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Mobile Processor Showdown
AnInkle writes "The Tech Report has a head-to-head comparison between the Pentium M760 and the Turion ML-44. From the article: 'AMD has done well with Opteron in servers and the Athlon 64 in desktops, but surely AMD's K8-derived mobile competitor doesn't match up with the Pentium M. Does it?' Conventional wisdom (or marketing genius) says Pentium M's power-saving features and performance-per-watt leave AMD's Turion 64 gasping for batteries. Even though the next-gens are just around the corner, countless mobile systems will sell with these chips over the next year; find out which to choose, whether for performance, battery life or a combination of both."
I'm waiting for vast improvements in battery life before I decide. I've waited 10 years. I can wait 10 more.
personally, i would settle for a 700MHz PC (running linux of coarse) that lasted until the cow came home (it's a small farm :P ). it would probably be best to use the ARM archatecture though. im not interested in running Quake 4 when all im doing is writing a college paper, browsing and chatting... isn't that what a desktop computer is for? well, that and adding fancy lights, a see-through panel, oh... and not to mention the harddrive with a window. :)
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
This test pits a Pentium M against a Turion 64. Granted, this was the comparison for 6 months ago. But Intel now has the Duo Core (Yonah) processor which has a slightly different architecture than Pentium M.
Not to mention that while Conroe and Merom will be based on the same design principles it is a fresh design.
I believe the key to Intel's new design will not be its close approximation to the Athlon in performance. The secret is in performance per watt, as they say. High performance computing with as little engergy consumption and heat dissipation as possible. The Athlon 64 architecture looked cool compared to the toaster oven called Netburst, but even against the old Pentium III it is quite hot and hungry. Lifestyle PCs, laptops, and blade servers will all favor the much cooler design from Intel.
While Athlon 64 will continue to compete on performance and price, without a major architectural change they will be stuck in the hot seat for the next couple of years. And it will only get worse before it gets better because Intel's chip design is truly superior, only held back by a dated bus architecture slated for replacement in 2007.
While Intel will "win" technologically, they will burn a lot of capital to remain competitive until they do. Lots of Pentium M chips have been stockpiled. By the time Yonah reaches mass production it will be replaced by Merom. Lots of stockpiled Pentium D chips that will be replaced by Conroe. Intel will need to slash prices for processors nobody wants anymore only to flood the market with brand new PC's that don't need to be replaced by the superior technology they so desperately need to release.
Maybe Intel will sooner push the P4's into a landfill than cut their own throats? Or maybe 2006 will be a good year to start up your own server farm in the basement.
The chip to compare to the Turion is the Intel Core Duo. It has superior floating point performance to the PentiumM, SSE3 support, and two cores instead of one.
In other words, it crushes the Turion.
hmmm, an intel performing more work per clock cycle than an equivilant amd chip, while using only 3/4 the watts under load! what a reversal from the norm. AND the intel chip is faster in gaming!?
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