Zacate vs Turion X2 Neo

[cebalrai]

I have the following HP laptop:

Turion X2 Neo 1.6 Ghz
4 GB ram
Radeon HD 4330 (the kind with 256 mb of DDR2)

It runs older games such as Civ IV and Guild Wars great. It does get hot to the touch and battery life has never been great. It's in a 13" ultraportable form and overall a nice little laptop.

How would this machine compare to a dual-core Zacate? I'm sure battery life and heat would be better in the Zacate but what about performance? Would it be worth the upgrade?

 

[Vette73]

It be close, but the video be a tose up. Zacate is single channel performance so the video is newwer but starved by the memory and cpu.

I would get a low power Llano system if you want to do gaming but get better battery life and not give up any performance.

 

[cebalrai]

It be close, but the video be a tose up. Zacate is single channel performance so the video is newwer but starved by the memory and cpu.

I would get a low power Llano system if you want to do gaming but get better battery life and not give up any performance.

Are they ever going to go on sale? :\

 

[ET]

They should start selling this month. HP has promised some Llano laptops on the 27th (see here), but I guess most laptops will show up next month, so there will be some choice and hopefully also some reviews.

I agree, if you're not looking for ultra-portable, don't go for the E-350.

 

[Tuna-Fish]

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/328?vs=116 is the closest thing I could find. Not sure if the chip there is that comparable to what you have, but I do think it's clear that zacate is a step down.

Llano might be a better fit?

 

[cebalrai]

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/328?vs=116 is the closest thing I could find. Not sure if the chip there is that comparable to what you have, but I do think it's clear that zacate is a step down.

Llano might be a better fit?

You're saying that Zacate is a step down from the Turion X2 Neo? With both at 1.6ghz?

 

[Vette73]

You're saying that Zacate is a step down from the Turion X2 Neo? With both at 1.6ghz?

Zacate competes with Atom and has single channel memory. So in terms or raw performance yes its a step down.
In terms of power and battery life its a step up.


Llano will be a step up in terms of performance and battery life.

 

[CTho9305]

You're saying that Zacate is a step down from the Turion X2 Neo? With both at 1.6ghz?

Clock for clock, Zacate should be a little bit slower than the Turion X2 Neo. The Bobcat architecture (Zacate has 2 Bobcat cores) is 2-wide, while the K8 architecture is 3-wide. The more advanced features of Bobcat (plus the possibly-higher DDR speeds, possibly offset by the single memory channel) mean it's not as much slower as one might expect a 2-wide design to be, but the net result is that on average, K8 should have somewhat higher IPC (i.e. do more work per cycle). Combining that with the fact that you currently have a discrete GPU which has its own memory, your current system should generally be a little faster than a Zacate-based system. Now, you're carrying a LOT more weight and getting awful battery life right now, so it may be a good tradeoff, but if you need more performance, Zacate probably isn't the right choice.

This post is just my personal opinion.

 

[Blitzvogel]

Yup, I'd wait for 2 core Llano (they can have either 160 or 240 SPs) if you're really looking for a good boost in performance and a huge boost in battery life.

 

[LOL_Wut_Axel]

Clock for clock, Zacate should be a little bit slower than the Turion X2 Neo. The Bobcat architecture (Zacate has 2 Bobcat cores) is 2-wide, while the K8 architecture is 3-wide. The more advanced features of Bobcat (plus the possibly-higher DDR speeds, possibly offset by the single memory channel) mean it's not as much slower as one might expect a 2-wide design to be, but the net result is that on average, K8 should have somewhat higher IPC (i.e. do more work per cycle). Combining that with the fact that you currently have a discrete GPU which has its own memory, your current system should generally be a little faster than a Zacate-based system. Now, you're carrying a LOT more weight and getting awful battery life right now, so it may be a good tradeoff, but if you need more performance, Zacate probably isn't the right choice.

This post is just my personal opinion.

There's really not much point in Brazos now, I'm afraid. The A4 laptops should come in 12-14" chassis and should be around $450-499. At that price point, why would you even settle for something like an HP dm1z? The X120e still makes a lot of sense, though, since it's the only ultra-portable under $500 that has excellent build quality.

 

[hans007]

There's really not much point in Brazos now, I'm afraid. The A4 laptops should come in 12-14" chassis and should be around $450-499. At that price point, why would you even settle for something like an HP dm1z? The X120e still makes a lot of sense, though, since it's the only ultra-portable under $500 that has excellent build quality.

id on't think we'll be seeing the A4 in the 12" laptops until after the new die comes out.

the core salavage launch A4s still put out too much heat for a 12" laptop.

 

[LOL_Wut_Axel]

id on't think we'll be seeing the A4 in the 12" laptops until after the new die comes out.

the core salavage launch A4s still put out too much heat for a 12" laptop.

Llano is too hot for 12" laptops? LOL.

It consumes around 7-10W for the whole system when idle. On full system load (for the whole laptop), it consumes around 40W. That's extremely easy for a 12" chassis to handle. Even then, this is talking about the A8, which will obviously consume more power than the A4 due to two more active cores and 140 more SPs.

With the A4 full system load should be around 35W. Again, nothing a 12" laptop can't handle. We've seen plenty of them with ULV CPUs + low-end discrete GPUs in the past, and those have a similar power footprint.

 

[Tuna-Fish]

When you got proper power gating, salvaging doesn't cost you all that much heat. AMD didn't have it before, so their salvaged chips were all guzzlers. Now this shouldn't be an issue.

 

[mrcmtl]

CPU and GPU performance will be close, but you might feel the difference in I/O performance as the Hudson-M1 is quite bad in terms of I/O.