Why do Gaming Laptops use Turion X2 most of the time?

Ever seen those huge 19" sager laptops w/ a nice 7950GTX SLi, but paired w/ an AMD Turion X2? Or an Acer ferrari w/ nice gfx and over $2000 but w/ AMD Turion X2? Usually, the Turion X2's are 2.0 GHz dual cores. What gives?

I thought Core 2 Duo (Merom) is faster than AMD Turion X2. I seriously doubt the new Turions run faster than merom in gaming performances...
I find it strange how the $3000+ notebooks w/ best gfx will hav Turion X2...

Any gamer wanna explain that?

 

Actually, there are a lot of core 2 duo gaming notebooks out, the Dell XPS series or the ASUS G1/G2, to name a couple but for some weird reason the only SLI notebook uses turion X2 processors which are slower than Core 2 duo.

 

Im not totally sure why gaming notebooks usually have AMD but I know the processor is geared for gamers and intel processors are geared towards applications other then games. Not to say Intel processors perform poorly for gaming, but I have always heard AMD processors are made for gamers and must have different specs from the Intel processors.

 

Weird. A lot of 19" solutions do seem to have AMD (even ML) processors. Good question, as 17" and under is very Core Duo and Core 2 Duo populated nowadays.

Yeah, but try find a SLI notebook (those dont really exist on 17") that has a Merom or Yonah. The Asus run on x1700 or Gf7700, which are by far inferior to SLI 7950GTX.

 

1. Much better to have a high clock speed single core Turion as opposed to a dual core processor, as very few games are capable of utilizing multiple cores. As a whole, there are no single core AMD processors that can match a Core 2 Duo as a full system, but a single core on a Core 2 Duo is no match for higher level single core processors.

2. AMD processors have insane FSB speeds to communicate with components (my Turion x2 TL-56 has a 1600 MHz FSB), which is ideal for the communication bridge between a CPU and GPU. The faster, the better. That's probably why you always see SLi GPU notebooks with Turions: because they have the high FSB to communicate effectively with two GFX modules. So far, I've yet to see an Intel CPU with a FSB higher than 1066 MHz. AMD has FSBs that are over 2000 MHz.

3. Not only that, but before the Core 2 Duos were out, AMD was dominating the enthusiast market, so it's only natural that loyalists and those who use AMD powered desktops would still want an AMD powered laptop. I'll admit, I am a loyalist

 

i think it's something regarding front side bus, turion has 800Mhz FSB, half the cache of Merom but someone said that L2 cache does not really affect gaming performance

the bottomline is, i dont' know either

 

Yup, it's the 800 MHz FSB (1600 MHz effective). I do think Turions could benefit from having 2 MB overall L2 Cache sizes but Turions have double the L1 Cache size of Core Duos, which I think is more important. Either way, I love my Turion X2. It's given me no problems so far, except for the fact few games support dual core CPUs, and that the dual core patch for Call of Duty 2 doesn't really support AMD dual cores.

 

I think it's mainly to do with mobile SLi motherboard availability. We will see some Merom SLi notebooks soon, but not until the motherboards are readily available.

I don't think it's a matter of a technical nature, just supply.

 

let's not forget that AMDs have better FP units

 

they DID use AMD for gamming because the bigger cache gave better gaming but now that the core 2 duo has come out it blows AMD out of the water with the same cache and a faster speeds

*some one correct me if im rong or missing something*

 

Core 2 duo is faster, Turion has SLi support though.

 

I agree with Sylvain. It's just a lack of Merom + SLI motherboards.

 

You do not double the BUS speed becase it has a duo core cpu in the machine. It still only has a signle bus that both the cores use. Remeber the cores are on a single die that leads to a single bus. The only system with more than 1 bus is if it has more than 1 physical proccessor

 

its probably because amds are more efficent with their clock readings. for instance my amd 2.21 ghz is preformance rated at a 3.70 in intel speed

 

ita also invloves intels dislike of nvidia. for some reason intel dosent like nvidia. not sure why though. therefore its hard to find a good intel motherboard with a nvidia northbridge, which is required for SLI.

don't beleive me? go search newegg for intel desktop motherboards that support SLI.

 

Yeah, and a single 1,66Ghz Core Solo translates into 3,0Ghz on "intel speed". What you are missing here, is that Core architechture isn't the same as the old architechture used for Pentium 4 series for example.

