A Preview of Intel's Centrino 2 Platform

Final Words

There's not much data to go on about making a conclusion here - Centrino 2 should be yet another evolutionary step over the previous generation Centrino. Processor performance hasn't really changed (thankfully our Centrino 2 test system was able to at least confirm this for us), and battery life should improve slightly thanks to lower voltage on the 25W TDP CPUs, the lower GM45 TDP and lower DDR3 operating voltage - but don't expect huge gains.

The new WiFi options are interesting, but what really matters there is how much more OEMs will charge for the 5300 over the 5100. With only a $10 difference in OEM cost, we have a feeling that the actual street price difference will be far greater. It also remains to be seen how big of a tangible performance increase we can see from the 5300 over the 5100.

Here's what we need from Intel or a capable OEM to truly determine the worth of Centrino 2:

- A fully working, fully optimized Centrino 2 notebook
- A similarly configured Santa Rosa Refresh notebook for comparison
- The ability to switch between WiFi Link 5300 and 5100 cards to truly determine their tangible value
- A Centrino 2 system with discrete graphics to truly evaluate how the switch between IGP and discrete graphics works
- Working GM45 drivers with full video decode support and proper application support for it as well. Many of these notebooks will be shipping with Blu-ray drives and in the interest of actually being able to watch a Blu-ray movie on a battery, hardware decode acceleration needs to work.

Until then, we can only conclude about Centrino 2 what we know on paper. It shouldn't really be any faster, clock-for-clock, than the Santa Rosa Refresh based Centrino notebooks. Initial results we've seen from OEMs that have gotten systems to work shows that performance and battery life of their new Centrino 2 systems aren't any different than their previous Santa Rosa Refresh systems. Compared to earlier Santa Rosa and Napa machines, the upgrade should be worth it, but if you just bought a notebook - don't be fooled by the 2, it's not time to upgrade.

Honestly the most exciting Centrino 2 CPU is one that isn't even launching today - the Core 2 Duo SP9400 runs at 2.40GHz but ships in a svelte 22mm x 22mm package (as compared to 35mm x 35mm), which should enable some fairly high powered, small form factor notebooks.

We're confident that Intel and its partners will bring Centrino 2 to market in the next month or so without problems, the brand is too big of a cash cow not to. We just wished that Intel would take its mobile launches as seriously as it does its desktop ones.