MaximumPC 2006 01

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JANUARY 2006 MA XIMUMPC 29

BEST HIGH-END SINGLE-CORE CPU

The last ride of the single-core might as well be a fast one. We took AMD’s FX-57 for a drag race alongside Intel’s
3.73GHz Pentium 4 Extreme Edition

To test the single-core CPUs, we used the

winning components from our chipset show-

downs, with the AMD FX-57 ($1,000, http://www.

amd.com) and the 3.73GHz P4 EE ($1,000,

http://www.intel.com) running on their respective

variants of the nForce4 SLI X16 chipset.

We added the SYSmark2004 bench-

mark to our CPU runs in addition to the

full suite of tests. Unlike the midrange

dual-core showdown that saw the Athlon

X2 kick the Pentium D’s ass up and down

the benchmark school

yard, the 3.73GHz

Pentium 4 managed to

eek out some signifi cant

wins. In SYSmark2004,

the P4 took the top honors

with an overall score of

221, besting even the dual-

core X2, the runner up.

The good news stopped

there though, as the FX-

57’s fearsome reputation

for gaming gave it the easy

win in all our game-ori-

ented tests. The P4 is just

slower than the FX-57 in

gaming.

SYSmark2004 is an

important benchmark, but

we have to admit that it isn’t

as important as gaming per-

formance. We’d rather wait an extra three-

tenths of a second for our Microsoft Word

mail merge to fi nish than take a 10 percent

ATHLON 64 FX-57 hit in gaming. The FX-57 is the winner.

BEST MOBILE CPU

Battle of the little brothers: The Athlon 64 FX has kicked Pentium 4 ass

since day one, but can its little brother, the Turion 64, do the same

against the P4’s young sibling, the Pentium M? We match twin Fujitsu

notebooks equipped with each processor to determine the winner

THE TESTS

Benchmarking notebook CPUs ain’t

like dusting crops, boy. Sure, you can

test the CPUs in desktop motherboards,

but that doesn’t tell you how they per-

form in the field.

To get the most accurate results, we

turned to Fujitsu’s Lifebook S2110, which

uses the AMD Turion 64 MT-28 ($145, http://www.

amd.com) and Lifebook S6240, using the Intel

Pentium M 740 ($270, http://www.intel.com). These

twin notebooks sport the same display, opti-

cal drive, battery, power brick, and even the

same track pad. The main differences are

CPU, motherboard, associated system-level

chips, and RAM types (DDR for the Turion

and DDR2 for the Pentium M).

The CPUs run different clock speeds

and cache sizes. The higher-clocked

Pentium M rings in at

1.73GHz, which is about

8 percent higher than

the T64’s 1.6GHz. The

latter sports just 512KB

of L2 cache, while the

Pentium M is equipped

with 2MB of L2.

Naturally, we chose

CPU-bound benchmarks

for this contest, as we’re

more interested in raw CPU

performance than overall

system numbers.

THE RESULTS

We thought this would

be all about the Turion,

but even accounting for the 8 percent

clock speed advantage, the Pentium

M 740 is clearly

the winner. In the

PCMark 2005 CPU

test, the Pentium is

29 percent faster.

In PCMark’s RAM

test, it’s 19 percent

faster. The Turion/ATI

graphics combo

actually edges the

Pentium M/Intel

graphics in the over-

all PCMark score, but

that’s more the result of

ATI’s superior graphics

performance over Intel’s

integrated hardware.

In our Premiere Pro

test the Pentium M held a

commanding 36 percent

lead. Only in Photoshop

CS did the T64 fi nd some

small redemption with a

3 percent lead.

In the fi nal test using BAPCo’s

MobileMark 2005, which tests how fast

a processor runs real-world apps on the

battery, the Pentium M won the perfor-

mance category by 34 percent, while fi n-

ishing with 9 percent longer battery life.

THE BOTTOM LINE

The Pentium M offers better performance

and longer battery life. The T64, however,

clearly leads in price. Despite sporting the

exact same confi guration, the Pentium M-

based Lifebook cost about $150 more.

SILVER SURFER

Better battery life and more

performance than the new

Turion 64.

PENTIUM M

COUCH SURFER

Where’s the 64-bit support,

Intel?

The 3.73GHz Pentium 4 EE (left) and Athlon 64 FX-

might be the last of their kind, but at least they’re fast!

The new Turion 64 (right) is a mobile derivative of the

K8 core and has been hyped as a Pentium M killer.

Best scores are bolded.

BENCHMARKS

AMD TURION 64 MT-28 INTEL PENTIUM M 740

MOBILEMARK 2005 BATTERY LIFE 209 minutes 227 minutes

MOBILEMARK 2005 PERFORMANCE 137 184

PCMARK 2005 OVERALL 1,685 1,

PCMARK 2005 CPU 2,166 2,

PHOTOSHOP CS (SEC) 571 587

PREMIERE PRO (SEC) 1,090 800