Core Duo vs Turion X2

Hello,

This question may have already been answered but I didn't find where.
I want to know what are the relative performance of the Intel Core Duo versus the Turion 64 X2. And especially, how each model is placed relative to the others.
I actually look for a notebook fast enough to play. Within my budget, there is notebook with Core Duo T2300 and T2400 and Turion 64 X2 TL-50, TL-52 (and perhaps TL-54).

Thank you.

 

if you want to compare search for a review of a notebook with the turion x2, and look at the super pi scores. in the same list you will see core duo performances. But if i remember correctly the core duo scores around 1 minute 20 seconds and the turion x2 half a minute slower.

 

Are this scores really representative of the performance ?

 

only raw computational, but still a v. good indication
i've always gone AMD on desktop, but intel are years ahead on laptops (well, and currently ahead on desktop too,..... for now)

 

is the fact that turion are 64 bit processor important ?
I mean if today I decide to buy a Core Duo, will I quickly regret it ?

 

SuperPI is NOT an accurate representation. It fits inside the humongous L2 caches Intel uses to compensate for their lack of an integrated memory controller and HyperTransport, which nearly all real-world programs won't do. Every other benchmark shows Intel with a much smaller lead at any given clock speed and even less of one (if any) at any given price point.

I'd avoid the 32-bit-only Core Duo in favor of either the Turion X2 or Core2Duo. Not being 64-bit capable will, at the very least, affect resale value even if you never upgrade to 64-bit Vista after it's ready (whenever that will be). On a related note, you really want an ATI or nVidia GPU if you're ever going to run Vista.

 

So is the Turion TL-52 more or less equal to the Core Duo T2300 (without speaking of 32/64 bits) ?

 

that doesn't make sense. the x2 is better because of the 64.

 

As far I know 64 bits doesn't make a processor run faster.
Listening to you, the Turion X2 beat the Core Duo in each benchmark ?

 

Honestly considering the price difference is hardly anything I would replace the core duo by the core 2 duo. If its a question of which is better, core 2 duo or turion x2...that shoudn't even be a question.

 

maimone is right. The Core 2 Duo is 64bit AND it crushed the Turion x2 (heck, the Core duo pretty much already did that). Just keep in mind, C2D is more power efficient so your notebook wont be as hungry for the AC as the turion. I can't wait for the Yokohoma platform, that sounds promising.

 

Turion X2 is in no way a performance competitor of Core Duo or Core 2 Duo.

What can you expect from its 2x256k cache only?

This page contains benchmarks of different Pentium M, Core Duo and Turion x2 (MSI S271) notebooks
http://www.ferra.ru/online/mobilis/26605/page-4/
The graphically presented information is clear without the short explanations in Russian. The last table reflects the battery time (BE - battery eater and DVD playing tests) where Turion X2 notebook MSI S271 also shows very bad results (beating only the previous Turion 64 based model MSI S270 because of the smaller cache of X2).

I think these benchmarking results are quite informative if you first carefully study the parameters of the notebooks tested.

 

Thank you for the info. I think I will wait more Core 2 Duo Notebook are available.

 

There are a nice amount of core 2 duo's out there already, so you might be able to find what your looking for now. Fill out the FAQ's and we'll see if we can help.

 

I've done it here

 

Not sure if you noticed, but the MSI only had a 2200 mAh battery. Factoring that into the equation I think it scored quite well.

If you factor the low cost of the Turion X2 into the equation, picking between Intel and AMD becomes a lot harder.

 

On notebooks, if you play games. the bottleneck is usually the GPU, so find the best GPU you can in the size you want. the CPU is secondary as any semi recent CPU should be able to keep up with all laptop GPUs.

 

The benchmarks had a comparison with a very similar MSI notebook with Centrino (it was Maxselect in that review or like), which has the same small battery.
So, the loss of Turion X2 and Turion vs Centrino was obvious there (also confirmed in other reviews I read in German at minitechnet.de which compare Turion-based MSI S261 and Centrino-based MSI S260).

