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Intel Launches Centrino Duo Notebooks
An anonymous reader writes "Intel has officially introduced their Centrino Duo platform. The new Centrino uses the Yonah processor which I guess is now called Core Duo. AnandTech has a review of notebooks based on it and the results are pretty impressive. They tested two identical notebooks, one based on Centrino Duo and one based on Centrino. The Duo notebook lasted 30 minutes longer on battery and was faster in the benchmarks. You can't beat longer battery life and better performance."
How can they be identical if they are based on different motherboards?
Apple decided to go with Intel...because of these laptops...
It looked like, from the title, that Intel was launching, not just a new chip for notebook machines, but actual notebook machines. That would certainly have Dell and HP shaking in their boots!
From Centrino Duo page:
"Ready for Windows XP Vista*
Support for the latest software when it arrives."
What the hell is "Windows XP Vista"? A new Linux distribution?
I can't believe someone would rate the parent post as "informative" without ever looking at the article.
In the article, Anandtech clearly states that their request for identical notebooks was filled by Asus's W-series notebooks. Since Asus is a huge ODM, they provided identical notebooks with the only difference being the new chipset, processor combo. The processors (Dothan and Core Duo) were even matched clock for clock at 1.86Ghz. The comparison is amazingly good and shows very clearly that the new processor has a great boost and performance and battery time. Next time, please RTFA before posting drivel.
Cause you can. Make it weigh less than 1kg and you have a real winner.
is 30 mins that significant ?
Obviously if your train journey lasts 30 mins more than your current battery life then is does.
But I would go with a margin of error of at least 30 mins in battery life depending on individual usage plus wifi, bluetooth, external devices etc.
ERR 411[Max number of witty sigs reached]
In the article it says that the new integrated video chip in the Centrino triad will display Vista's user interface without any problems. The new 3945abg wireless also supports some of the new advanced wireless technologies with Windows own WLAN client.
I personally have the JVC 7310 notebook which uses the first generation Centrino ultra-low voltage processors in a tiny notebook which weighs less than 1kg (1.99 pound to be exact). JVC later released the 741 which included a Dothan 1.1Ghz CPU. Yes, they use standard hardware and Linux runs just fine on it. I'm sure JVC will be releasing a Core Duo ultra-low voltage notebook very soon.
All these breakthroughs in technology will be considered ancient when batman introduces the worlds best computer ever. The bat-nipple xp.
Women- the final frontier...
My two cents on this too, please.
Anybody know of any "subnotebooks" announced with centrino duo?
MikMik Baby Organics Mikkaworks
How well has Intel improved the performance of its integrated graphics chipset? I'd like to see what I can look forward to if Apple decides to go with Intel and not ATI or nVidia. While I understand these aren't meant to be gaming "powerhouses", I'd still like to do some light gaming on it. (FWIW, I've play World of Warcraft, at around 20fps, on my old iBook G4 800 and my desktop P3 750 (ti4200), which was acceptable. I'd like to see at least this level of performance).
If you were me, you'd be good lookin'. - six string samurai
You can't beat longer battery life and better performance.
How about a quieter fan?
That's right. The link does not contain that. But the pages it links to do...
You kids! Haven't you learned not to peak at your presents before Christmas Day?
Seriously, once I got over having expectations for either Christmas presents or the Keynote, I stopped being so disappointed and started enjoying both Christmas and MWSF much more.
I can remember a group of us being stunned that our hoped-for "Apple PDA" turned out to be the iPod. We felt so betrayed at the time. But look how that turned out. And meanwhile, the PDA market has mostly been stagnant, or has merged with (read: become a feature of) telephony.
So pull up a deck chair, grab a kool aid, sit back, and prepare to have the warm emanations of the RDF wash over you pleasantly.
It's not offtopic, dumbass. It's orthogonal.
... the SLIGHTLY better power consumption is probably a result of moving from 90nm to 65nm - it is possible that a 65nm single-core would still have better power consumption !!!
As a result I would really want to see how things will be compared to a 65nm (dual-core or not) AMD Turion and before paying around 500 US$ for the CPU only I would rather wait for a dual-core 64 bit CPU (eventually with 4 MB L2).
Where can one find the the assumptions and circumstances under which these "pretty impressive" results are obtained?
Um, maybe in the article?
Indeed, it is hard to imagine that you can have "identical" notebooks with different chipsets.
