything. LCD monitors are common and cheap. It is possible to assemble a large clunky laptop for the same price as a desktop system. It would be about the same size and weight as the very first laptop computers that I remember seeing.
Of course, nobody would buy a laptop cobbled together with desktop parts. It would be far heavier and bigger than anything else on the market albeit at half the price. My point is that laptops are priced much higher than they have to be, if price is what drives the market. It does not seem that price drives the market for laptops though.
ATI drivers have gotten alot better. A new ATI driver was released in July....it even has a graphical installer this time. I am running an ATI card on linux with absolutely no problems.
What for? A pissing contest?
hahahahahahahahahahahaha +1 Funny!
You mean they wouldn't fast-track a few-thousand-dollar computer to somebody who wasn't going to pay for it?
Nemo
Coboc.com belongs to ABS Computers (abspc.com); they sold AMD 64 bare units until one week ago, then stopped. A friend of mine called them and was told that there is high demand of finished UNIWILL AMD64 and for now are not selling any bare units anymore, only complete units with CPU, memory, hard disk and optical drive (that may change). Uniwill, the Chinese manufacturer, calls these units 258KA0; they are sold by Absdpc under the name Mayhem G3. You can customize and order one at www.abspc.com.
I would not buy a finished unit. Buying a bare unit saves a lot of money, especially if you have spare components around.
While I'd LIKE to have a huge battery life in my notebook, it's not all that important to me. I use a notebook for all my work; at the office and when I got home I take it with me. I have a docking station at the office and a power supply at home that I sometimes take with me when I'm on call and I'm going to be away for the weekend or something.
The fact is, I'm always where there's power available. I don't need to use the machine on an airplane for 6 hours. I don't need to use my computer on a park bench all day.
Most of the guys I work with do the same thing. Our machines don't have the best battery life but it's good enough for the long meetings or logging in to check e-mail from the road. That extra two or three hours time on the battery just wouldn't matter.
I'd rather have a really powerful notebook that I can use as a desktop replacement for work that I can take home with me then a slower unit that has longer batttery life.
I'm not the only one that feels this way.
- It's not the Macs I hate. It's Digg users. -
The Acer Ferrari isn't impossible to find, they are in high demand though. It's all about timing. If anyone wants one, I have them for sale at http://www.cts-llc.net/ for $2098. Free shipping to anywhere in the US.
I haven't had a chance to play with a Ferrari yet, but I sell TravelMate's and Aspire's all the time. They're well built, have excellent LCD screens, and an extended warranty only costs you $99 for 2 years of additional coverage.
We don't sell outside of the United States, sorry Nigeria!
Call Dell and ask for an AMD based machine.
You'll get a very scripted answer of how AMD suffers compatibility problems, overheating, and is slower than Intel.
I asked if AMD had any chips that were faster than Intel (you know like the 64 bit dual core CPU's which every gamer knows well).
The answer? "No, AMD is really a second rate product and is not reliable". He followed with "Nobody is looking for AMD. They are really very junky."
Amazing! "Junky!" One must wonder why then is Intel now copying AMD's "junky" architecture?
Apparently no one told this guy that HP, Sun Microsystems, Lenovo (Thinkpad), and Hitatchi all went AMD within days after the lawsuit was filed.
------ The best brain training is now totally free : )
Better how? If ease of locating and installing graphics drivers is your basis of evaluating CPU's then
But since my Linux box is (like most others I imagine) a server and not a game machine
For those looking for a faster CPU with superior architecture (typically how I like to evaluate a CPU) there's no contest.
AMD's 64-bit dual-core architecture spanks Intel.
------ The best brain training is now totally free : )
Prediction: Intel gets their ass handed to them over the AMD lawsuit. First in Europe, then (after another year of wrangling) in the U.S.
Just wait until Dell gets subpoenaed. That's when the real fun will begin.
------ The best brain training is now totally free : )
It has so far survived eighteen months of commuting and abuse, especially the abuse of using it as a test vehicle for a complete web server and development platform.
What makes you think a web server and development platform is especially hard on the hardware? It's one of the least intensive uses I can think of. Gaming is something that pushes the hardware.
