Core 2 Duo T
$423, http://www.intel.comCore Duo T
$423, http://www.intel.comhead 2 head Two Technologies enTer, one Technology leaves
features
This round
is like a one-legged man
at the ass-kicking contest.
The Core Duo is a good
CPU; in fact, it’s a great
processor. And the Core
2 Duo is like a Core Duo,
but better. Like its desktop
counterpart, the C2D can
crunch more math at once
thanks to its redesigned
core, can hit higher clock
speeds thanks to its slightly
longer pipeline, and it
features twice the cache.
The C2D also includes
SSE3 “enhancements,”
which speed up media
encoding. For now, the
Core 2 Duo is all over
the Core Duo in the
features department.
Winner: Core 2 Duoround^3 performanCeSome CPU skeptics
wondered if Intel was speaking the
truth when it claimed the Core 2’s
improved microarchitecture offered
20 percent more performance than
the original Core Duo’s. After all,
Core 2 has far more in common
with Core Duo than it did with the
pokey Pentium D CPU. Believe it or
not, Intel wasn’t fibbing. We’ve got
the full scoop on the performance
story on the next page, but it’s
obvious that clock-for-clock, the
Core 2 Duo is the better performer.
Winner: Core 2 Duoround^4
battery life
The desktop Core 2 Duo
processor wowed us, and it continues to do the
same in mobile trim. While we didn’t think Intel
could improve performance without impacting
battery life, our tests show that Intel’s Core 2
Duo does just that. It’s even built at the same
process size, and it doubles the transistor count.
That doesn’t make sense! Intel says the higher-
performance CPU is able to throttle up, perform
a task, and throttle back down so quickly that
it consumes less power because it isn’t running
at full speed for as much time as older CPUs.
Although the Core Duo offers slightly better
battery life, we’d take the single-digit run-time hit
for 20 percent more performance any day.
Winner: Core 2 Duoround^5
by GORDON maH unGjanuary 2007 MAXIMUMPC 17
mobile cpus at a glance
intel Core Duo t2600 intel Core 2 Duo t
CloCk speeD 2.16GHz 2.16GHz
l1 CaChe 64Kb 64Kb
l2 CaChe 2Mb shared 4Mb shared
exeCuTion Cores 2 2
proCess TeChnology 65nm 65nm
TransisTors 151.6 million 291 million
Die size 90.3^2 144.9^2
pri Ce (per 1,000) $423 $