"The beauty of the W5F and W5A is that they are virtually identical, with the only real difference being that the former is based on the Napa platform while the latter is a Sonoma notebook. ASUS even went one step further and shipped us notebooks with processors clocked identically - the W5F featured a Core Duo T2400 (1.83GHz) while the W5A featured a Pentium M 750 (1.83GHz)." -- RTFA
Don't become a regular here -- you will become retarded.
You can't beat longer battery life and better performance.
Yes you can! Just spend more on advertising.
May the Maths Be with you!
Maybe it's just me, but a dual core notebook seems a little wierd. As internet connections speed up we do more and more on the server, the notbook (phone, trio, etc) becomes more of a slow single core type system IMO. Dual core notebooks will use a lot of batery too. I'd rather have a thinner client than that.
No Sigs!
Face it, this idea everything would be done on a server and you would only need a "thin client" or such has been nothing much more than a pipe-dream.
One major reason is cost, the end clients have become more powerful and the price has dropped. The difference in cost between having a low powered end client versus a standard one isn't enough to justify anyone moving to a different model.
Then toss in the adversion most people have to "not owning it" and it becomes clear why this has never taken off. Look at the adversion people here on slashdot have to subscription music! Do you think any of these people will want to subsribe to software? Sure there will be some people who put up a server at home and work that way but that isn't a killer-app.
Notebooks and even phones for that matter will continue to get more powerful. There will be markets for low cost phones, but those same markets are not of any interest to the central server market advocates as these markets most likely won't have the money or inclination to use the service.
If you want your central server model you have to look no further than the green screen systems that are in use in many industries doing real work. Its really hard to sell someone something when the solution already exists.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
I've been here since the beginning when Malda started this place. I just choose not to post on every story.
"You can't beat longer battery life and better performance."
:-)
;-)
Sure you can.... longer battery life, better performance and lower pricing
And it's easy to top that one as well
(The point being that better lifetime and performance are no brainers only if all other quality measures don't suffer.)
"The new slogan is supposed to signify Intel's shift away from focusing "inside" and starting to look at platforms and solutions for the end users."
What does this sentence mean? Intel is going to make their own hardware and software now?
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
New Powerbooks announced next Tuesday.
New Powerbooks start shipping in March (R)(TM).
Whenever I hear the word 'Innovation', I reach for my pistol.
There is around a 5-10% performance increase in benchmarks I utterly distrust (i.e. the same benchmarks that always favor Pentium4 3.0ghz to AMD64 4000+), and the battery is generally around 5-10% less for cpu intensive applications. Where's the improvement?
And please show us some real benchmarks.
It's Service Pack 3 for Windows® XP®, but instead of calling it SP3 they call it Vista® and put a price tag on it.
HTH.
You're kidding, right? They are THE processor for laptops. Almost everyone I know with a x86 laptop has one. I went from a P3 to a P4 to a first-gen centrino, and now a Sonoma for about the last half year (actually, a W5A like the one in the article). There's no way a regular Pentium or Celeron can compare to a Centrino when in comes to battery life or heat output. . And I'm no Intel fanboy at all, I actually do prefer AMDs on the desktops, but for notebooks Intel Centrinos are "it"
So, this new fangled wireless card Intel have produced, 3945ABG.
Are we Linux users going to get a driver for it?
An extra 30 minutes battery life, and a dual core CPU for multitasking, would both be quite beneficial for me, but without Linux wireless drivers (no ndiswrapper please) it's a no-go.
centrino is more of a spec than a chip. Centrino is to laptops what THX is to sound systems. It requires a certain level of performance with minimal power draw. and its suposed to be pretty good from what ive read. I want to say the processor is the Pentium M, which is a very good laptop processor.
thats pretty much my best post ever. I spent like 3 hours typing it.
'Core Duo'? How long before we see the 'Pentium' branding fade away entirely?
OP Said:You can't beat longer battery life and better performance."
Well, except with even longer battery life and even better preformance for even less money. I think that would beat it.
Transmeta Efficeon is far more efficient than the Centrino. Thats what I go with time and time again. For a pretty similar performance in office applications, I get >15 hours battery life on a Fujitsu P2000 compared to the puny 5 hours on a centrino.
Top tier developers use ssh.
If you are already VPNing into a system, what's the advantage of SSH over telnet?
I don't know anyone who uses this chip
Centrino mobile technology is a chipset, not a chip. Until now, it has consisted of a Pentium M CPU plus specific supporting chips including a specific brand of onboard 802.11b adapter.
When's the P5 coming out?
