towards the optimal laptop

OK, we all know AMD is late, late, late in quad-core mobile processors, but according to X-bit labs, AMD plans to offer a wide array of Phenom II mobile processors in May and, if you look at the models, you will notice that the AMD Phenom II P920 has 4 cores running at 1.6 GHz with a TDP of only 25 W, while the Phenom II N930 has 4 cores running at 2 GHz and a TDP of 35 W. This is very low for quad-cores, because the slowest quad-cores from Intel, the Core 2 Quad Q9000 at 2 GHz and Core i7-720QM at 1.6 GHz, have both a TDP of 45 W, and low-end Core 2 Duos such as the T6600 have a TDP of 35 W (mainstream Duos are more power efficient and have a TDP of 25 W). TDP measures the heat produced when the processor runs at full speed, so a low TDP indicates that the processor uses less power and produces less heat.

Maybe clockspeeds are a bit low, but quad-core processors that draw so little power are great news for laptop users. I hope performance is good enough and that the low TDP translates in longer battery life.

The Windows Experience Index (WEI) is not a very informative benchmark but at the moment it is the only indication of its performance that I have found. Today I have found an HP Pavilion dv7 laptop with Windows 7 and an AMD Turion II M500 (2.2 GHz) at a mall. I have quickly looked for the system properties and the WEI: the CPU subscore was 5.7; next to it there was a dv6 laptop with an AMD Athlon II M300 (2.0 GHz): it scored 4.9.

HP Pavilion dv6z laptop with AMD Turion II processor

Some scores of Intel processors to compare (collected from the Net or from other Windows 7 laptops in the mall):

• Intel Pentium Dual Core SU4100 (1.3 GHz): 4.0
• Intel Pentium Dual Core T4300 (2.1 GHz): 4.9
• Intel Core 2 Duo T6600 (2.2 GHz): 5.5
• Intel Core 2 Duo P8600 (2.4 GHz): 6.0
• Intel Core 2 Duo T9600 (2.8 GHz): 6.4

So it looks like the new AMD Turion II and Turion II Ultra are going to compete in performance against mainstream Core 2 Duo processors, not high-end ones, but we need more benchmarks!

Update: according to PC Magazine, the AMD Turion II M520 (2.3 GHz) scores 4746 in Cinebench R10 (multi). That’s just in between an Intel Core 2 Duo P8400 2.26 GHz (that scores 4687) and a P8600 2.4 GHz (that scores 4856) and confirms the performance level.

Update 2: from the reviews of laptops with Turion II processors, it seems that the M500 is closer to a T6600 than to a P8400 or similar.