An Easy Guide to Notebook Processors

by Dustin Sklavos, California USA

INTRODUCTION

Laptop shopping is a simultaneously exciting and unenviable task. It's a big investment, so having an understanding of what's available and how it can best suit your needs is valuable. Not having criteria even to start with can make the task a frightening one. How to start narrowing down your choices from 100% of the notebooks available?

A good place to start is choosing your platform. But it's not just about AMD and Intel (which, let's face it, virtually owns the notebook market at the time of this writing). By knowing which processor you'd like in your notebook, you can narrow down your choices and pare things down.

Buying a notebook is a lot like voting for a politician; it's nearly impossible to find exactly what you want despite (and probably partially because of) the dizzying wealth of brands and models, so you choose the one that closest fits your needs and ideals. Keep in mind that there is no one BEST processor. It may be best at handling certain tasks, but it's not the best at everything.

Most shoppers are looking for a PC notebook and at the present time I'd find it hard to even recommend an Apple given that the existing hardware's obsolescence is visible. Most PC notebooks being released right now will likely last you a while. Because of these reasons, I have elected to omit Apple hardware from this review.

OVERVIEW

At the moment, there are six main processors currently being used in notebooks, so I'll cover them in one section each. I will also include a seventh section for legacy, outdated, or rare processors.

Each section will be laid out the same way, and will have the following specific details:

VARIANTS - There may be different subtypes of this processor. For example, Pentium Ms come in Ultra Low Voltage, Low Voltage, and then normal chips.

FASTEST MODEL - I'll list what is currently the fastest available model of this chip.

SPECIFICATIONS - I've broken down the specifications into subcategories:

• Cache Size - If a processor were a freeway, this would be the number of lanes of traffic (data) it can move. A lower cache means the onramp is likely to get more backed up, while a greater cache allows the processor to continue moving at a brisk pace. This currently averages about 1MB.
• 32-Bit / 64-Bit - A 32-bit processor will run most software that's currently available, while a 64-bit processor will be ready for Windows Vista. Note that there will be a 32-bit version of Windows Vista for older processors, but it likely will have less features or won't be as fast as the 64-bit version.

BATTERY LIFE - Ranking from one to four stars, with one being extremely low battery life and four being stellar battery life.

PRICE RANKING - Ranking from one to four stars, with one being overpriced and four being dirt cheap.

MULTIMEDIA PERFORMANCE - Ranking from one to four, with one being poor performance in video and music tasks (encoding and decoding video or audio), and four being excellent. Note that all processors are going to do well at watching most video or listening to most audio, but some extremely high definition video will put real strain on the processor.

GAMING PERFORMANCE - Ranking from one to four, with one being poor gaming performance and four being excellent. While gaming performance is also contingent upon what graphics card is in the notebook (an article for another day), games tend to tax the entire system. One processor paired with the same graphics card could perform very differently from another processor.

SUMMARY - Marketing points for the chip.

PRO'S - High points for the chip.

CON'S - Low points for the chip.

I'd also like to mention that overall processor power has by and large exceeded what is needed for the basic use of a computer. Taking a small leap for a faster processor (~$50) is easy to justify. Taking a large leap (~$200) gets a bit trickier.

For what it's worth, I had a notebook that used a first generation 1 GHz Pentium M, and I was able to do video work on it. But let's just say my Mobile Athlon 64 3700+ is "a little better" for the job.

INTEL PROCESSORS (www.Intel.com)

Pentium M (Centrino)

Variants: Ultra Low Voltage (ULV) Pentium M, Low Voltage (LV) Pentium M, Pentium M
Fastest Model: Pentium M 780 (2.26 GHz)
Specifications: 2MB (1MB on older models) Cache, 32-bit
Battery Life: ( on older models)
Price Ranking:
Multimedia Performance:
Gaming Performance:

Summary: The premier notebook processor.

Pro's: The Pentium M is the big fish for a reason. Battery life on Centrino notebooks is unmatched by any other processor. These are extremely efficient processors that offer a lot of performance with relatively small power consumption and heat dissipation.

Con's: Centrino notebooks tend to be more expensive than other notebooks. Also, newer Pentium M's tend to run quite a bit hotter and offer less battery life than their older kin, though they're still unmatched otherwise.

