How is the new Studio 1536 with ZM-80 Turion X2 Ultra ?

What is the performance of this new AMD X2 Turion Ultra series? I couldn’t find any comprehensive benchmarks yet (except for this, and this). DELL Japan has Studio 1536 with the option of either ZM-80 (2.1GHz) or ZM-82 (2.2Ghz) and ATi HD 3450 256MB graphics.
Base price is 10,000Y ~ $94 cheaper than the Intel T8100 (2.1GHz) Studio 1530.

Link (in Japanese) : http://configure.apj.dell.com/dellstore/config.aspx?c=jp&cs=jpdhs1&l=ja&oc=3051BPlantinum&s=dhs

EDIT (update):
Following configuration comes to around $1000
Windows Vista(R) Home Premium
AMD Turion(TM) X2 Ultra ZM-80
15.4” TrueLife(TM) WXGA+(1440x900) WLED screen
ATI Mobility Radeon(TM) HD 3450 256MB
2GB(1GBx2) DDR2-SDRAM
250GB SATA HDD (5400RPM)
DVD+/-RW Super Multi Drive
Dell Wireless(TM) 1397 (802.11BG)
Dell Wireless(TM) 370 Bluetooth
6 Cell Battery
3 year Complete Care Warranty

 

Not much quicker than a C2D 1.6/1.7. Of course general performance is still good. Honesty, it depends on what you want to use the system for. There aren't any architectural changes to the core, so performance is similar to older Turions.

 

Actually it is not for me, A friend of mine asked about it. I said go for the Intel one (Studio 1530) since so far intel has managed to always beat AMD X2s at same clock, I too don't think much has changed, at least not enough to beat a Core 2 Duo at 2.1Ghz. Given the battery and heat issues of X2 I think Intel is the better choice for $100 more.

 

The AMD could actually give you some benefits with the IGP ATI 3200 with hybrid crossfire combined with a dedicated graphics card ATI 3450. Im still looking for a benchmark graphics wise to see how much of a performance boost the crossfire will give. Its reported to be a 50% increase boost for the ATI 3450 since the new puma platform IGP comes with the ATI 3200 built in...

 

Ahhh....Actually the core is ENTIRELY different. The Puma chips were built on an entirely new platform, and nothing like the old Turions. So performance - especially graphics performance - is WAAAAYYYY better.

 

No, the new Turions have the same core as the older ones. The only differences are pretty minor in terms of performance(extra cache for the ZM & HT 3.0). Of course the newer ones gain better power management features which are more mobile oriented than before but its still a K8 based cpu.

The major difference is the HD3200 plus the chipset.

 

Yes, the core is basically still an Athlon X2 desktop core, but there are actually many architectural changes, some of which have been taken from the new Phenom desktop processors.

 

A few of the architectural changes are as follows:

1. Fine-grained clock speed control as well as allowing it to clock the cores independently of one another

2. HyperTransport 3.0 (Taken from the Phenom processors)

3. Also the ability to dynamically scale the HyperTransport as needed

4. 2MB L2 cache

5. Support for up to DDR2-800

6. Improved power-saving characteristics

And these are just from the processor's part of the Puma platform. The GPU part of the Platform adds MUCH more including HD 3200 being THE most power-efficient IGPs available today.

I don't think that all these and more add up to only "pretty minor" as previously stated.

**Note: all of these specs were taken from notebookreview.com**

 

Its still minor *performance* bump over the older Turions. I never talked about the platform as a whole.

All the things you posted are good improvements but independent clock speed - doesnt affect the performance. HT 3.0 provides more bandwidth but the dual cores werent starved for bandwidth in the first place. Extra cache, yes it helps but read up on the reviews on the web the difference between 512k, 1MB(per core) isnt really that huge. The 65nm Turion X2 TL's already suported DDR2 800. Manufacturers only started adopting it with the new series. So, overall improvements to the cpu in terms of performance are minor.

 

Did anyone ever buy this laptop?

 

There were a few in the Outlet but it was never widely released.

 

This is just not true. This model is selling like crazy. It has been marketed as a retail model and was Walmart, Staples, etc. number one selling laptop over the holidays.

It can also be purchased through you corp rep. I bought two of these that way. It has grown in demand.

Later as I run for the SMSW bottle.