Intel Core 2 Extreme Mobile X9000, Mobile Penryn Speed
Performance Summary and The Final Word
Performance Summary: As we've noted in our benchmark tests, the Core 2 Extreme Mobile X9000 proved itself to be as fast as its desktop counterparts in many scenarios, all the while consuming less power as a complete system in our Dell XPS M730 notebook testbed. The new Intel mobile CPU offered its best showing under usage models like Cinebench 10, that took advantage of higher levels of multithreading, where cache coherency becomes more critical and larger amounts of L2 at the processor's disposal can pay off handsomely.
As we discussed in the opening remarks of this article, whether your pleased with the level of innovation offered in some of the latest mobile computing and notebook architectures or not, at least Intel is expending resources in an effort to continually refresh their entire Core 2 lineup in 45nm process technology, from workstation and performance-minded quad cores, to volt-sipping dual-cores for notebooks. Now that we have some very solid 45nm CPUs at the ready, Intel's offering is ripe for a platform and chipset refresh as well, though unfortunately we'll have to wait a couple more months for Centrino 2, aka Montevina to hit, with a marketing launch expected in July and product rumored to be around the corner shortly after in August.
On the other side of the fence, AMD's Puma platform, with the promise of its powerful IGP may certainly be poised to "pounce" on the mainstream notebook segment any day now. But after being announced over a year ago in May of '07, all of the talk, with only a hint of upcoming notebooks at this year's Computex leaves us speculating that it all just might be too little too late for AMD yet again. We'll just have to wait and see. In the mean time, you can find the new Core 2 Extreme Mobile X9000 in new products from Lenovo, HP, Dell and many others. For now we'll take a queue from Cuba Gooding -- show us the money Intel and AMD. We're also thirsty for new platform architectures to exploit all this CPU power.
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