Core Duo versus Core 2 Duo

[SunnyD]

Well, I have a mini-mini-non-technical review of the Core 2 Duo's now... since I finally received a unit. Please take this with a grain of salt, since this is a laptop, and this is thoroughly NON-technical and not benchmarked in any synthetic way.

I have the pleasure of working in corporate desktop support for the company I work at, and I handle most all CIT Asset purchases as well. This puts me in a unique position, where if something new comes out, well - I'm the first here to play with it. I <3 my job...

With that said, back in may the new Dell Latitude D820's came out, and mine was one of the first three ordered. Spec'd with 2GB DDR667, NVIDIA Quadro NVS120M, WUSXGA+ screen, and the all important Core Duo T2500 2.0GHz CPU. Great machine, even when it came to battery life - 3+ hours for a desktop replacement ain't half bad. Performance was good, especially since I had a habit of gaming on it. Sure, it can't drive ANYTHING reasonably fullscreen at 1920x1200, but I don't mind playing in a window at 1440x900 for most games.

Well, this week I migrated myself to a new D820, the first one we got in with a Core 2 Duo T7200. All other specs are the same.

Honestly, there's not much real-world difference. I'm sure synthetic benchmarks would make one's jaw drop (IF you're into such things). But I'm not. All in all, it seems to be about the same, if not a tad slower. I was seeing some issues with video performance in EQ2 that I hadn't seen before, but that may be because I didn't do a proper install of EQ2. TCE runs the same. Dunno, it's probably just me.

I know, that was rather anti-climactic, but it's the truth (as I see it).

 

[myocardia]

Yeah, there really shouldn't be much difference, performance-wise, for those two processors. They're similar in clock, and similar in architecture. I've heard, though, that although the C2D's are slightly faster, they also have a better battery life. That would be what would make the difference to me, since they're laptops.

 

[n7]

Not surprising.

Core 2 Duo is pretty crippled on the notebook side of things.

That & i don't see much normal performance difference even between my Opty @ 2.6 GHz vs. my C2D @ 3.4 GHz.
But for encoding & benching...

 

[SunnyD]

Originally posted by: myocardia
Yeah, there really shouldn't be much difference, performance-wise, for those two processors. They're similar in clock, and similar in architecture. I've heard, though, that although the C2D's are slightly faster, they also have a better battery life. That would be what would make the difference to me, since they're laptops.

Yup, and this is the only thing I honestly have not had the opportunity to test completely. But again, judging from estimates, it looks like I'm still going to get about 3:30 out of my laptop.

 

[myocardia]

Originally posted by: SunnyD
Yup, and this is the only thing I honestly have not had the opportunity to test completely. But again, judging from estimates, it looks like I'm still going to get about 3:30 out of my laptop.

Well, I don't have one, but all of the reviewers are saying so. As a matter of fact, Intel was supposed to have spent quite a bit of time/money getting the C2D's battery life to where it is now, from what I've read.