source: pcper.comToday is a big day for Intel: not only are they releasing a new mobility platform but they also released a whole host of new desktop parts as well using the same architecture. Clarkdale is the codename for the desktop variant of the Westmere architecture that you can get all of the details on in our separate article. Arrandale is the codename for the product we are going to be looking at today for notebooks.
Meet the other new guy
Mobility Westmere Unveiled
In almost every way, the new Arrandale processor is identical to that of the Clarkdale desktop component:
An extension of the Nehalem architecture, Westmere separates the memory controller and PCI Express lanes into another chip on the same package while adding in a newly developed graphics solution called Intel HD Graphics. All of the Arrandale parts are going to be dual-core with HyperThreading support. If you want all of gory details on the architecture and what technology has changed under the hood, check out the Clarkdale article also posted today. Otherwise, suffice it to say these new CPUs are similar to other Nehalem parts with fewer cores and an integrated GPU.
Turbo Graphics - but not that kind
While most of the features are the same, there is at least one feature unique to the mobile variant.
Even though the desktop Clarkdale parts did include the integrated graphics, they did not include support for what Intel is calling "Dynamic Frequency" that enables the chip to vary the clock speeds of the graphics portion of the chip as well as the clocks on the CPU cores. Imagine an instance where GPU power is more necessary that CPU - say a dual-streaming Blu-ray on your notebook. Since the Intel HD Graphics does hardware acceleration of that video decode process, it might be more pertinent for the processor to lean towards the GPU in terms of power dissipation.
This flexibility allows Intel to include higher performing parts in a system with very tight thermal envelopes than they would otherwise be able to. Much like we complimented Turbo Mode on Nehalem for bringing the best of both many-core and high-frequency parts, Dynamic Frequency attempts to do the same for the CPU/GPU combination.
Of course, the standard Turbo Mode for CPU clock speeds continues to operate as you would expect, increasing clock speeds when work loads are single threaded.
Audio and Video Features
Another feature that deserves a note here is the dramatically improved media features including native Blu-ray dual-stream support and lossless 7.1 channel audio output that could turn any notebook that integrates these features into a killer mobile HTPC.
New Mobility Parts and Roadmap
Lots of Processors
During the desktop article we saw six new desktop processors released; well for the mobility product lineup it's quite a bit larger. How about 11 processors?
Well that's a mess; lots of differentiation between these various SKUs here including the UM moniker that are ultra low power derivatives. For mainstream notebooks like the ones we are testing today we are focused on the 35w TDP parts like the Core i5-540M that can be found in typical 14-in and 15-in machines.
Mobility Chipset Changes
Similar to the new chipsets for the desktop side, the mobility platforms get a handful of new offerings as well.
The primary differences include things like remote PC assist and identity protection services as opposed to speed or feature improvements. Most consumer machines will likely use the HM55 chipset.
Along with the new processors and chipsets Intel is unveiling the latest updates to their wireless connectivity options including new N-capable WiFi radios and even WiMAX options.
The Competitors
For our initial testing of the new Arrandale processor we will be putting a few notebooks through the paces without really "reviewing" the notebooks themselves. This is because the first Arrandale machine we got from ASUS was an early engineering sample for platform qualification and as such is a little rough around the edges. Don't worry though, we'll be taking a look at the finished product very soon.
Our first Arrandale sample came in the form of an ASUS K42F-B1 which should retail for around $999. The features include:
- Intel Core i5-540M Arrandale processor
- HM55 chipset
- 4GB DDR3-1066 memory
- 500GB hard drive
- Blu-ray optical drive
- 802.11n WiFi
- 14-in screen 1366x668 resolution
The system was well put together and fits nicely in that sub-$1000 market that we all know is so incredibly popular.
For a direct comparison to the existing Core 2 platform that dominates the mobile landscape today we are going to be pitting the ASUS notebook against a new HP DV4 notebook.
This system includes a Core 2 P8700 processor that runs at 2.53 GHz along with the GM45 chipset and graphics all with 4GB of DDR3-1066 memory. All in all, these are very comparable machines.
Also included in our benchmarks you'll see results from an ASUS G51J system based on the original Core i7-720QM processor as well as a results from the desktop variant Core i5-661 processor reviewed today as well.