The cost of X2 is not so much lower that it would have sense to pay for the rest of the expensive components more than 500$ and save 50$ on the processor which will cripple my notebook battery life and performance.

All "low cost" and "low power consumtion" of Turion processors is just because of the 2 and more times smaller processor's L2 cache when compared with Intel Pentium and Yonah.

I therefore don't see any point, including the cost, to buy a Turion based notebook. It is better to postpone a notebook purchase for one month in order to to collect your extra 50-100 dollars needed to purchase a normal notebook with Intel processor. However, if extra 50-100$$ are the issue, then, well ... AMD found its market niche.

 

The more powerful Turion X2 (the ML-60), etc. have 512KB L2 cache per processor as opposed to 256K in the ML-50 and some of the lower models. Note: The smaller cache gives Intel a huge advantage in many benchmarks especially benchmarks such as SuperPi. These aren't indicative or real world applications. Just because a processor has a faster SuperPi time than another really doesn't indicate anything. That said, the Core 2 Duos are a definite improvement over the Core Duos, so unless you're looked at price, your comparison should be between the Core 2 Duo and the AMD Turion X2.

 

Oh men, this is hard, half of the recomendations favor the Turion X2 and half the Core Duo.

 

So I would like to ask again.
Overall, will the 1024 k cache of the Duo overcome the 256 k of the Turion? I mean, I know at first glance it does, but the Turion has a much better administration of that memory.

 

conejeitor,
The 256k is only on the lower Turion X2 models (I think the TL-50). All the other Turion X2 models come with 512K / core. The cache really makes a difference if you're running small applications that can fit in L2 or if the application that your running can fit most of it's memory in the L2 cache. For anything else, the processor will have to go to main memory and that's where the Turion X2 will trounce the C2D due to it's integrated memory controller. If you want do perform an objective test, try to get hold of each of these machines and run IOMeter with a ramdisk. I did this but comparing an Athlon 64 (not even X2) against a 2xdual-core Xeon server (right before they released Woodcrest) and the Athlon trounced the Xeon. I was shocked. Just my 2 cents worth.

 

I think the bigger question is real results per notebook. I am personally not as concerned with what processor it has, so much as how long I can use it mobile. The CPU is only one part of the mix, but battery size and life matters more to me.

 

I have a bit of a weird question to ask, i cant decided which processor to go with... which of these would be better? the Intel Core 2 Duo processor T5600 (1.83 GHz) or an AMD Turion 64 X2 Mobile TL-60 (2.0 GHz)...??? im having so much trouble with this...

thanks in advance

 

Typically, you probably wouldn't notice a performance disparity. The Core Duo system more likely than not gets better battery life and would have a slight edge in certain benchmarks, but the Turion is a very good processor in its own right. It has 64-bit support, if that's something you're interested in, and can crank out some impressive performance.

I'd say go with whichever one you can get a better deal on.

 

out of the two which would u say has better performance though?

thanks ajfink

 

domino2, as ajfink said, you won't really feel a difference between the two. Read the entire thread to find out where you will feel differences in performance.

 

If you want me to tell you what you should pick, if they're the same price, my vote goes for the Turion X2, unless you absolutely need every minute you can get out of the battery, then go with the Core Duo. I think the Turion will serve you better if you ever choose to upgrade to Vista.

 

I can't believe how detailed everyones knowledge is about notebook hardware, this forum is so useful! I understand that a large part of deciding on what to buy depends on personal preference. Chapter Two is that you have to have a certain amount of knowledge about what kind of hardware is available and how they each work in tandem. Really I'm just trying to figure out how best to ask the question, so I get an accurate response.

