Low Voltage CPU L7400? or L7200? or U7500

Has anyone heard anything about these new processors from Intel?

They're suppose to run at half the power with a lower clock. Do they have the same or very similiar performance and when are they suppose to come out?

Any ideas anyone?

Thanks!

 

There's an old thread which speculates about the U7500.

For more about the L7200 and L7400 you can browse the Core 2 Duo datasheet, particularly Table 7 on page 31 and try to work out the differences between that and Table 6 (the normal C2D mobile CPUs).

Basically, the maximum power draw during operation is reduced by 10W+, and there's a saving of around 4W in sleep mode. Intel gives voltage ranges for both types of CPU. However, while I have seen that the maximum voltage is pre-set for individual CPUs, I haven't heard of a C2D which isn't locked to a minimum voltage of 0.95V (to much cursing from the undervolting community, including myself). I presume that the L series will be set to run at a lower voltage. Maybe they will also have been selectively picked to have lower leakage currents. Since I have a T7200 which is stable at max speed at 1.05V and a T5600 which only needs 1.0V, there doesn't seem to be much of a technical challenge to releasing CPUs which will run below 0.95V at 1GHz or slower. Maybe there's a marketing challenge?

My Q35 with a T5600 can get below 10W total power draw under light use with a dim backlight. Perfmon shows that the CPU is in a low power state for about 85% of the time. Knocking a few watts off that power drain would put another hour or two on the battery life. I would like the L series CPU in my portable (and said so near the end of my review of the Q35).

John

 

The naming scheme irks me. An L7200 is NOT the same speed at a T7200 but at a lower power envelope, as the name (and logic) would suggest.

 

I agree. The current Intel numbering system started off logically, but the recent additions were either just not thought through, or intended to mislead.

The worst of the misleading numbers that I know of is the T2060, which has 1MB cache, has a higher number than the T2050, which is identical except for 2MB cache. It is not as if there wasn't an available number lower than T2050!

John

 

Completely agreed. Intel was doing great with its naming system for a while, for a long time actually, until the recent influx of C2D processors (desktop and mobile) that have somewhat erratic names. The one you mentioned is one of the worst violators.

 

Probably also a pricing challenge. Pentium M is still a very energy efficient and cheaper CPU. If you are clocking that low, why bother with core2Duo at all - you wont be going after a market that is driven by "sexy" specs with that sort of thing, so why spend money on components they dont care about?