Synthetic CPU and Memory Tests
SiSoft Sandra 2009 SP4
The latest version of SiSoft Sandra offers up a lot of new features including GPU performance testing and Nehalem processor support.
The latest version of SiSoft Sandra offers up a lot of new features including GPU performance testing and Nehalem processor support.
Though these are just synthetic results, the Arrandale system clearly dominates the Core 2 Duo platform.
Render Tests
CineBench 10
This rendering benchmark based off of the Cinema 4D engine is a terrific indicator for multi-threaded processing.
The Core i5-540M performs very well in this rendering test and isn't far behind the Core i7 mobility offering.
POV-Ray 3.7 Beta
POV-Ray has long been the poster child for multi-threaded processing and rendering.
The HP DV4 can't hold up against the ASUS K42F machine here either.
Blender
Blender is a free open source 3D engine that is a popular choice amongst college students and small developers.
The deltas here aren't as big between our two primary competitors.
Media Encoding Tests
LAME 3.97a MT MP3 Encoder
This version of the LAME MP3 encoder is multi-threaded and takes advantage of two threads.
Because the LAME MP3 encoder is so heavily weighted for frequency, the Arrandale part is actually very competitive with the Core i7 part.
Windows Media Encoder x64
WME is a great video encoding application that supports WMV9 HD codecs and more.
The Arrandale processor outshines the Core P8700 once again.
VirtualDub
VirtualDub is a great application for just about any kind of video conversion but our testing we are using the DivX codec to shrink a collection of videos.
Ditto.
Handbrake
Known mainly for its DVD re-encoding prowess, our test uses the Handbrake command line interface.
Wow, this is a HUGE difference in notebook performance as the new Westmere part leaves the legacy CPU in the dust.
7-Zip Compression
I decided to replace the WinRAR test with a more repeatable and threaded application, 7-Zip.
The results in our 7-zip compression follow the same pattern we have seen all day...
Experimental Tests
Euler 3D Fluid Dynamics
This fluid dynamics simulation is very CPU and memory intensive. From the benchmark source website:
The benchmark testcase is the AGARD 445.6 aeroelastic test wing. The wing uses a NACA 65A004 airfoil section and has a panel aspect ratio of 1.65, a taper ratio of 0.66, and a 45 degree quarter-chord sweep angle. This AGARD wing was tested at the NASA Langley Research Center in the 16-foot Transonic Dynamics Tunnel and is a standard aeroelastic test case used for validation of unsteady, compressible CFD codes. Figure 1 shows the CFD predicted Mach contours for a freestream Mach number of 0.960.
The benchmark CFD grid contains 1.23 million tetrahedral elements and 223 thousand nodes. The benchmark executable advances the Mach 0.50 AGARD flow solution. Our benchmark score is reported as a CFD cycle frequency in Hertz.
Microsoft Image Composite Engine
This application takes any number of images and attempts to "stitch" them together to make a single panoramic image.
This results is rather odd but is likely due more to the caching and storage systems as opposed to anything on compute power...
Hyper PI (Super PI)
From Wikipedia: Super PI is a computer program that calculates pi to a specified number of digits after the decimal point - up to a maximum of 32 million. It uses Gauss-Legendre algorithm and is a Windows port of the program used by Yasumasa Kanada in 1995 to compute Pi to 232 digits.
The benefits of HyperThreading on this dual-core processor configuration are apparent here.
PCMark Vantage
PCMark Vantage
Futuremark's newest benchmark suite, PCMark Vantage, was released earlier this year we published an initial article on the new software that looked at some CPU performance as well as providing overviews for all the individual testing suites it uses and what kind of applications they emulate. The new Vantage software takes a much more real-world user-scenario approach to testing that previous PCMark software and as such deserves more time our benchmark analysis.
If you haven't yet done so, I would HIGHLY recommend you head over to my previous article that has a lot of detail on what these PCMark Vantage tests actually do. That will give you a better understanding of the results to aid in your potential purchasing decision.
The PCMark Vantage test measures all kinds of system performance metrics and the ASUS K42F does quite well!
Gaming Tests
3DMark06
A reliable and popular benchmark, 3DMark06 can provide a good insight into overall gaming performance of a system.