Company Website Info: http://www.intel.com/products/processor/pentiumm/index.htm

Celeron M

Variants: Ultra Low Voltage (ULV) Celeron M, Celeron M
Fastest Model: Celeron M 383 (1.6 GHz)
Specifications: 512K - 1MB (512K on older models) Cache, 32-bit
Battery Life:
Price Ranking:
Multimedia Performance:
Gaming Performance:

Summary: A stripped down, cost-effective version of the Pentium M.

Pro's: The Celeron M is, if nothing else, extremely affordable, and for everyday tasks performs fairly well. Its battery life is also middling due to the lack of power management features that the Pentium M has.

Con's: Gaming and multimedia performance are pretty crippled on these chips. These are bargain processors and aren't meant for any processor-intensive tasks. They also run hotter than Pentium Ms, and yield less battery life.

Company Website Info: http://www.intel.com/products/processor/celeron_m/index.htm

Mobile Pentium 4

Variants: Mobile Pentium 4 Supporting Hyper-Threading, Mobile Pentium 4
Fastest Model: Mobile Pentium 4 Supporting Hyper-Threading 552 (3.46 GHz)
Specifications: 1MB (512K on older models) Cache, 32-bit (64-bit with 6xx Series)
Battery Life:
Price Ranking:
Multimedia Performance:
Gaming Performance:

Summary: A desktop Pentium 4, slightly modified for notebook use.

Pro's: Multimedia performance is exceptional in Pentium 4's with Hyper-Threading, and these chips tend to have a very smooth computing experience. If you're looking for a strictly desktop replacement notebook, these are a viable option so long as you mean to use them on a desktop. These tend to be less expensive than Pentium M's for desktop replacements, and usually hover right around the same price as Athlon 64's.

Con's: Absolutely miserable battery life that rarely even hits one hour. Notebooks using Mobile Pentium 4's also tend to be very heavy and loud due to the cooling required for these processors, and even then they tend to be extremely hot. These are really only viable for budget desktop replacement. I'd avoid using it on my actual lap.

Company Website Info: http://www.intel.com/products/processor/mobilepentium4/index.htm

AMD PROCESSORS (www.AMD.com)

Athlon 64

Variants: Mobile Athlon 64, Athlon 64 for Desktop Replacements (DTR)
Fastest Model: Mobile Athlon 64 4000+ (2.6 GHz)
Specifications: 512K - 1MB Cache, 64-bit
Battery Life:
Price Ranking:
Multimedia Performance:
Gaming Performance:

Summary: Essentially a desktop Athlon 64 capable of running at high speeds with low voltage for notebook use.

Pro's: Athlon 64 notebooks tend to be very inexpensive, and unlike their Pentium 4 counterparts, fairly manageable in regards to heat output, weight, and battery life. The bonus is that they also tend to be much faster than the Pentium 4s. In desktop systems, these are the ideal processors for gamers, and the same applies here. If you're on a budget, these give great performance with mediocre battery life, but tend to be a bargain overall. While the fastest Pentium Ms usually drive a price of at least $2,000, the fastest Athlon 64s float around $1,500 and less.

Con's: Battery life, while respectable for what is essentially an undervolted desktop processor, is still the fatal flaw of an otherwise quality platform. These can also run fairly hot or loud compared to Pentium Ms, though not as bad as Pentium 4s. Also, while being very powerful chips, these do not provide quite as smooth a computing experience as their Intel counterparts. Athlon 64s also tend to be uncommon in the notebook market, which is for the most part dominated by Pentium Ms and Celeron Ms, so they require a little shopping around for. As of this article, HP and Compaq also produce notebooks with Athlon 64s - these notebooks use desktop Athlon 64s, which explains the slightly different model numbering scheme for the processors.

Company Website Info: http://www.amd.com/us-en/Processors/ProductInformation/0,,30_118_1276,00.html

Turion 64

Variants: Turion 64 ML Series, Turion 64 MT Series (Low Wattage)
Fastest Model: Turion 64 ML-40 (2.2 GHz)
Specifications: 512K - 1MB Cache, 64-bit
Battery Life:
Price Ranking:
Multimedia Performance:
Gaming Performance:

Summary: A much cooler running but downclocked version of the Athlon 64.

