Re: This makes sense for the vast majority of users who virtually never stress their notebook processors, and want a bit a burst speed and long battery life. Seems to have worked out OK as AMD is gaining in that space. Core 2 Duo does much worse in this metric
anandtech.com
Idle power draw for the dv6500t and the 6515b with a TL-66 are the same at 22W, with the TL-60 using slightly more power. Once we crank up the load on the system, however, both AMD configurations end up using 5W and 11W (TL-60 and TL-66, respectively) more than the Intel laptop. The "max load" results shown above involve running Folding@Home SMP at the same time as we run a game in order to fully stress all CPU cores as well as the GPU.
The most interesting aspect of this table is to look at the difference between idle power draw and 100% CPU load, as that allows us to remove the LCD power requirements from the equation. While we can't say which CPU is better at reducing power requirements at idle (due to the aforementioned platform differences), we can clearly conclude that the Intel CPU requires less power to do more work at load. The power delta is 35 W for the T7300, 39 W for the TL-60, and 48 W for the TL-66. AMD does well at reducing their idle power requirements, but when the CPU is actually working Intel leads by a relatively large margin.
Re: wife as a Dell notebook with a Core 2 Duo and the battery life is really pathetic.
It doesn't necessarily mean the CPU is the cause. Add a 7200 RPM drive and high power LCD monitor to any laptop, and the battery will drain very quickly. In even comparisons, like the one above from Anandtech, Intel comes out well ahead, even when disadvantaged with a smaller battery and higher power components. |
