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."

Comments

Its a conspiracy.

[Anonymous Coward]

A consipracy I tell ya. Intell must have jinxed the compiler preventing the vendors from shipping AMDs.

Of course they couldn't

[fr0dicus]

The waiting list for a Ferrari is months or years!

Printer-friendly version

[sczimme]

Fewer ads 'n' whatnot: Clicky.

One possible explenation

[Anonymous Coward]

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. :)

Fodder for the lawsuit?

[jarich]

Is this sort of situation fodder for the pending lawsuits or just a reflection of consumer demand (or the lack thereof)?

More cannon fodder

[Iriel]

Gee, after reading enough articles like this, I'm starting to think AMD should start checking /. for arguments in their Intel-monopoly lawsuit ;)

Well...

[DanielNS84]

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

I'd prefer an Intel laptop

[Arthur B.]

Because the machine code is more optimized if I use my Intel compiler.

Re:Pentium M processor good for desktop

[DanielNS84]

They clocked up a 770 model Pentium M and it outperformed an extreme edition at lower temps. http://www.tomshardware.com/cpu/20050525/index.htm l tfa if anyone is interested :)

No wonder an Intel unit was the winner

[gilesjuk]

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.

Re:No wonder an Intel unit was the winner

[manno]

RTFA, That AMD based ASUS is no joke, it's one of the best laptops out there no exceptions. I'd take a laptop made by ASUS, over any other company out there. They are hands down one of the best consumer oriented electronics companies around. I prefer AMD processors in my computers. Plain and simple I'm an underdog kind of guy. Every PC, and laptop I own uses an AMD processor, and 2 of the three PC's have ASUS motherboards to match. But truth be told in the mobile market Intel has a far superior chip. Your not going to see widespread acceptance of AMD in the mobile market, until they make a chip that's better than the Pentium M(PM). AMD's Turion is OK, but has a long way to go in terms of battery performance. The fact that the ASUS notebook did so well on the battery benchmark is a testament to ASUS's engineering more so than AMD's underlying technology. It's no coincidence that the top performers in battery performance were all from Intel. If you want to see how good a chip the PM is look at the Doom 3 numbers here:

http://www.gamepc.com/labs/view_content.asp?id=a64 x2&page=10/

A PM @ 2.13GHz performs exactly the same as a A64 @ 2.4GHz, And it consumes a lot less power. PM's on the mobile side are just better chips. If you're doing media creation the scales tip towards AMD, but for business apps, and typical home consumer use it's the PM's battery life that makes it so popular.

-manno

Re:One possible explanation

[panurge]

Indeed it could be. It may be too that the vendors are careful not to promote them too hard because (a) Intel may get nasty and (b) they would eat into the mainstream product lines.

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.

Pricing

[zaguar]

If you take anything out of this, Yanks, look at the pricings. In Australia, a developed, industrialized nation we have 150%-200% markups vs U.S. prices on almost all computing items.

If you want to see more for yourself - look at:

http://www.newegg.com/

vs

http://www.auspcmarket.com.au/

Re:Pricing

[ballstothat]

What about currency conversion?

Australian dollars currently trade at $1.30AU for every $1US.

XFX Geforce 7800 at Newegg is:

$574 dollars
Link: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82 E16814150100

XFX Geforce 7800 at AusPCMarket is:

$924 dollars
Link: http://www.auspcmarket.com.au/show_product_info.ph p?input%5Bproduct_code%5D=VI-11PVT70F-256&input%5B category_id%5D=1339

$574 x 1.3 = $746.20

There is a markup, of about 20 percent. Not 150-200% as you have stated, however.

Re:Pricing

[Bad to the Ben]

It's even more extravagant when you consider that the Australian dollar is worth 76 US cents (not great but not enough to justify that markup), and that Taiwan, where most of this stuff is made, is a hell of a lot closer to Australia (and therefore less expensive to ship to) than it is America.

Then again, the US is a far bigger purchaser of this sort of stuff, so they probably get a bulk purchase discount or something.

Re:Pricing

[podperson]

Australian prices include sales tax (10%) for starters.

Perhaps AMD-powered Notebooks have...

[Super Nicko]

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*

Offtopic possibly, but I just have to say...