Pro's: Turion 64s serve a double purpose as a budget version of the Pentium M and as a 64-bit processor for thin and light notebooks, a market the Athlon 64 can't penetrate due to its heat output. These offer good performance for the price, and have a fairly dedicated following. They offer similar performance clock for clock to Athlon 64s, but can also cost a bit more. They're an excellent alternative to Pentium M notebooks, and are still a far superior choice to a Celeron M notebook.

Con's: The Turion 64 was supposed to be the Pentium M killer and came up a bit short. Worse still, while the ML series is trickling into the marketplace, the MT series - the series with better battery life and heat output - borders on being MIA. It's not impossible to find Turion 64 chips, but it's not that easy either. Also, they still don't offer the kind of efficiency that Pentium M chips do.

Company Website Info: http://www.amd.com/us-en/Processors/ProductInformation/0,,30_118_12651,00.html

Sempron

Variants: Mobile Sempron for Full-Size Notebooks, Mobile Sempron for Thin and Light Notebooks
Fastest Model: Mobile Sempron 3300+ (2 GHz)
Specifications: 128K - 256K Cache, 32-bit
Battery Life:
Price Ranking:
Multimedia Performance:
Gaming Performance:

Summary: The budget version of the Athlon 64, similar to the Pentium M's Celeron.

Pro's: Semprons can offer better battery life than Athlon 64s. These will also tend to perform better than Celeron M chips, and with better battery life. For the super budget conscious consumer who can't make the jump to the Athlon 64, Turion 64, or Pentium M, these offer an excellent alternative.

Con's: These, like the Celeron Ms, are crippled chips and are really only for the more budget-conscious consumer.

Company Website Info: http://www.amd.com/us-en/Processors/ProductInformation/0,,30_118_11600,00.html

LEGACY/UNCOMMON PROCESSORS

Desktop Chips

Processors found in desktop machines can sometimes find their way into desktop replacement notebooks. Boutique manufacturers like Alienware and VoodooPC will put powerful desktop processors into their notebooks, but the notebooks are really only notebooks in name, as their portability is somewhat questionable (12+ pounds, 17" screened behemoths). Desktop Pentium 4s also have a habit of showing up in media center notebooks which are, again, only really notebooks in name.

Mobile Pentium 4-M

How's that for a mouthful? These are better in terms of heat and battery life than desktop Pentium 4s, but they take a hit in performance. These are actually one of the main reasons the notebook market was somewhat stagnant until the Pentium M.

Mobile Celeron

Just like the Celeron M is directly worse than the Pentium M, so the Mobile Celeron is directly worse than then Mobile Pentium 4-M. Avoid.

Mobile Pentium III

The Mobile Pentium III was a great notebook chip in its day, offering decent performance for good battery life and heat dissipation. These were actually still found in thin and light notebooks well into the Pentium 4 era and were only replaced by the Pentium M. Pentium Ms are, in many ways, highly optimized descendents of the Mobile Pentium III.

Athlon XP-M

The Athlon XP-M can actually still be found in super bargain-basement notebooks, but its performance isn't comparable to the chips of today. Still, it offers decent battery life, decent performance, and great heat dissipation, if not totally stellar in the first two categories.

Transmeta (www.Transmeta.com)

Transmeta chips are rare (found only in older Panasonic notebooks), and offer poor performance for solid heat dissipation and battery life. These tended to be expensive and were pretty much entirely overshadowed by the cheaper and better performing Pentium M.

VIA (http://www.via.com.tw/en/)

Via chips are incredible in terms of their power consumption, but their performance leaves a lot to be desired. VIA chips tend to be very rare (I've only ever seen them in Fry's brand notebooks) but also very inexpensive. Though VIA chips aren't readily available now (are barely available at all, really), there's a good chance they may begin to penetrate the market in the future, as no one makes a cooler-running, more battery-conscious chip than VIA.

CONCLUSIONS

Ultimately, you have to ask yourself what you're going to be using your notebook for. But if you were to subdivide into the following classes:

• Mobility
• Battery Life
• Performance

And then choose "budget" and "mainstream" prices, the best choices in each category would look like this:

	BUDGET	MAINSTREAM
MOBILITY	AMD Turion 64	Intel Pentium M
BATTERY LIFE	AMDTurion 64	Intel Pentium M
PERFORMANCE	AMD Athlon 64	AMD Athlon 64

This guide was meant to give you a baseline, but remember that this site is an excellent resource for reviews of notebooks as a whole. This guide will help you know what to look for, but always refer to the extremely useful reviews and forums here. I did when I went to get my notebook, and I've been very happy since then (for the record, I use a Gateway 7510GX with a Mobile Athlon 64).