Given that "Pentium" comes from the Greek word for the number 5 plus a Latin suffix, wouldn't "Pentium 5" be redundant?
Not russki, no chem eto smeshno?
Those 10 hours aren't just due to the more efficient - and significantly slower - processor. I'm too lazy to look up the real numbers, but powering the CPU is just one of several major power drains in a laptop. With the adaptive voltage all modern mobile CPUs offer, the display uses more power, and the hard drive isn't insignificant, either. Consequently, smaller displays and physically smaller HDD form factors result in longer battery times.
;)
That said, 15+ hours on a single charge is still awesome.
Switch back to Slashdot's D1 system.
Well, strictly speaking, "Centrino" isn't the processor.
IMO, we need a new product from battery manufacturers to get any really significant increases. It's apparent that Li's are nearing their potential.
Prove it.
Amen to that. Distinctly underwhelming except for battery.
Pretty similar?? I'd love to see those benchmarks.
Here in reality, the Centrino has the best performance per watt of any x86 CPU (or at least highest performance for lowest wattage). Why do you think Intel started pushing performance per watt anyway? Answer: It's the only thing they are good at right now.
Thats is just not true. Have you seen the transmeta clusters that give you 18gflops at a puny 300W power? -- Atleast twice as efficient as Intel for mhz per watt, but the CPUs are slower. I.E. xvid playback takes 30% cpu on my transmeta, 20% on my centrino. Cant notice difference in speed for office, browsing, etc.
Ok, pardon me for asking the obvious question:
How much are these laptops going to cost?
When are they going to be available?
I was going to buy a laptop for running Fedora Core at the end of January. I was planning to spend 1000-1200$ Is this out of my league (and time frame)?
Robert Nagle, Idiotprogrammer, Houston
Intel is going to make their own hardware and software now?
Well, they've been making their own hardware since before many of us were born.
The strategy they're now adopting seems to be to start selling more hardware directly to consumers, rather than just selling components to OEMs who then integrate and sell to consumers.
Frankly I'm surprised that the "Intel Inside" campaign has been so successful for the past 10 years, since they're basically spending millions to market a 1-inch sticker to consumers. It's time they take that brand identity they've built up and start taking advantage of it.
... don't expect much. The blurb for their "Vista-ready" chipset, they're not promising anything:
Translation: you'll still need a third-party GPU if you want decent 3D graphics performance.
This is effectively the Pentium 5. The NetBurst architecture of the P4 is dead, and this is taking over.
I used to get high on life, but I developed a tolerance. Now I need something stronger.
667 MHz frontside (system) bus. 500 MHz more than what's in the current laptops!
If this is a nightmare, I, for one, don't want to wake up.
Jokes aside, MP3 playback for Linux actually used to be a headache and helped spur the development of Robert Love's preemptible kernel patches and many other enhancements to the scheduler and reductions of latency from the main Kernel team. You can see MP3 playback was used heavily as a diagnostic tool before these patches ended up in the vanilla kernel.
;)
SMP machines with dual CPUs (or in this case, dual CPU cores) don't tend to have problems like that, so yes, having a dual core actually makes your MP3s sound better =)
Then again, if you're encoding your music collection to a crappy format like MP3, when you could be using far better formats (and more CPU intensive, where having a faster machine helps, too), then you don't really need them to sound better
- Otaku no naka no otaku, otaking da!!!
I am happy to see Intel producing duel core tech but it apears that this centrino is not 64 bit so I don't see the point in it. Both Intel and AMD are making 64 bit x86 processors so that is likely to be the standard of the future... so why buy a processor that is still 32 bit?
I miss the Karma Whores.
These things will be core-to-core much faster than the G4 Powerbooks
But not as G5. G5 is available now as notebook CPU if I remember correctly. But it is true it was out after Apple announced move to Intel.
in addition to the battery life.
Yeah, compared to another Intel:) Don't you know that PB lasted twice on battery as Intel? PB 5.5 hours, my centrino 3 hours?
I don't see how you figure it will be an overall loss
Obviously you're die hard Apple fan. Do you think it is coincidence that more and more PC users turn to AMD? As former die hard Intel fan I can surely see and understand parents post. Since then Opteron is my choice.
Signature Pro version 1.13.2-3 release 83.5 beta3try7 after-breakfast edition
There are no G5 notebook computers. The G5 chips burn far too much power to be used in a notebook, unless it's one of those desktop replacement notebooks that last maybe an hour on battery. The inability of IBM to provide a low-power G5 was a major factor in Apple's switch to Intel chips.