Clarification on Intel c2d processors please

Hi folks,

Could someone clarify whether or not the Processor Benchmark List found on Notebookcheck.com is correct please?

Processor Benchmarks

What's confusing me is that the Intel Core Duo T2600 and T2700 seem to be rated higher than the Core 2 Duo T7200 - despite the obvious differences in architecutre. Is this correct and if so, why?

Also, would people recommend going for the T7200 with 4Mb L2 cache over the T5600 with only a 2Mb L2 cache? The difference in CPU speeds is obviously negligible, but does the extra cache size make a real difference to performance?

Any other comparison/benchmark tests data would be really appreciated too.

Thanks.

 

The reason is because of there higher clock speed. The T7200 has a clockspeed of 2.00 GHz, the T2600 is 2.16 Ghz, and the T2700 one of 2.33 GHz. The architecture in the newer Core 2 Duo is faster yes, but they perform about the same in processor dependant applications. In some applications, where more L2 cache helps performance, the T7200 will pull away from the T2600.T2700. The Core 2 Duo also has 64-bit support, which while not ver useful at the monent, will become more widely used in the future.

Concerning your other question. The T5600 has a clockspeed of 1.83 GHz, and the T7200 of 2.00 GHz. It also has more L2 cache. If your main tasks on the notebook are quite processor dependant (video editing, encoding), then the extra clockspeed of the T7200 may help it out quite a bit. However, if your going to use the notebook for basic word processing and surfing the Internet, then the T5600 will do fine.

 

Sort of the other way around...in processor-intensive applications the C2D do better than the CD per-clock. Things that aren't so much related to the processor or things that don't take advantage of C2D's strengths over CD are closer.

That being said, in a lot of benchmarks, there isn't a whole lot of difference in per-clock performance, i.e., a 2600 and a 7200 would perform extremely close. I'd say the 2700 and the 7200 are more comparable matches, though.

 

Ah, thanks for that. Didn't even think to consider the clock speed of the T2600/2700 in comparison to the c2d processors.

So what about gaming for instance - would the T7200 provide an increase in performance over the T5600? I appreciate that it's largely dependent on the gfx card used, but would the cpu L2 cache and clockspeed also be a contributing factor to the performance - or would the difference prove to be negligible?

 

It would slightly, especially in processor-limited games. Most games you run will be GPU limited though, so you won't see any major differences between a T7200 and a T5600. But the T7200 is at the "sweet spot" of the price/performance curve, so I recommend you get it, just to stay a little more future proof. It's hard and expensive to upgrade a processor if you decide you don't have enough speed.

 

Thanks Pita - that'll be another £100 I have to spend then!

The other dilemma I'm facing is the WXGA screen - I'm used to using a 20.1" Dell 2007WFP monitor running at 1680*1050 - is a 1280*800 screen going to be a shock to my system? And what are they like for movie viewing and games?

 

The best to decide on the screen is try and see the notebook, or a similar screen with the same resolution in a shop. Different people have different opinions on how the screen looks, and how it is suited for gaming.

 

That's very true - unfortunately, over here in the Uk all the high street retailers tend to show off the higher end notebooks with nice screens. All the laptops I looked at recently had at least 1440*900. Also, we have very few dedicated PC shops in the area I live in - I'm limited to electrical stores that sell laptops alongside washing machines and tumble driers, or PCWorld (which despite their name, know nothing about PC's and I wouldn't shop with them even if you paid me!).

I guess a 1280*800 screen wouldn't be too bad - I used to play FEAR and HL2 in 1024*768, so 1280*800 (or 1280*768) should provide a sharper image than that.

 

I know it can be very difficult shopping the UK, because most of the high street shops don't know much about the things they sell. But, PCWorld should have quite a few notebooks on display, and there should be some of WXGA resolution. The WXGA+ (1440x900) is mainly seen in 17" noteboook displays, or 14.1" ones.

 

Sorry I didn't reply earlier - got called away to a job. Thanks for the info.

I guess the plus side is that by forcing me to use a lower resolution, I should achieve a better performance in games!