Mobile CPU Wars: Core 2 Duo vs. Core Duo
by Anand Lal Shimpi on August 3, 2006 9:25 AM EST- Posted in
- CPUs
Gaming Performance using Quake 4, Battlefield 2 & Half-Life 2 Episode 1
Our gaming performance analysis starts out with Quake 4 running at 800 x 600 with Low Quality visual settings. We used version 1.2 of Quake 4 and SMP was enabled:
Despite the relatively low quality settings, there's no difference between Core Duo and Core 2 Duo in gaming performance here. Unfortunately, the fastest Merom compatible laptop we have on hand is severely constrained in gaming performance by the X1600 GPU. Desktop performance of the X1600 Pro is lower than a GeForce 6600GT in nearly every test, and a 6600GT is basically a "budget gaming" GPU these days. We will have to get a laptop with a faster GPU before we can determine exactly the real difference in gaming performance between Merom and Yonah. We'll include additional gaming results for completeness, as there may be a few CPU-limited games even with the X1600 GPU.
Let's see if the same trend exists under Battlefield 2; here we ran at 800 x 600 with default settings:
Once again there's no performance difference, and we're basically entirely GPU bound. Performance gets cut in half if we up the resolution to 1280 x 800, and we're rendering 2.13X as many pixels at the higher resolution. Obviously, if mobile gaming performance is important to you, you'll want a faster GPU.
The same trend continues under Half Life 2:
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Spacecomber - Thursday, August 3, 2006 - link
I know that we are perhaps past the time for this, but I'd be curious how the Pentium M stacked up against its replacement, the Core Solo. It might shed some light on the roots for the Core line of processors.ksherman - Thursday, August 3, 2006 - link
I for one hope Apple pops these babies in the MacBook as well as the MacBook Pro. I have been reading a lot of rumors suggesting that Apple will only put Merom in the Pro model at first... Seems kinda goofy, since they purchase processors in *relatively* low quantity. Ive got my eye on the MacBook, so any performance increase with no price premium is always a plus, and I do plan on doing a lot of video editing/renderingmlittl3 - Thursday, August 3, 2006 - link
I'm waiting for the third revision of the Macbook Pro in the middle of next year. By this revision most of the problems with the new designs should be ironed out and these notebooks will probably be based on the Santa Rosa platform (800 MHz FSB). Right now I have a 1.5 GHz G4 Powerbook and it does what I need. I will upgrade to the Macbook Pro 2.4 GHz Core 2 Duo (Merom) on the Santa Rosa platform. If you like your notebook right now, I would wait until then. This would give you the most stability and bump in performance in the near future. Expect the third revision sometime next summer.mlittl3 - Thursday, August 3, 2006 - link
To be more clear:First Revision - Macbook Pro 2.16 GHz Core Duo 667 MHz FSB 2 MB (1Q 2006)
Second Revision - Macbook Pro 2.33 GHz Core 2 Duo 667 MHz FSB 4 MB (3Q 2006?)
Third Revision - Macbook Pro 2.4 GHz Core 2 Duo 800 MHz FST 4 MB (2Q 2007?)
AndrewChang - Sunday, August 6, 2006 - link
Santa Rosa... At the earliest? I mean, I supose with the Core 2 Duo being 'crippled' by a slow(er) FSB, it might be worth the wait. But what do you think Anand means by, at the earliest?Whats next after Santa Rosa? Does he know something we don't know? Well, thats a given, but now I'm sketched out about all this... Should we expect some early adopter problems with the introduction of this newfangled Robson technology? God, for a hardware enthusiast, who would've thought that making a new hardware purchase could be so tough. All I want is the fastest performing Merom/Leopard based Macbook Pro available. Am I really going to have to wait until at least Santa Rosa next year? It's going to be a long wait...
Olaf van der Spek - Thursday, August 3, 2006 - link
What three Compaqs?
Anand Lal Shimpi - Thursday, August 3, 2006 - link
Didn't you see the three compaqs in the review? ;)Take care,
Anand
yacoub - Thursday, August 3, 2006 - link
now this is a test i can totally appreciate: everything is identical except the CPU, so you get to see what the REAL WORLD benefit of changing the CPU is in your REAL WORLD system that people might actually buy/own. ie, instead of maxing everything else out with parts 99% of people don't buy / can't afford.of course the result is that you see that the real world difference is only noticeable in some situations and with some programs. but hey, that's the reality of it and actually it's easy to see that since the pricing is comparable and all else the same, it's a decent upgrade and certainly a level of future-proofing as well.
jones377 - Thursday, August 3, 2006 - link
It was interesting to compare the numbers in this review with the previous Core 2 Duo desktop review where 2MB vs 4MB L2 cache was examined (although at 1,83GHz/1066)http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?...">http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?...
Its not a perfect comparison but from what I can gather, there are significant improvements performance wise coming from the core, even in the non-FP/SSE related benchmarks. A favorite argument among some people is that the extra cache makes all the difference, I hope this will shut them up! (tho I really doubt it)
iollmann - Tuesday, September 26, 2006 - link
In SSE code, I see close to a factor of 2 performance increase from Yonah to Merom much of the time. These benchmarks are depressing. The improvement should be better than what we see. Does no one vectorize?