[Weaselmancer]

...serious bonus points for using the word "humdinger" in a tech review.

problems only applicable down under?

[js3]

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

Aesthetics?

[N8F8]

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.

Re:Aesthetics?

[weg]

Actually aesthetics is the unique selling point of Apple notebooks nowadays, cause the current i- and Power-Books are really lame with respect to performance (I'm not an Apple hater.. I own a brand new Powerbook myself). But as long as the other manufacturers make sure that their notebooks look like cheap toys there will always be somebody (like me ;-)) who buys Apple notebooks.

ASUS in Italy, not in USA

[mennucc1]

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.

Re:ASUS in Italy, not in USA

[nemattoad]

Asus notebooks are also beginning to gain huge popularity here in Canada.

Wrong priorities

[trevdak]

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....

HP makes Athlon64 notebooks...

[Ritz_Just_Ritz]

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,

Re:HP makes Athlon64 notebooks...

[zenneth]

A little info regarding HP's service. My mother bought a nice little A64 3200+ laptop from BestBuy, a Pavilion zv6000. It came with 512mb of RAM, DVDR, 80gb of HD and a dedicated 128mb Radeon X200m. She'd had it for a little over a month when, after removing a PCMCIA Buffalo Wireless card, a small brass pin fell out of the slot.

Needless to say, she spent the requisite time getting the situation handled. First, she tried the "Live Chat" on HP's support page. The person who first had contact with her appeared very helpful, yet was actually no help at all. When she contacted them using the telephone, she began getting the runaround. They tried to tell her that it was physical damage, which it certainly wasn't. My mother isn't so well off that she'd spend $1200 on anything and then trash it. Eventually, she received a call from a very nice support representative who contacted her several more times, both before and after receiving the replacement.

Speaking of which, she ended up with a brand-new Pavilion from the factory. A64 3500+, 1gb RAM, 100gb HD, and still the dedicated 128mb Radeon X200m. She had to reinstall her software, etc, but it ended up almost being worth the hassle, IMHO.

Moral of the story: Stay away from the online support, and contact HP directly via the telephone.

I built an AMD 64 laptop-just two weeks ago

[Anonymous Coward]

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 hot temps there...

[Bad to the Ben]

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.

Tiny.com

[Anonymous Coward]

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 :(

Better pricing

[Anonymous Coward]

No. We have nuclear weapons. The Australians have koala bears. End of story.

i'd still

[mad27]

buy a powerbook any day of the week

Uh...?

[Hack Jandy]

Problem Solved

HJ

Only vendor submitted laptops?

[Cromac]

After much chasing, only two vendors submitted an AMD-powered product -- MSI and Asus.

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.

Re:One possible explanation

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

I want my AMD.

[th3space]

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...

Re:Ferrari 4000

[Otter]

I dunno -- seems to me if you're going to go for the vulgarity of a Ferrari computer, the utter vulgarity of the all-red model beats the subdued vulgarity of the new rev.

On the other hand, the Tulip E-Go on that site is genuinely stunning. I don't know how many customers there are for a 64-bit laptop that looks like a tulip-covered handbag, though. And 283,000 Euros for the diamond-encrusted model is a bit steep -- maybe Lil' Kim would want one.

In any case, I bet you can't just call up and get a review model of that in Australia, either.

An unaddressed option...

[ant_slayer]

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.

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 /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).

Who needs 2 ghz to pound away in emacs on the train?

-Ant Slayer-

Ohh, you're wrong about that.

[cbreaker]

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.

Re:Ohh, you're wrong about that.

[kesuki]

While I'd LIKE to have a huge battery life in my notebook

If you can get the power requirements low enough, I'll take 10 years please ;)

http://www.physorg.com/news4081.html

screw the wall outlet I want a laptop where you have to replace the system before the battery dies ;)

before someone say's 'but what about the radiation' if it's safe enough to put inside someone's pace maker, then it's can be designed safe enough to build into a laptop..

Here's a fun test: Call Dell

[popo]

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.

Re:Here's what I'm looking for...

[Cheetahfeathers]

What I would really love to see is something like the trackpoint, but with a little trackball instead of a nub in the center of the keyboard.

ASUS make iBooks?

[bach37]

Doesn't the ASUS company make the mobo for the current iBooks?