I should also note that Lowlymarine's notebook FAQ (found on the forums) was instrumental in this guide, and should be doubly consulted. Think of this guide as an expansion on some of the things he discussed.

Remember, too, that clock speeds on chips are not all created equal. There are Pentium Ms out there faster than some Athlon 64s, and there are some Athlon 64 notebooks with better power consumption than Pentium M notebooks, so as always, do your homework.

 

Wow - great guide!

A tad more info about the very confusing 'Centrino' name and the 3 generations of the 'Centrino' would also be very helpful!

Great job Dustin!

 

Mmm, nice job! But count me in as someone who'd love to hear more about what separates different P-M lines...

 

hm, isnt there a Turion ML-40 thats 2.2 Ghz available? That, and I managed to get 3 hours of battery life on my 3800 on a 8 cell. Great Review though, it'll help a lot of people.

 

Great job Pulp, obviously this is one of those things that'll need a Version 2.0 in about 6 months when all the processors spoken of here are obsolete LOL. This is a great general overview and a look at one family of processors in particular (such as the Pentium M) and a clearing up of the "Centrino" moniker would certainly be another interesting piece.

 

Great job, I'm sure it'll be an asset to many seeking a new machine! It's so complicated these days with so many processors to choose from...it can be very very intimidating to a newbie. Keep it up!!

 

great guide pulp!!!!!!

 

Thanks Pulp! Excellent and useful guide.

 

Just wanted to tell ya that the Transmeta Crusoe chips were found in Sony's C1 Picturebook series and in the Fujitsu Lifebook P1000 and P2000 series.

 

great job on the review. Here is my million dollar question. I just bought a L2000 and would like to know if in the very near future will I be able to upgrade my turion to the not yet released dual core turion. I do alot of 3D modeling and CAD work and need a laptop for around 1500.00 that wont make me age while I wait for it to render. I have 14 days to return this computer at COMPUSA and would like to know if I am getting the best bang for my buck.
thanks

 

Unfortunately, you won't be able to upgrade to the dual core Turion. Dual core Turions are going to use a different socket type.

Dual core is one of the few things you really can't get in a notebook outside of some overpriced boutique models.

The best deal for pure CPU performance I've seen in a notebook has to be the 7510GX, which I happily own. I use mine to render video using Premiere Pro and After Effects, and it's been a real champion.

 

Just wanted to say: This is an outstanding guide to notebook processors!! Great Job Pulp!
:amd64-2: :centrino:

 

Appreciate the effort of describing all the processors, but to me you look extremely biased towards what you have... Athlon 64.

 

I think the pentium m dothan is the best notebook processor far, when i use my laptop with battery power it runs at 430 mhz and windows xp with all the look and feel, outlook, editor, messenger, windows media and runs really fast, may be for the 2 mb of cache. :centrino:

 

thnx a lot... looks like the turion is a great budgetvs. performance

yeh i think the ML-40 is 2.2 Ghz... i could be rong

 

Nope, you're correct. The ML-40 is the 2.2GHz option for the Turion CPU, currently the fastest in the line-up.

 

Very Nice guide Pulp, it was interesting to read. I have a question though. I don't know a lot about computers. What's the difference between a Chipset and a CPU? Are they the same thing or different components?

 

They are different components
Chipset control motherboard: it controls RAM access, hard disk , ...
Chipse could have inluded a cheap graphic card

 

Very helpful guide! ^^

What do intel have in the pipeline for their 64-bit processor in laptops? It seems a bit strange that vista is coming out this year but there are very few 64-bit processors out to make use of it. I wonder what they're up to.

your guide seems to suggest that more powerful processors (as in faster speeds for the same model) make for worse battery life.

Am i right in thinking that 64-bit dual core processors will be over kill and greatly reduce battery life and so be less suitable for mobile laptops?

 

i was just wondering, would it be possible to add the new core duos to the comparisons? thanks.