So what's the catch? The Merom Core 2 Duo T7600 is possible the best notebook processor on market, at least they've gotten better rates off it than Athlon FX-60 or 4800+EE. So, a 2,33Ghz Intel processor translates to more than 2,5Ghz in AMD speeds. What?

Before you get confused.
The Core -series processors beat the living it out of Pentium 4 processors, which run on higher clock frequencies than the Core processors. Ghz performance isn't the only significant part of a processor.

 

I think core solo is basically a pentium M

 

I heard that since AMD switched over to 65nm i think that's what it is... That they are actually betting the core 2 duo's again....i think i read it from pcmag.com

 

Simple simple, because AMD was *the* gaming CPU until a few months ago. Takes a while to replace your entire product line (And in some cases, they have other reasons for sticking with AMD. AMD sponsors Ferrarri, afaik, so Acer might want to stick with AMD for their Ferrarri line of notebooks, for example)

But no, when compared to Core 2 CPU's, AMD is *not* more efficient and does *not* have better FP units.

 

Yeah, and in a couple of months' time Santa Rosa will be out, with expanded FSB, after which new Merom's are going to have more room to roam with, and they're again ahead. Then, AMD adds up something, and we've got the race we've been on since 1995 (out of the hat).

 

AMD does not use 65nm tech that would be intels core 2 duo line. AMD chips are all on 90nm.


http://www.amd.com/us-en/Processors/ProductInformation/0,,30_118_9485_9488^9494,00.html

 

True. The first 65 nm Turion X2s are due out soon though. I don't know how much the L2 cache effects performance, but having double the L2 cache size I think could help, but Turion X2s have double the L1 cache size of Core 1s and Core 2's as well (which I'd expect to be of much more importance). Hopefully the 65 nm process will improve performance. You got to admit, it's amazing how long AMD's architecture has lasted, but I'm ready for the K8Ls and K10s.

 

well that's what i was saying about amd....i know the chip just started production this month but thye are making there way out already... and they are getting reviewed... i keep up with the stock market on a daily basis and AMD is one of the stocks i watch.

 

AMD is good stock to invest with I suppose? It would seem like it, as they are doing really well right now.

 

AMD for the most part will always be around. Neither of them will put the other out of business. To my understanding the L2 cache is a lot more important. Hence why its grown a lot over the years from a time where I do belive we only had L1. L2 was much lower back in the day compared to now. So both of Intels cores having 2m each says a lot. But AMD has always been better for gaming reguardless of what Intel has put out. Just in the way they both deal with programs and such. Also AMD has a shorter pipeline that Intel does. It allows information to get out there faster. Personally I always loved AMD. The only reason my system now has a core 2 duo is because it was also offered with a 512meg video card compared to the crap card that was offered with the AMD system.

 

Sylvain is 100% smack on the money. SLI is limited to nVidia's proprietary nForce chipset...a chipset that until very recently was limited to AMD processors. Meanwhile, 99% of Core Duo/Core 2 Duo's use Intel chipsets which nVidia has not permitted to have SLI technology, so using AMD proc's has been mandatory. With AMD's acquisition of ATI and Intel's recent kicking the crap out of AMD, nVidia has begun to produce good nForce chipsets that work with Intel in the desktop world, so it's only a short matter of time before SLI-Intel comes to the portable market. I know there is published info somewhere out there backing this up but I'm too lazy to google it.

 

Remember that the AMD's have an on-die memory controller, so their access to main memory is slightly faster than an equivalent Intel's. The Intel's have the higher amount of on-die memory to redress this balance.

 

ATI cards do good with AMD

 

what i want to see is when AMD comes out with 65nm turion X2. Thats going to be around the same time Santa Rosa Platform comes out...

So, put it in a nutshell..
65nm chips are coming out around SPRING when santa rosa comes out...
then....
45nm chips are coming out around 4th quarter..

And I wish Nvidia or ATI creates NFORCE or equivilant platform for AMD chips for santa rosa competion! Thats going to be great..

I love AMD as you can tell,,BUT currently I highly favor Intel chips for ultra portables...My s260 gives me 3.5 hours with everything turned ON..LCD high running at adaptive processor. AMd hasnt come close to battery saving features like Intel though...
THey need to work on the battery saving features if they are going to compete with Intel on the Laptops!

 

I used to be an AMD / ATI fan for desktops and laptops. But now since Nvidia and Intel are better my next systems will use those. So I'm not a loyalist, - I go with whoever is faster.