Arrandale vs. Montevina and Capella

I don't know if it's worth it to wait until January 7th to get a laptop with an Arrandale processor. I have a few questions about this new generation.

Will the new Arrandale processors be revolutionary like the switch from Pentium to Core 2?

How much more powerful will Arrandale be compared to the Montevina P-series processors?

How much is power consumption decreased by compared to Montevina?

In a quad-threaded application, how much worse will the Arrandale do compared to a i7 720? What about in dual-threaded applications?

 

Arrandale is dual core and will not be much more powerful than current C2Ds. It will have better power management, especially with integrated graphics built into the CPU (which is the big thing since currently not many systems have switchable graphics). In multithreaded CPU optimized programs, the 720QM will easily decimate Arrandale, maybe up to 100% better depending on specific applications. In dual core optimized programs, they won't be much different since the 720QM can clock up to almost 3.0GHz. Figures really depend on what type of system you're looking at (ie. ultraportable vs. desktop replacement) and what programs you're going to use.

 

1. Revolutionary? This is always comparative.
2. Look below

Clarkdale 3.06GHz beats E8400 at 3GHz by 15-25% in games.
http://www.parkoz.com/zboard/view.p...=off&select_arrange=headnum&desc=asc&no=17816

3. Overall power will decrease, I'll take a shot and say 15%
4. It won't be worse. Look how competitive the 3.06GHz dual core Clarkdale is compared to a 2.5GHz Core 2 Quad. 720QM only clocks at 1.6GHz vs. 2.66GHz on high-end Arrandale. I'll say it'll be even on par with 820QM.

-Heavily and well threaded apps: Equal
-Not-so well threaded apps: Arrandale is faster
-Dual thread: Arrandale
-Single thread: Arrandale

In paper, quad cores scale 100% over dual core and its everyone's dream. In the real world, clock speed is KING.