 

Just to counter-balance the Celeron M bashing. It is a derivative of the Pentium M, a completely redesigned mobile chip. Despite the fact it does not have some of the power saving features of its parent it has better battery life and runs cooler than the Sempron which is derived from the desktop Althon 64.

http://www.anandtech.com/mobile/showdoc.aspx?i=2625&p=4

The most interesting item? The V2000 Celeron M notebook offered significantly better battery life than its Sempron counterpart, the V2000Z, in all aspects. We were particularly shocked in how much better the V2000 did in the wireless web browsing tests when compared to the V2000Z. The same performance, but significantly better battery life? We at least found which of the three Compaqs that you should choose.

 

Hi,i wonder if you can answer this;i just bought a packard bell c3300 laptop with an amd 2600 xp m processor(reading your review maybe i shouldn't have!).I bought it on e-bay which,as you may know,has a facility for the seller,whereby upon entering the make & model a list of specifications is automatically generated.
Anyway,on said list the cpu speed is stated as 2.13ghz.However,when i look in system info on the laptop it says 516mhz!Any idea why?Thanks

 

just a thought but i think it would be useful if this guide would be updated?

 

FYI - some discussion and comparisons.

http://www.notebookcheck.net/Notebook-Processors.129.0.html


http://www.notebookcheck.net/Mobile-Processors-Benchmarklist.2436.0.html

 

I don't mean to intrude on someone else's guide, but here's my opinion on current processors. If there's a lot of interest I could try to make this into a guide kind of thing like Pulp does, but I'm not sure if anyone ever comes over to check these kind of things anymore.

If I were to compare based only on architecture & clock speed (which most people do), I'd say it goes something like this:

Core2Duo>>CoreDuo>TurionX2>>CoreSolo>Turion64=PentiumM>>Sempron>Celeron

If we look at similarly priced processors (which I think is a more valid comparison), it’s something like this:

Core2Duo>CoreDuo=TurionX2>Turion64>CoreSolo>PentiumM>Sempron>Celeron

If we include chipsets and integrated graphics (which I think is the most valid comparison) it’s like this:

Core2Duo + GMA 950 > TurionX2 + Nvidia/ATI > CoreDuo + GMA 950 > Turion64 + Nvidia/ATI > CoreSolo + GMA 950 >> PentiumM >> Sempron > Celeron

If you want me to go on ad-nauseam, you’re in luck. If not, sorry. I was just typing this up for some relatives that asked me help them pick out a laptop. I guess I may as well paste it here for everyone.

INTEL
Core2Duo - All the way around Core2Duo beats them all. Its' 64-bit, Dual-Core, and nicely battery optimized for laptops. The only disadvantage is has is that Core2 chips aren't cheap. Core2's come in 2 types, 5000 series and 7000 series. The 5000 series have 2MB cache (shared between the cores) and the 7000 series have 4MB (shared as well). Yes, even the 5000 series beats the Turion X2 (clock for clock or price for price).

CoreDuo (the first one) has most of the benefits of the Core2 lineup, but they are not 64-bit. For the most part this is irrelevant for most consumers as there isn't much 64-bit software support out yet. Still if you are looking to keep you laptop for 3+ years then 64-bit may be more mainstream by then (but I don't think 64-bit will be a requirement even 3-5 years from now). The first CoreDuo's were not as battery optimized and don't quite perform as well as Core2 either, but the difference is small. They have 2MB shared cache again. The big disadvantage is that Intel sells the CoreDuo chips for the same price as Core2 chips (clock for clock), although Intel does offer some OEM only chips to the big retailers (HP, Dell, etc) that are discounted even more and have reduced cache.

CoreSolo - As you probably guessed this is a single core version of the CoreDuo. In fact is actually a CoreDuo chip with one of the cores disabled. Some people think these are a CoreDuo where something went wrong, but that's not totally correct. It's actually cheaper to just disable half the chip in production instead of redesigning a whole new chip. I'm not totally sure, but I believe CoreSolo's are only 32-bit, but this may change in the future (if it hasn't already). You may think that you are only getting 1/2 the processing power of a dual-core chip, but in reality there isn't much support yet for multithreaded applications (software that uses both/multiple cores at once). If you are someone who does a lot of multi-tasking you'll still get a benefit from dual-cores as one core can concentrate on one program while the other core does other things. But if you are pretty strictly a one-thing-at-a-time kind of person you may not see any difference at all. In fact, for some things like single threaded games where the processor pretty much puts everything else on hold to only play the game there isn't much difference at all - you would even be better of with a faster single-core chip than you would with a slower, dual-core chip. Still I like to have the 2nd core on standby to handle all the other stuff that always seems to come up (i.e. playing games in the middle of the night when I have my anti-virus scheduled to run along with downloading updates, and scheduled maintenance). I still notice some slow-down when something that that happens, but its nowhere near as bad with dual-core as it was on a single core chip.

