AMD and Intel Mobile Rematch: Gateway NV5933u vs. Acer 5542
by Jarred Walton on June 18, 2010 1:14 AM ESTGaming Performance in Perspective
We tested nine moderately recent releases, and here the performance comparison between AMD and Intel change somewhat. Where AMD leads at 800x600, Intel takes the lead in every title at 1366x768, with the exception of Bad Company 2 where Intel's drivers still need updating. Our best guess is that the AMD platform is becoming bandwidth limited. The Tigris notebooks use DDR2-800 memory, which in dual-channel configurations is good for 12.8GB/s of bandwidth shared between the CPU and GPU. Intel is using DDR3-1066, which bumps the total bandwidth up to 17.1GB/s, and in certain titles (FEAR2 for example) the extra bandwidth appears to help quite a bit.
Of course, looking at the frame rates only two of the nine titles are playable at these settings: Empire: Total War and STALKER: Call of Pripyat. They also look more like 2006/2007 titles at minimum detail, which is in line with our recommendation of gaming potential for these systems. Older titles and casual games are okay on current IGPs (Sims 2/3 and Spore all run fine at low/medium detail and 1366x768), but anything more demanding pushes the hardware too far. Sandy Bridge and Fusion can't come fast enough.
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silverblue - Friday, June 18, 2010 - link
...PLEASE stop using the 4200 unless you're going to offer an automatically switchable and far superior discrete option. Would it be outlandish to use the Mobility 5470 at the very least instead of throwing out the same 500-700MHz 40SP solutions?JarredWalton - Friday, June 18, 2010 - link
We should be seeing the Toshiba Satellite A665D-S6059 soon, which combines the HD 4250 with a discrete HD 5650 and provides switching functionality. It also has the Phenom II P920 quad-core (only 1.6GHz though). I'm certainly interested in seeing how it works, and hopefully GPU driver updates won't be a problem... except it looks like Toshiba is opting out of AMD's Mobile Driver program. Ugh.ferro_i - Friday, June 18, 2010 - link
AMD processor, the previous platform. (Tigris platform 2009, DDR2).İntel Mobile i3-i5 series should be compared with platform AMD Danube (2010).
JarredWalton - Friday, June 18, 2010 - link
I think it's fair in that we're comparing laptops that have both been around for four months. But you're right, Danube is the real comparison now and we're working to get some appropriate laptops. I inadvertently lumped all the new AMD laptops under the Nile header, but that's the ultraportable version of Danube; we should have both in the next couple of weeks.veri745 - Sunday, June 20, 2010 - link
Agreed. We already know the DDR2 AMD platforms have crappy battery life. I'd really like to see the Danube and Nile platforms reviewed.fabarati - Friday, June 18, 2010 - link
Good thing to note: Core i5s and i7s have a higher clocked IGP, 766 vs 677 in the i3s. Performance probably won't go up a lot, but maybe a fps or two.By the way, are you guys gonna review the Dell Vostro 3500?
JarredWalton - Friday, June 18, 2010 - link
We can ask for the Vostro 3500... no idea if we'll get one. As for the GPU clock, that's a good point. Is there a good utility to show your current clock? I have no idea if the NV5933u every scaled up to 667 or not; GPUZ and CPUZ don't report the IGP frequency on Intel.KaarlisK - Sunday, June 20, 2010 - link
Not always, it won'tSince the IGP has to Turbo up to get to either 677 or 766, and the i5s and i7s have higher CPU frequencies, there is sometimes less power/heat headroom for the GPU to actually clock up.
mojtabaalemi - Friday, June 18, 2010 - link
could you please add 1005p in your battery life test .and by the way was 1005pe with 3150 igp capable of 720p x264 video ?
JarredWalton - Friday, June 18, 2010 - link
We never had the 1005p for testing (or any other 3-cell netbook), so I'm not sure what it does for battery life other than it would be lower. :-) Relative battery life should be about the same, though, so at 23Wh it should last roughly half as long as the 1001p.The 1005pe (and any other Pine Trail netbook as well as the older N270/N280) is capable of 720p x264 if you use the CoreAVC codec; anything else and you drop frames in my experience. Higher bitrate 720p would also cause problems, and you get tearing (no VSYNC) with CoreAVC in my experience. As far as Internet video (Flash... not sure about the HTML5 stuff yet), Atom fails utterly unless you get ION/NG-ION.