Between the AMD Turion 64 x2 and the Intel Core 2 Duo... say 3 or 4 years down the road, which one would I want to have running my stuff? Battery life isn't a huge issue as this will be at home most of the time, and I dont think the difference is that big anyway. Cost isn't a huge issue either. I"m more concerned with which one would be more practical to have over the next 5 years or more. Even though I'd prefer to buy from AMD rather than from Intel, I will gladly consider paying the extra money to Intel for something that might save me some grief down the road. I want to know how safe I would be if I went with the Turion 64 x2, in terms of the quality of the product, how well it's supported and the like, and whether or not it would be a much better idea to get the Core 2 Duo. Maybe in other words, why would it be bad to go with the Turion 64 x2, is it really that big of a deal/of a difference? I don't game, I do lots of surfing, lots of multimedia stuff like playing, editing, converting files, and am almost always have more than one program running at a time, although I wouldn't consider myself a power user or anything by any stretch.

in case anyone wonders, it's the HP Pavillion dv9000 series that I'm going to buy, either the dv9005us, dv9010us, or the dv9030us @ sears.com

Thanks in advance for yall taking the time to pass along all your .02

 

Look at all the benchmarks from here.

http://tomshardware.co.uk/2006/08/22/amd_dual_core_laptops_have_arrived_uk/page12.html

The core duo is faster overall but don't take people words it beats the crap out of the Turion64 x2 which is just not true. The difference is certainly not day and night like some people make out. Yes the core duo is faster... The benchmarks even includes comparison to a pentium-m.

I would go for the core 2 duo right now... Unless of course you can find the Turion64 x2 a lot cheaper.

 

Some people would not notice difference in their "real world applications" between Turion X2 and even Pentium III (L2 cache is the same).
If you complain about superPi test, name an application which favours Turion X2 architecture in your opinion, and we will test which difference it will make vs. Core Duo and Core 2 Duo.

 

whotakesallmynames, it's really up to you. To summarize, there are a lot of benchmarks out there that show C2D or CD being better than AMD Turion and Turion X2, but as I said before, you have to take things with a grain of salt and know that most benchmarks aren't really indicative of real-life performance. Infact, some benchmarks aren't even fair (one machine overclocked while the other isn't). Here are 2 real eye-openers that you might want to have a look at and keep in mind when looking at benchmarks:

1) http://scientiasblog.blogspot.com/2006/08/dishonesty-of-overclocking.html

2) http://discuss.extremetech.com/forums/1004339470/ShowPost.aspx?login=1&r=0 (rarchimedes's post in particular)

Given the above, I'd go with the Turion X2 (the dv9000z) but that doesn't mean the C2D is a bad processor. In the server market, the Opterons have been very successful at the price of the Xeons. The new Woodcrests look promising but we'll have to wait and see. I'd trust AMD's design that was built from 2003 with multi-cores in mind and HT and 64-bit instruction sets as well as an integrated memory controller and which was made with multi-cores in mind over Intel's relatively new technology (the CD, C2D, Woodcrests are about a year old or less).

 

ivar,
Here's a quick test. Try anything that stress tests your memory system. Download IOMeter, create a large ramdisk, and try sequential and random memory access. I know how to do the above under Linux and can give you a step-by-step howto, not quite sure how it's done under Windows though.

 

A lot cheaper.. well I'm choosing from three models, two of which have the Turion x2 at $1100 and $1350, the third has the Core 2 Duo plus a better video card and 80Gigs more at $1550.

Ditig I'm glad I actually took the time to check out those links. The second one with R's post was really insightful. I can see that either would be fine for me, and I should probably look over the other other hardware specs and see which way I want to go.

Here is a link to a thread I made in the Which Notebook forum: down to three choices

 

Well I made my pick. I went with the Turion 64 x2 (HP Pavillion dv9005us). Thanks to Ditig and everyone else for being so on top of all this!

 

Hope your happy with your purchase, good luck with removing the bloatware (which can be awful).

 

Core duo is much better than Turion 64 X2, not only the performance but also the stability.

 

How so?

There is no inherent stability issues with the Turion X2 unless rest of the hardware has issues. This is true of any laptop with any processor. In which case the laptop is branded as a lemon. Please do resist from posting hearsay or some BS.

