Intel's Core Duo Launch - Notebook Performance Revealed
by Anand Lal Shimpi on January 5, 2006 8:00 PM EST- Posted in
- Laptops
Lenovo Thinkpad T60 Preview
We managed to get our hands on a pre-production version of Lenovo’s upcoming Centrino Duo based Thinkpad T60 in time for this article. The pre-production nature of the laptop obviously meant that we couldn’t rely on it for performance comparisons, but it did give us a nice solution to look forward to from Lenovo.
The biggest feature of the Thinkpad T60 is the fact that it is one of Lenovo’s first Centrino Duo capable notebooks. The sample we got was in fact a Centrino Duo system as it was equipped with an Intel 945GM chipset, 3945ABG wireless solution and an Intel Core Duo T2600 (2.16GHz) processor. IBM does offer other versions of the T60 that use the Core Duo processor but don’t meet the requirements to be called a Centrino Duo as well.
The system we tested was outfitted with 512MB of DDR2-533 memory and an 80GB 5400RPM SATA drive.
Since we didn’t have any previous-generation T series notebooks on hand to compare to, our battery life numbers have to stand alone. We used a standard 6-cell battery with the T60 and it managed to provide us with 300 minutes of battery life during the Mobile Mark 2005 Office Productivity 2002SE test. The Reader 2002SE test yielded a similar battery life of 297 minutes. DVD playback was a bit shorter at 227 minutes but Mobile Mark’s wireless browsing test was back up past the 5 hour mark at 301 minutes.
All in all we saw around 5 hours of battery life in most of the situations we tested in; obviously your mileage will vary depending on the type of usage but we are confident that with the Centrino Duo platform we will finally start seeing more manufacturers break the 5 hour mark for normal usage.
Actual performance of the T60 was a mixed bag, most likely due to its pre-production nature. Its performance in SYSMark 2004 was about where we’d expect it, with an overall score of 210 - making it faster than our desktop Athlon 64 X2 3800+ (with a desktop hard drive). The T60 did fine in the Internet Content Creation tests, scoring a 289 but in the Office Productivity tests it lagged behind pulling in a meager 152. For whatever reason the T60’s performance in the Data Analysis tests was quite poor, which led to its lackluster performance in the OP suite. Once final hardware is ready we will revisit performance, and assuming the performance issues can be taken care of we’d expect a pretty impressive showing from the T60.
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Shark Tek - Thursday, January 5, 2006 - link
Lets hope that AMD release Turion's X2 with a even more reduced power consumption and DDR2 support that will be really "Sweet".Se imaginan un Turion64 X2 o un Core Duo combinado con un x1800 Mobility Radeon eso seria la combinacion perfecta para 'Lan Parties'. Sin la necesidad de andar con equipo pesado.
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Can you imagine a notebook with Turion X2 or Core Duo matched with a X1800 Mobility Radeon. That will be the perfect combination for Lan-Parties. Without the need for carrying heavy parts from your Desktop @ home.
Just imagine that ....
coldpower27 - Thursday, January 5, 2006 - link
Very impressive.monsoon - Thursday, January 5, 2006 - link
yeah, me too i'm curious about the Apple products coming with Yonah, and how they stack up to X2 athlons PC Yonah notebooks......and overclocking !!!
PS - BTW did you try to overclock the ASUS Yonah notebook ?
PeteRoy - Thursday, January 5, 2006 - link
noDoormat - Thursday, January 5, 2006 - link
Page loads took forever but the review was interesting.I'm still interested to see what Apple does with these chips in their iBooks next week.
The battery life of the T60 was impressive - 227 minutes for DVD playback. Finally, I can watch an LOTR episode on one battery!
The release of only 1 single core chip speaks volumes - intel is ditching single core chips when they can. They want to push dual core hard.
Calin - Friday, January 6, 2006 - link
In DVD playback the DVD unit consume some of the power... I wonder if playing a DVD from a virtual drive or from a network would prolong battery lifeFuren - Thursday, January 5, 2006 - link
Very lovely power consumption. I suppose power consumption will be a bit higher when both cores are at 100% usage but most of us dont keep our CPU usage pegged at 100% when using a notebook and specially not if we care about power consumption at all. It'd be nice if Intel had decided to go to 90nm on the chipsets but I suppose their power consumption is not that high to begin with and Intel needs a use for its 130nm fabs...Calin - Friday, January 6, 2006 - link
off course the power consumption will be higher with both cores at 100% usage - but in this case the "work per watt" is greater, as processors don't use all the power in the system.Just that people would prefer a laptop that consume a battery charge faster but finish the work much faster than the other way around.
cheburashka - Thursday, January 5, 2006 - link
Intel's chipset shortage problem is because all current MCH's are still on 130nm, which is maxed out in the fabs. They would love to get the 90nm Broadwater/Crestline chips out the door to free up 130nm capacity to build low end parts again.