I must've looked through pretty much every single model from HP, Acer and Asus (and a few others) and could not find a single one with an MT processor - is there a reason for this, or did I just miss it? A couple of reviews mentioned that there isn't much of a price difference between the two, so I don't think that's it.
sic transit gloria mundi
http://hardware.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=15690 8&cid=13157700
you can get decent ones for under $1000 that will do about 90 percent as much as the ones used in the review.
You won't surf the net faster by overkill, and in the end it's the DRAM (amount, speed) that will impact you more, unless you're doing gaming or some heavy graphics.
Just my humble opinion.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Doesn't the ASUS company make the mobo for the current iBooks?
From what I remember of my last visit to Aus, the koalas have some pretty damn big claws. They'd make for good sneak-assassins (awwww cuteaarrrrrggh).
Just sniff the air for Eucalyptus... Koalas can be quite fragrant so you'll smell 'em coming. Of course they also sleep for 22h of the day so they're not very efficient...
My HP zd7000 has been working quite nicely - with the exception of a nasty defect wherein the RAM has issues when DIMM slot 2 is filled (not in the later models). It has a 17" display, with 1440x900 (close to what you want), a full keyboard, two memory slots, NVidia GPU, and I think it has bluetooth (but I have no BT devices).
I'm surprised no one has taped these phone calls and sent them to AMD for their fight against intel.
I can see you've never run a full J2EE platform on a laptop and got it to do some serious work. Our web server environment includes updates across large databases, document format translation, customised email to address lists, and OLAP on a memory resident database. It's not some flat file database with a little PHP, you know. Now support a load of simultaneous users each running in their own context and watch the HDD swapping. Whereas how much load do games typically put on the HDD and the Ethernet ports? And, in fact, excluding the video card (not the reason for buying a laptop, usually) what is the average processor load?
Panurge has posted for the last time. Thanks for the positive moderations.
It is very interesting that it's the stupid and/or poor who buy extended warranties. If a poor person is buying something that is so expensive relative to their means that they need to buy insurance for it, they need to seek a cheaper option. Pride: the source of many a bankruptcy.
Well, how about we set aside our tinfoil hats for a moment?
It could be that the AMD Turion was just recently released to major vendors in the past month, and there availability is still rare. Besides that, the full line isn't even out anywhere right now as the planned 25-watt-max Turions aren't available except by maybe a few rare fringe groups. Furthermore, everything up to this point has pointed to the fact that the Turion processors have poorer battery life and slower performance (running 32-bit programs) than Intel CPUs. The only advantage of them right now is the fact that they are cheaper and are 64-bit capable.
Now, aside from the turions, I can't see the reviewer having to much trouble coming across a notebook with a full-size AMD-64 as I can walk into a multitude of brick-and-mortar stores and pick one up or even go online and find them all over the place.
Call me.
* MultiBays can hold
std. battery is not in multibay.
std. HD is internal, not in multibay.
Extra feature : No Windows keys.
SuSE 9.1 installs and run without problems.
I can see you've never run a full J2EE platform on a laptop and got it to do some serious work.
And I can see you have zero concept of how a computer works. Load is load, if it's running your fancy J2EEeeeek or if it's running a million instances of Tux Racer. Both consume the available resources (one for work, the other to meet Suns Marketing Department requirements).
in both energy and processing efficiency
GamePC benchmarksClock for clock, the P-M is faster and uses less power.
your thin skin doesn't make me a troll
The flood of AMD powered computers in the sales circulars immediately after the lawsuit announcement? Or is this the delayed result of a knee-jerk reaction to Intel's Apple move?
Agreed, Very similar experience here.
Stress test those Ethernet ports. Test them buggers!
I have this overwhelming feeling that you think of your computer as a little magic box from the manner in which you talk about it. This disturbs me greatly because presumably you're some manner of programmer.
And for the record, games will heavily test CPU (real-time games don't block, and keep all alus and fpus fed), GPU (plus thermal reactions of having both used extensively in conjunction with each other), RAM (games are especially sensitive to bad RAM), the fidelity of power delivery, and networking (provided it's a networked game). Real stress testing of the NIC and its drivers, as well as disk performance and fidelity should be performed using BitTorrent, because it easily saturates the network, constructs an arbitrarily large number of connections, performs random disk access, and performs crypographic hashing of blocks to verify integrity.
