Intel Core i7 For Laptops — First Benchmarks

Barence writes "PC Pro has benchmarked the first Intel Core i7 processors for laptops. The chips mark the debut of Intel's Turbo Boost technology, which ramps up the speed of the working cores if two or more cores are sitting unused. For the quad-core i7-820QM, this can take the stock speed of 1.73GHz up to a maximum of 3.06GHz. The 2D benchmarks show comparable performance to Core 2 Extreme chips running at 2.53GHz. Power consumption and processor temperature is dramatically lower, which should lead to significant improvements in laptop battery life."

Comments

Goobers still saying Core This and Core That

[Informative]

They must have the most shameless shit-for-brains in their marketing dept.

Re:Goobers still saying Core This and Core That

[Anonymous Coward]

Intel started using the Pentium brand back in 1993, and they're still selling chips under that name even today.
Core is probably their most recognized brand since then, so I expect it to be with us for quite some time to come.

Re:Goobers still saying Core This and Core That

[Kjella]

It was an attempt to distract from the superiority of the AMD chips at that time, especially the Opteron.

Why would they try to distract from anything, once they had the Core processors? They were the comeback of Intel after the poor performance of the Pentium IV. I'm guessing it was more "let's ditch a brand that's gotten tarred and make a splash with a new brand" like how Vista is replaced with Windows 7.

Who needs that?

[wasabioss]

Although faster is better and will be every Slashdotter's wet dream, but I'd rather have power-efficient laptops rather than a gazillion Ghz laptop. I don't get why an average Joe needs a Core 2 Duo laptop for Word processing and surfing the web, which is what most people have and what most people do now. And now they're going to put i7 on the laptops. There will be some people who needs it, but not the majority of casual laptop users, who don't do video encoding or kernel compilation (which should be the work of a desktop IMHO).

I have two atom powered laptops and I even sold my laptops because I was so in love with those machines, which wouldn't burn my lap and my balls whenever I have to sit them on my laps. Other than the pitiful 950 graphics, I have nothing to complain about.

And I heard they fixed it with the Z5x0 chipset - on Windows at least, but as I don't have one, I can't verify it.

Re:Who needs that?

[xigxag]

Lots of people use their laptop as their only machine. In that case it's helpful to have a device that can sip power when away from the mains but whilst plugged in can run with the big dogs.

Re:Who needs that?

[jeffstar]

I don't get why an average Joe needs a Core 2 Duo laptop for Word processing and surfing the web

Joe's flashtube can peg a core at 100% but he can use the other one to kill it?

Re:Who needs that?

[bertok]

Add an SSD and a good I7 laptop will certainly blow the socks of most desktops out there. Laptops are now just a few MHz and disk spins away from desktops really. Add an SSD and this kind of processor and the gap is as good as gone. I'm already planning on using my PC just for development, my other tasks just don't need (cheap) 8GB of memory and a stack of hard drives.

That makes zero sense... if a laptop with an SSD is good, then an SSD in a good i7 workstation will be even better, for 1/2 the price. In practice, laptops will always be behind desktops, because of the compromises they have to make for weight, size, cooling, and power consumption. They're not catching up to a stationary target.

For example, I have a laptop with 8GB of memory, a high-end SSD, and a dual-core CPU. It rocks. It's so fast, it gives me tunnel vision. However, the RAM was expensive, 8GB is the upper limit, and the CPU is anemic compared to what I'd like to have in it.

Meanwhile, my friends and coworkers are getting 3GHz quad-core desktops with 12GB of memory, an SSD, terabytes of disk, etc... Those machines are beasts. If you do real work, like running multiple virtual machines, databases, and heavy-weight development environments, they're a real time saver. Unfortunately, I'm a consultant, so I need my work machine to be portable. 8(

The real difference is that my laptop cost me about AUD 6000 all up, but you can have almost 2x that performance for AUD 3000 if you buy a workstation instead. I don't know what the US price is like, but here in Australia, you can have 12 GB of DDR3 memory for AUD 400. That's just... wrong. In the same price range as my laptop, you can get a dual-socket (8 core) workstation with 24GB of memory, an SSD, and 8TB of spinning disk. In 6 months, when octo-core CPUs are available, up that to 16 cores! A laptop with an even remotely similar spec won't be available for at least a year and a half.

Re:Who needs that?

[maxume]

My computer is 85% toy, so I can't really justify a big budget to myself, but still, I'm sitting here wondering what someone from 2003 would say reading your comment.

Re:Who needs that?

[Jeremy Erwin]

Although faster is better and will be every Slashdotter's wet dream, but I'd rather have power-efficient laptops rather than a gazillion Ghz laptop.

That's you. You're at peace with the world, and feel compelled to announce it.

. I don't get why an average Joe needs a Core 2 Duo laptop for Word processing and surfing the web, which is what most people have and what most people do now. And now they're going to put i7 on the laptops.

Ah, Joe Average is a man of limited aspirations. Web and Word. Web and Word. All day long. Joe Average doesn't need to game, But then, Joe Average runs Linux. There are no games for Linux.

