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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."
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.
There are two kinds of people: 1) those who start arrays with one and 1) those who start them with zero.
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.
Pretty good is actually pretty bad.
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.