 

Yeah, to say the Turion X2 is less stable is both false and founded on shoddy logic.

 

Benchmarks results for constructively idential notebooks
MSI S262 (core duo, Intel GMA-950) and
MSI S271 (turion x2, ATI Radeon Xpress 1150) at 1,6MHz.











Battery time, Battery Eater test (the same 2400mAh battery is used on MSI S262 (cire duo) and S271 (turion x2):

Battery time when DVD watching:



More details (graphical data and tables) are found here
(still informative, though the main text is in Russian)
http://www.ferra.ru/online/mobilis/26639/page-3/

 

Note that the above benchmarks are for the low end TL-50 which only have 256k/core. Also, read the comments throughout the thread before looking at the graphs

 

The truth is that you haven't admitted in any of your posts above that the
low end Turion will loose to the low end Core Duo, while trying to promote the illusion that Turion X2 can be on par with Core 2 Duo. The comparative benchmarks of core 2 duo vs core duo at the same clock together with the benchmarks posted in my previous post would demonstate how far behind Core 2 Duo the Turion X2 actually is.

I have only a little knowledge of the processor architecture. However, it seems obvious that the specially amd-architecture optimised memory (only) tests which use only files of the size below the size of 512kB (L2 cache of high end Turions) may deliver better results that the same tests used on Intel Pentium M and higher chips. This is only where the hyperthreading can be visible as an advantage, which is hardly a real-life application.

 

Actually, as you asked me before, any memory intensive test should prove that the Turions are better than the C2D in memory intensive apps. Try to set up IOMeter. If you have linux installed, I can guide through it. And anything that can fit in the 512KB L2 cache of the Turion X2 would definitely fit in the more specious 2/4 MB L2 cache of the C2D.

 

I tend to agree with the latter. Can you estimate how much better Turion X2 may perform in memory tests in comparison with c2d at the same clock speed : 5%, 10%?

I also think that 800MHz hyperthreading will not be so much an advantage
when Intel chips will have FSB 800MHz next year. Or AMD is also going to increase its hyperthreading clock?

I can't make the test with TX2 myself. No laptop with TX2 is in my disposal.
Thanks for the nice offer though.

 

The Core 2 Duo is slightly limited by the 667MHz platform of the current Centrino Platform, so the addition of the 800MHz FSB to Santa Rosa should give a noticeable performance gain. However, the problem with bumping up the FSB is with power consumption. Intel is improving the power management of the Core 2 Duo in Santa Rosa, hopefully that will compensate for the increased power usage.

 

I didn't read the whole post but I just want to remind you : once apon a time a wise guy posted : "... never compare AMD and Intel CPU by "toy" benchmarks (SuperPI) the whole program fits inside the Intel's cache while AMD ..."
Cache is shared between intel cpu's but for AMD dual core's it's seperate.So benchmarks like PCMark are more realistic.

 

OK, I see this forum is Benchmark trigger happy.

But does anyone really SEE/FEEL a Noticeable difference between X2 and Dual?

I have X2 on my laptop and Desktop. I never got to play with a Intel Dual core yet.

 

The only real difference you'll see is in calculation benchmarks, LIVEFRMNYC. It won't run SuperPi as fast as the Core Duo. The X2 has a much better memory subsystem though. You should also realize that the Core Duo's are made with a 65nm process, and the X2's are made with a 90nm (I think) process, so they aren't competing on a completely "level" playing field. The move to 65nm by AMD will add a lot of power savings and speed, as well as making the chips less expensive. That's why Intel's chips are so fast and cheap, pretty much.

 

Well, as far as i've noticed - in everyday usage the CPU usage graph rarely reaches 100%, so i think that the CPU is not the bottleneck of a typical notebook sysem.

Yes. Intel is still better than AMD both in means of performance and power usage, but that is not much of an importnace.

There are much more vital things in one notebook than the cpu (provided that the cpu isn't 165W TDP or s.t. like that).

 

So when will we see new Turion with bigger cache?