PentiumM - Prior to the Core architecture Intel had the PentiumM. While its obsolete now, you may still find them for sale somewhere, and clearance pricing can be a good thing. PentiumM's were decent with battery support. They were only single-core and only 32-bit though. Still if you find them at a good price you are better getting a PentiumM than you would be to get a Celeron or Sempron. At least they were a full featured chip. If you are looking at getting a PentiumM make sure you do your research. This name was in use for a long time, so there are a wide variety of PentiumM chips available. You have to look at more than just the clock speed to determine what kind of performance you can expect

Celeron - These things are the bottom of the barrel for chips. You have to pay attention to the model number here. Celeron's have always been a disabled or crippled version of some other chip. A core based Celeron is better than a PentiumM based one for sure - but all Celerons are lousy chips. One of the key things that Intel disables is their speed stepping. This allows the chip to run slower than full speed if the processing load is light. This is particularly important for laptops as it can really impact your battery life.

AMD
Turion X2 - This is AMD's first dual-core mobile processor. AMD has been 64-bit for a while and the X2 is now exception. They have clock speeds similar to Intel Core chips and they are generally cheaper so you'd think this would be a clear winner, but its not. While it does have some advantages (price) it's based on an older architecture and generally does not perform as well as Intel's Core CPU's. It is also not as battery optimized as the Core lineup. All that said it is still a great chip - it’s just not the best.

Turion64- If you want a little history, the Turion64 was designed to compete with the PentiumM. It was a pretty close competition with some things performing better with the PentiumM and other with the Turion64. The Turion64 ML/MK was a little cheaper, but with slightly less battery life. The Turion64 MT version had similar battery life as the PentiumM and priced about the same. The PentiumM was only 32-bit so I'll credit the Turion 64 as the winner, but it was basically a tie. From here AMD decided the next step was to build a dual-core version of the Turion. That's where the TurionX2 comes from. AMD had designed their chip from the beginning to be a dual/multi-core chip, so it scaled pretty well. Intel kinda caught AMD off guard by not just making a single design change, but by almost simultaneously rolling out a greatly improved architecture, 64-bit support, dual-core chips and shrinking the die size. In the same time AMD moved to dual-core as well (and they already had 64-bit support), but AMD hasn't released a new architecture yet, and AMD hasn't gone through the die shring on their mobile chips yet. If you consider that the Turion64 and the PentiumM were basically equals, you can think of the TurionX2 as a dual-core PentiumM with 64-bit support.

Sempron – This is AMD’s version of the cheap chip. Its better than a similarly priced Celeron just because AMD doesn’t disable as many features (like cool n’ quiet, their version of speed stepping), but this is still a disabled/crippled chip.

CHIPSET & GPU
This leaves GPU’s as about the only thing left to talk about. I won’t get into comparing much between GPU’s as there are several other articles out there about that I can point you too. Unless you are into playing games, or some heavy graphics work on your laptop there’s not much reason to spend much money on a dedicated GPU card. So that leaves us comparing the integrated GPU’s. I’m also not going to get into an ATI vs. Nvidia discussion. Both of them are better than Intel graphics (or SIS or Via for that matter – avoid them like the plague if you want to run Vista Premium). Most often Intel CPU based laptops come with integrated Intel GPU’s – GMA 950. While GMA 950 is the bare minimum needed to run Vista Aero Glass, ATI or Nvidia do a much better job of it. If we look at AMD CPU based laptops you’ll see that the integrated GPU’s are from ATI or Nvidia (no one makes an AMD laptop with Intel grafics). This is almost like getting a small upgrade for free. If I had to give it a monetary value, I’d say its worth about $25 to me (its not as good as the cheapest discrete graphics card, but still nice). This sometimes makes direct Intel vs. AMD comparisons tricky as the AMD laptop basically gets an advantage.

If you upgrade to a dedicated video card this advantage goes away. If you want to be able to play games, then spend the $50-$200 for a dedicated GPU and ignore this section.