HP sells a number of notebook PC running AMD Sempron, Athlon 64 and Turion 64 processors. They also appear to be moderately priced (even for the 64 turion.
e r_series.do?series_name=ze2000z_series&catLevel=2& category=notebooks/hp_pavilion&storeName=computer_ store
e r_series.do?series_name=zv6000_series&catLevel=2&c ategory=notebooks/hp_pavilion&storeName=computer_s tore
http://www.shopping.hp.com/webapp/shopping/comput
http://www.shopping.hp.com/webapp/shopping/comput
Hack-a-way!
It is very interesting that it's the stupid and/or poor who buy extended warranties.
It is very interesting that the stupid/poor buy $400 trashputers that fry out in 3 months, because the powersupply can at peek produce 20 fewer watts than the system needs to properly intialize everything on board... and thus can actually use the extended warranty. except that they then get thier trashputer replaced with an equally trashy trashputer, that has been tried with various defective parts until it can boot up at least once without crashing by a minimum wage 'tech'
Maybe the really poor shouldn't be buying computers, but then that's an entrie econmic sector that they're missing out on, onw where potentially they could earn enough to pull themselves out of poverty.
Maybe the problem isn't with the poor/stupid, but with the digerati, who assume if you're buying a $400 computer you're a POS and you don't matter, and your hardware can fry in 3 days because they don't have to replace it if they can just blame the 'end user'.. of have such exorbinant labor fees, that even if the part is replaced 'free' it costs more than the computer to get it fixed without a warrenty...
https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html
The Acer Aspire 1524 comes with a Athlon64 34000+, 15,4'' WXGA TFT LCD 1280x800, NVidia GeForce FX Go 5700 64MB, 80GB HD, DVD-+RW, 512MB RAM, 802.11 b/g wireless LAN and, to top things out, a PCMCIA 5 in 1 memory card reader. I bought one a couple of months ago for 1200 and I have to say, it rocks. It is a shame it isn't listed on the article. The only thing which is a downer is the wireless modem. It is only supported under windows. To make matters worse, the windows drivers are only 32bits. So, I am forced to run 32bit linux and running ndiswrapper just because of the lack of linux support. When will they learn?? Besides that problem, it is a great machine and, compared with the other laptops in the article, a great product and a great price.
Slashdot, fix your code or at least hire someone who is competent at it to do it for you.
You have to take into account though that the intel processors also have to do the Vertex Shading work when it comes to graphics rendering... are you saying it still outperforms the A64 in processing efficiency even then?
But since my Linux box is (like most others I imagine) a server and not a game machine ... that's not really the issue.
Since we're discussing laptops, then preferences for a server aren't really relevant. Things like support for video and wireless are critical.
But I do agree that the graphics issue has nothing to do with CPU - whether Intel or AMD based, most decent laptops use an nVidia or ATI card. The Intel chipsets tend to rule the lower end of the market...
One theory is that the quality of manufacturing these days is so poor that "extended warranties" might not be such a stupid choice for major purchases. My ancient 15" no-name monitor lasted for 7 years or so. Both of my higher-end Mitsubishi CRTs ($500+ each) crapped out shortly after the 3 year warranty.
You wonder why? Weak floating point unit is why. P-M is a terrific chip, but that's definitely not its strong suit.
True..but:
A. ATI drivers do not accerate the composite extension. No xcompmgr or neat 2D eye candy.
B. ATI drivers work like crap with Cedega.
And that why I recently bought an Nvidia card...
Open Source Sushi
Wait a second. Before, you were talking about a "test vehicle" (your own words). Now we are talking about "serious work", "a load of simultaneous users" etc? That's not the situation you initially described.
Further research has shown that the Evesham Voyager A210 has the Turion MT37 up to four hours of battery life, on integrated graphics. Its bigger brother, the Voyager A410 has Mobility Radeon X700 but an expected battery life of only 2.5 hours. The Evesham Quest Roma is a better price for the same specification as the Voyager A410.
their website delivered a custom, build to order AMD64 chip multimedia laptop in about 14 days.... it was shipped from their assembly plant on mainland China though...