Obviously the G51J with its GTX 260M graphics card wins the bout here but the real key is to see how the new Arrandale graphics compares to the GPU on the GM45 chipset. In the SM3.0 tests the Intel HD Graphics solution is about 75% faster and with the SM2.0 results it is about 55% faster than the chipset-based graphics solutions in a lot of notebooks today.
Valve Source Particle Simulation
Valve released this particle simulation test a while back for benchmarking platforms and CPUs.
There is another big performance boost for the Core i5-540M CPU over the Core 2 P8700.
Valve Source Map Compilation
More of a developer test than gamer test, this benchmark is indicative of how long it takes a system to compile a map.
Again the Core i5-540M continues to impress!
Battery Life and Closing Thoughts
Our Battery Life Testing
Probably one of the most important selling points of a notebook of this type is the battery life in has in relation to its performance. For this review I wrote a custom script that we plan on reusing and expanding on for future articles that emulates a standard user during web browsing. The script automates opening FireFox along with a few tabs and going different sites including our own, YouTube and others. In the background a script keeps track of the time so that when we plug the dead notebook back in we can tell how long it has been on.
Our battery life tests were done on the Balance profile with modifications to prevent LCD dimming, sleep and hibernate modes, etc.
We plan on extrapolating on this style of tests into movie watching (both SD and HD), content creation and more to really have a custom, repeatable and reliable real-world battery test. In this instance the results from the ASUS K42F machine are great - not only did the system dramatically outperform the HP DV4 but the battery (both 4400 mWh) lasted about 30% longer.
Performance
While I wasn't overly impressed with the performance of Clarkdale relative to its competition that is not the case for Arrandale. In our direct comparison to a similarly priced system based around the P8700 Core 2 Duo mobile processor, the Core i5-540M utterly dominated our various benchmarks. Obviously part of the benefit is the fact that the Arrandale CPU has HyperThreading technology so it has twice as many threads that can be at work compared to the Core 2 P8700. Of course the Turbo Mode functionality also gives the Arrandale-based parts an edge by increasing clock speeds when the work load is single threaded.
And again, while it wasn't impressive on the desktop front, the new Intel HD Graphics is much more impressive when viewed in the world of the notebooks. Compared to the GM45 chipset graphics the new Intel HD Graphics that is integrated on the GPU is actually 50% faster based on our synthetic Futuremark testing in 3DMark06. While I still don't think you should be looking towards this graphics solution for any type of glorious gaming experience, at resolutions like 1366x768 the graphics solution will FEEL more competent.
Yes, the mobile Core i7 parts are going to be faster - as they should be. But at the cost of battery life, size, weight and more. For my buck, it looks like Arrandale could be the best mobile CPU for a while.
Features
While we only briefly mentioned it earlier, the addition of HD and Blu-ray video decode support on the HD Graphics does make for some interesting multimedia options. While audio and display solutions actually on the laptops might not take advantage of these features, the fact that you could hook up the HDMI output on your notebook to your home theater system and get top-notch video and audio support is outstanding.
Pricing and Availability
Though we did get a big price list of CPUs, that's not really what is important. In the world of notebooks, it all about system cost. According to ASUS the K42F series of notebooks will be available in January starting at $729 that will include the Core i3-350M, 4GB of DDR3 memory, 320GB hard drive and more. The configuration we tested here today should be available for about $999.
The ASUS K42F - with some of my hardware in the reflection
Also interestingly ASUS noted that another series, the K42JR-A1, will be available using almost the same chassis but will include a new Radeon mobility GPU. Users looking for that extra gaming power should be on the look out!
We will definitely know more about pricing of Arrandale-based notebooks as we get closer to CES this week!
Closing Thoughts
If you haven't read both of our Intel processor launch articles today, I can assure that while the Intel Core i5-661 Clarkdale part has its pros, I am definitely more impressed with the mobility offering. While the allure of lower power consumption and more technology consolidation on the desktop might sound great, in reality it isn't nearly as necessary as it is on the mobile front. When you can release a new mobile platform that not only increases performance by as much as 2.0x in some cases but also extend equivalent battery life by 30%, then you have made a dramatic stride in the right direction.
The notebook market is getting quite a shake up this winter with this release and the new Intel Atom architecture based on Pine Trail. But if you are concerned about performance at all and want a system that you can always get the most out of, Arrandale looks to be the CPU for you.
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