We put two of the toughest chip makers up against each other to see which has the biggest heart for notebooks.
Intel Chipsets
There are three main Intel chipsets that are components of its Centrino technology, the 915PM, 915GM, and 915GMS. The 915GM and the 915GMS both have integrated graphics processors which also share system memory, the 915PM has a third-party graphics accelerator. The integrated graphics processor has a hardware Pixel Shader but emulates the Vertex Shader in the notebook's CPU.
The 915GM and 915GMS are generally targeted at slim, lightweight, power-frugal laptops. They run 400MHz front side bus (FSB), whereas the 915PM runs a 533MHz FSB. All three Intel chipsets support DDR2 memory, which gives both a performance and power saving advantage over DDR memory, and 915PM and 915GM also support dual channel.
ATI Chipset
One notebook, the MSI MEGABOOK S270, came equipped with an AMD Sempron Mobile 3000+ and featured the ATI Radeon Xpress 200M chipset -- ATI's mobile chipset for AMD notebooks.
SiS Chipset
The second of the AMD-based notebooks, the Asus A6000, came equipped with a Turion ML-40 and featured a mobile derivative of the SIS 755FX called the M760GX.
The chipset supports DDR memory and has a HyperTransport compliant bus driver technology to support AMD mobile Athlon 64 processors with up to 1600MT/s data rates. The integrated Mirage 2 graphics engine has a 256-bit 3D pipeline but its Pixel Shader is only compliant to Direct3D 8.1. The A6000 did include a third-party graphics solution in the form of an nVidia GeForce Go 6200.
Power Saving
Power saving features on both Intel and AMD chips may appear similar but differ in the degrees to which they have been implemented. The Intel Pentium M chips support six distinct speed and voltage combinations, using its enhanced SpeedStep technology.
The AMD Turion chips use the similar stepping of processor speed and voltages, but this is carried out in finer 100MHz increments/decrements; this should allow more flexibility to balance load and power consumption demands for the AMD processor.
Thermal Issues
We decided to measure the temperature of the hot spots under the base of the notebook, and also the temperature of the air issuing from the fan/heat-exchanger. We were surprised at how hot some of the notebooks became on a hard surface like a laminex bench top. The highest temperature measured was 45.6°C -- not far from scolding hot.
Intel vs AMD
To be blunt, sourcing high-performance AMD-based notebooks for this test was less difficult than extracting teeth from a fully grown chicken -- but only just. After much chasing, only two vendors submitted an AMD-powered product -- MSI and Asus. Interestingly, both vendors had their Intel-powered notebooks at the Lab with no chasing needed.
We should point out that the rarity of AMD product is not the fault of AMD, rather vendors, in Australia at least, do not seem to stock adequate quantities of high-performance AMD-equipped notebooks. Acer, for example, has a humdinger of a notebook the Acer Ferrari 3400 that is equipped with a mobile Athlon 64 but the company was unable to ship a single unit to the lab during the entire month of May.
hmm lets see he said.......If you simply need a powerful notebook without too many bells and whistles, such as widescreen display, and more importantly you want to minimise the damage to your credit card then definitely look at the Acer TravelMate 4150 priced at just AU$2299. I believe this is a ridiculous price and I think this article does not do justice considering what has been reviewed. This guy is an intel spokesman!