I will say that you need to watch it when you are comparison shopping between AMD and Intel laptops at the big US retailers. AMD has become known as the “value” brand as often retailers package AMD laptops with lower-end parts. This isn’t necessary a bad thing as you can often upgrade these if you want, but it can make direct comparisons difficult. Likewise if you decide you want a Core2Duo based laptop you may find yourself getting stuck paying for options you don’t really want.

 

Hi users, from where I can find info on latest CoreDuo and Turion processors.
This guide is not updated I think.

 

Honastly not much has changed since my last post. Intel released a new version of its Core 2 Duo, now called Core 2 Duo Pro or Santa Rosa, but this didn't really change much. It's basically a no change from their last Core 2 Duo.

 

Can someone clarify for me something about the duo cores. I understand the advange of duo if you've got multitreaded application running that uses both cores, and I think this is a great step forward.

Now, with the single treaded once, which are majority in this world as of now, do you get any advantage out of the duos? Is it helps to have two or four cores? Does it mean that the cpu utilizes the second core if the first one is maxed out? tnx.

 

You do have the basic idea correct. If you have more than one application/process running, then the load is rather evenly distributed across both the cores. This does help when multitasking etc. In any case, usually at least 30 or more processes are running simultaneously on any machine.

 

If you aren't going to upgrade to a 64-bit OS, will you get any benefit from having a 64-bit processor? Any benefit worth the money?

 

64 bit processors run fine in both a 32 bit and 64bit operating systems. My "mobile" Opteron 185 really shines in server 2003, but otherwise 64bit processors work very well in XP.

K-TRON

 

K-Tron,

SOS.....i am a bit confused STILL after reading a few threads on NBR.

simply put....i want to swap out my T2390 cpu, which cpu's are compatible? i know (i think), it must have 533 or 800 FSB. i will, also, assume the BIOS will support the new CPU.

pls advise.

 

That may not be a wise assumption. I would confirm with notebook manufacturer to BE SURE BIOS and motherboard will support a specific CPU.

 

it would be great to have another one of these CPU guides but updated to current processors! so confusing for me, all these core2duo's w/ different letters and numbers, what does it all mean? how powerful are the atom netbook processors in comparison? so confusing =/

 

First of all, any core 2 duo, no matter how low the clock, will blow away single-core atoms (which are what's offered for now). Maybe we'll see a difference after dual-core atoms become released, but for now there is no comparison between the two.

Core 2 Duos tend to be Penryn nowadays, which means that they're mad eon a 45nm fabrication process, meaning smaller die size + lower heat + longer battery life, numbers T6400, T6570, and T6600 (small cache/budget), T8100-T9500, and anything with a P in front of it. The T-series Penryn processors have a 35-watt TDP (thermal design product), versus the P-series Penryns which are lower-voltage and 25-watt TDP, resulting in longer battery life.

 

its just that with all the core2duo's, let's say they all have the same listed processor speed, but different model numbers. I just can't tell about how much faster a T8100 is to a T6600 or a T9500 is to a T8100 or how much faster tha P series is cuz when i'm trying to maximize performance for a cost, you don't want to pay a lot more for a little more speed most of the time. thanks for your reply! =D

 

I thought TDP stood for Thermal Design Power. Or am I crazy? I don't know. I'm so tired that I'm not thinking straight anymore.

 

Yeah, you're right. A bit of nit-picking though

Anyway, it just represents how much heat (in watts) a CPU may produce so that the cooling system will be sufficiently designed.

 

I also would want an updated guide that includes C2D, C2Q, i7, atoms, etc.

 

^ this. but the original sticky is also helpful. thanks

 

time to upgrade this puppy to i7

 

Hi!

I'm stuck with a Dell Studio 14 configuaration.
The base processor is i3-370M. For addtional $65 I can upgrade to i5-450M. Is it worth it? The frequency is the same (2,40GHz), just i5 has TurboBoost but it's only up to 2,66GHz.
I don't have enough money to upgrade to i5-520M (TurboBoost up to 2,93GHz) for $140.

The question is - is the i5-450M really a better class processor than i3-370M and worth the $65 ?

Thanks a lot!

 

i3 is like core 2 duo. i5 is better than i3.

yes its worth the $65

 

good job dustin I have a new athalon and it is great