sempron, turion, duo, 2 duo

Between these four processors, which one would you say is the best overall (in addition to the extra cost it will incure for me to get it. I hope to run spore eventually with 256mB video & 2gb ram.

Mobile AMD Sempron(TM) 3500+ (1.80GHz/512KB) --------- +0$
AMD Turion(TM) 64 X2 Dual-Core TL-50(1.6GHz/512KB) ---- +75$
Intel(R) Core(TM) Duo T2250 (1.73 GHz/2MB L2Cache) ----- +0$
Intel(R) Core(TM) 2 Duo T5200(1.60GHz/2MB L2Cache) ----- +25$

Any help is appreciated, thanks in advance.

 

Of course the Sempron is out of the list, because its like the Celeron. From the list, I do say the Core 2 Duo is the best.

JC

 

The Core 2 Duo T5200 would be my pick out of the above four.

Namely, Dual Core (which the Sempron isn't), 64-bit support (which the Core Duo T2250 lacks), and perform on average 15%-25% better than AMD's K8 based processors at the same clockspeed (i.e. better than the Turion 64 X2 TL-50).

 

Whoo hoo! That makes it a quick & easy desicion.
By channce anyone one know the duty to carry a 2000$ laptop from US to canada?

 

Well, the duty should just be the GST (6%), or, GST+PST depending on which province you are in.

However, if you carry it back with you as your own personal item which you are technically not intending to resell, then I'd just not bother declaring it at all. Then again, you might be one of those complete honest person who has to follow everything by the book.

Good luck with your purchase!

 

well it is better for you to compare a turion vs turion x2. semphron is a bit way off and I think I prefer celeron M than semphron. But from the list I choose core 2 duo also

 

turion x2 ftmfw

 

Celeron-M 400s I think are generally quicker than most Semprons but I think I'd prefer the Sempron for the battery life!

 

well..
i think semprons beats intel since most people can run games little better
i know core 2 duo is the best proceccor out there
but i don't like intel so.
turion X2 is my choice

 

Well, the Celeron M 300 series is essentially a slightly stripped down Pentium M "Banias" or "Dothan".

The Celeron M 400 series is essentially a slightly stripped down Core Solo "Yonah".

So, the Celeron M (not to be confused with the P4 "Netburst" based desktop Celeron Ds) is actually not a bad choice, and would perform on par against AMD's various Mobile Sempron versions at the same clock speed. In fact, the TDP of both chips are similar (24.5W for "Banias-512", 21W for "Dothan-1024", and 27W for "Yonah-1024" Celeron Ms, while it's 25W for "Sonora", "Roma" and "Keene" Mobile Semprons).

If you dig around the various tech websites, there have been many comparisons done between the Pentium M and desktop Athlon 64, and in fact, at the same clockspeed performance is close and the P-M is able to hold it's own, and most games are GPU bound anyways. Therefore, the Semprons will certainly not run games better than the Celeron Ms, not by a noticable amount anyways.

As far as battery life goes, again, it's largely academic. They pretty much requires the same amount of power, and even IF AMD has a better power management solution, I'd say the difference would be no more than 2-3W on average. On entry level systems where these things are found, with a typical battery having a 2.5-3 hour runtime, the difference would be no more than 5-10 minutes at the most. Not significant enough and nothing to write home about (and I wouldn't use this as the basis for my purchasing decision even if battery life is my main concern).


Now between the Core 2 Duo and Turion 64 X2, again, the internet (well, many hardware sites) is already filled with benchmarks that show consistantly over and over again the Intel has 15%-25% performance advantage at the same clockspeed. There is nothing wrong with 64-bit performance with the Intel, in fact, the Core 2 Duo still holds the perfomance advantage by over 15% (in case anyone starts the "but things will be different when tested under 64-bit OS therefore AMD is superior" argument). Lastly, the "TL" series has a TDP of 35W, while it is 34W for Core 2 Duo "Merom".

AMD Turion(TM) 64 X2 Dual-Core TL-50(1.6GHz/512KB) ---- +$75
Intel(R) Core(TM) 2 Duo T5200(1.60GHz/2MB L2Cache) ----- +$25

Now, Intel is faster both in absolute performance and in performance per watt, it is not using up any more battery power (if anything, less than the TL series), and in this case, cheaper by $50. So, apart from the most hard-core of AMD fanboys, I fail to see why anyone would pick the more expensive and inferior product (and in this case we're not talking about Intel).


Now AMD has shown us what they can do (with the original Athlons to the K8 architecture), but honestly, they are simply not competitive in price and performance, and haven't been so in the mobile platform.