Gateway AMD and Intel Laptops, a Platform Analysis
by Jarred Walton on August 12, 2009 2:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Laptops
Power Requirements
The power requirements at various loads help explain the battery life situation better. At idle, the Gateway Intel and AMD laptops are relatively close. AMD still uses about 2W more, but it's possible chips like the Turion X2 Ultra could close gap. We're hoping to get an appropriate ZM series processor to run the tests, but the real problem is when we look at load power requirements. Putting a 100% CPU load on the system using Folding@Home SMP, the 2W difference suddenly balloons to 15W. The IGP doesn't appear to be a major contributor to the power increase, as maximum load is only slightly higher at 17W. It's clear that the Intel processor never comes near the rated 35W TDP, since the whole system only uses slightly more than that when the CPU is at 100%. The AMD CPU on the other hand very likely does come close to the 35W TDP. That explains why the AMD system does so poorly in battery life tests that tax the CPU more.
Noise Levels
The noise levels correspond to power requirements, as expected. The Intel system is almost completely silent when idle, but the AMD system fluctuates - sometimes it's almost silent, but most of the time the fans spin up and raise the noise level above ambient. The AMD system gets noticeably louder under load conditions, although relatively speaking neither laptop is particularly loud.
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KidneyBean - Wednesday, August 12, 2009 - link
It's nice to see some humor in these articles. Nice to change it up. Reminds me of reading Mark Minasi tech books, and how much easier occasional humor makes it for me to read tech info.IntelUser2000 - Wednesday, August 12, 2009 - link
Jarred, the 475MHz core clock on the GMA 4500 is wrong. That has been the clock speed for pre-launch platforms. The GM45's GMA 4500MHD runs at 533MHz. Minor mistake but still a mistake.HexiumVII - Wednesday, August 12, 2009 - link
Can anyone comment on the performance of Aero with comparing the G45 with the X3200? I had a tablet with an X3500 that was a bit clunky with Win7 Aero Beta. It got a little better with RC drivers, but still not as snappy as 2D mode or dedicated graphics.JarredWalton - Wednesday, August 12, 2009 - link
I didn't notice any issues with normal applications in Windows Vista, but I don't know about Win7 yet. I will try to find time to do a follow-up looking at Win7 performance, and from what I've heard it's overall better than Vista (Gary for instance has it running on a netbook and he's very happy, whereas he hated Vista on the same netbook). Intel's Win7 drivers are likely still a work in progress as well, but at least you can get regular IGP driver updates from Intel.JarredWalton - Wednesday, August 12, 2009 - link
All I know is that GPU-Z reported the GMA 4500MHD as 475MHz. I would guess that either the utility is wrong (possible), or Intel gives vendors some leeway in the GPU/chipset clocks (also possible). If you have another utility that will be more reliable for determining the Intel IGP clock, let me know.IntelUser2000 - Wednesday, August 12, 2009 - link
Just take a look at the datasheet, its that simple: http://www.intel.com/Assets/PDF/datasheet/320122.p...">http://www.intel.com/Assets/PDF/datasheet/320122.p...The GPU-Z utility is bad. It's nowhere near the CPU counterpart. That aside, Intel doesn't really give out reading the GPU clock easily, and the 475MHz was also what was used in the pre-launch(ie. beta) GM45 platforms.
I heard Everest is more accurate, but in terms of actually measuring, there probably isn't one that measures the Intel IGPs properly.
IntelUser2000 - Wednesday, August 12, 2009 - link
http://www.beareyes.com.cn/2/lib/200810/13/335/gpu...">http://www.beareyes.com.cn/2/lib/200810/13/335/gpu...Please see how G45(desktop version) shows on the GPU-Z. It should show similar thing to above, unless the newer version updated to change that its 800MHz.
In reality, it isn't really measuring the clock.