And now they're going to put i7 on the laptops. There will be some people who needs it, but not the majority of casual laptop users, who don't do video encoding or kernel compilation (which should be the work of a desktop IMHO).

Video encoding-- everybody wants to encode video. Why? Maybe that's why they keep the old word processor around, to draft letters to attorneys. Now kernel compilation-- that's real work there-- though someone who was hacking the kernel instead of recompiling the latest point release would probably appreciate a lightweight, portable machine for coding. Does emacs count as a "word processor"?

I have two atom powered laptops and I even sold my laptops because I was so in love with those machines, which wouldn't burn my lap and my balls whenever I have to sit them on my laps. Other than the pitiful 950 graphics, I have nothing to complain about.

Quite. Because any games that would put a dent in Core 2 Duo wouldn't run very well on a gma 950.

I know, I know. We're in the middle of a depression, and one's aspirations must be humble. But in buying a laptop, which can't be expanded very easily, it's often wise to plan for future needs.

Re:Who needs that?

[Jeremy Erwin]

When buying a computer, it's never very wise to pick a model that merely meets your expectations, or undercuts them. A computer that's only suitable "for surfing the web"and "word processing" may just happen to choke on web video.

Even if you aren't a hardcore gamer, there's always a chance that some company might release a compelling title-- that doesn't even run on your new barebones laptop,

Ok, so you run linux. Ever thought of tweaking the code? A faster laptop might reduce build times to the point where coding is pleasurable-- from hours to minutes.

But you've looked at this from a architecture cynic's point of view-- there's no way that programmers will learn parallel processing, rendering a 4 core machine (like the i7) useless. That too might pass.

It's a joke that dual core is useful for flash because one cpu can choke, and the other can make the system responsive enough to shut down the offending video. But a second or third core can be used by the OS to house clean, make backups, index files, scan for viruses, In addition, various languages and tools are emerging that make concurrent, multithreaded programming easier than before. SInce single threaded performance is not the sole focus of future CPU design anymore, programmers will have no choice but to program for multiple cores.

Today, not six months from now, but today, Google Chrome generates multiple processes, one for each window. Might it be faster on a Core i7? Next year, to surf the web in style, you just might "need" a Core i9 with 24 GB RAM.

I hope that answers your questions.

macbook pro?

[MrBallistic]

coming to a macbook pro near you in january, i'd guess....

Re:battery life?

[Korin43]

Did you not even read the summary? That seems to be the entire point. They make two cores run at full speed, and the other two go into low-power more. So two cores, lower battery life.

Why not?

[ciroknight]

"Dynamic Load-based Overclocking" just doesn't sound as good as "Ultra Speedburner" or "Turbo Boosters" on the tin.

Re:Turbo Boost technology?

[dingen]

Probably the same people who came up with USB 3's "SuperSpeed mode".

Apparently marketing is now in the hands of 11-year old boys.

Re:We have low end, now the high end...

[owlstead]

You mean those devices with LED screens or multi-touch touchpads or SSD drives or smaller units without optical drive or devices with much longer battery life or Bluetooth/Wireless N or 500 GB laptop drives? Those with eSATA and HDMI connectors and high end cameras and microphone arrays? The ones with usable fingerprint reader devices?

Yes, I agree, no innovations to be found for those devices.

Re:Turbo Boost technology?

[Kjella]

I'm just waiting for them to tag an Ultra Extreme on top of that.

Re:battery life?

[Jeff DeMaagd]

You say that like battery life at the extreme expense of performance, or performance at the extreme expense of battery life are the only two choices at hand.

I'm sure netbooks fit an important need, the same goes for the desktop replacements, but it would be nice if some battery life attention was paid in between the extremes.

Re:battery life?

[Animaether]

No, what I am saying is you can't have both without making some manner of compromise at the moment.

There's currently no real incentive for Intel to make more energy-efficient Core 2 Duos because the market -is- very segmented between those who are perfectly fine with the Core 2 Duos as they are (fairly powerful and reasonable battery life, though not fo true mobility), and those who really need longer battery life and are on the go a lot, who are fine with a netbook using a Core 2 Solo or Atom (or any of the AMD equivalents) processor.

Of course it -is- possible to get something in between, but you have to accept (unless you have millions to pursuade Intel otherwise ahead of any schedule they might have to introduce a more efficient platforms after all) that it is a fairly niche market.

Companies do cater to that niche market, however; Lenovo, for example. The Lenovo T400 runs a nice Core 2 Duo. Its battery life is a bit above that of the average notebook - but you -can- even extend that by upgrading from a 4-cell (~4 hours) to a 6-cell or even a 9-cell battery (~10 hours) and go beyond that if you add the external bay battery.
Take the figures with a pinch of the usual 'battery life claims' salt and you should still be very comfortable with the 9-cell w/o bay battery.

No, adding batteries doesn't make the platform more efficient, but it -is- the next best thing available right now, especially if the desire is for 'longer battery life' and not necessarily a more efficient platform.