It already happened to you to take the train, watching a movie to pass the time and the three-quarters of it to see your laptop computer fall flat? It is a fact: only the most mobile machines (understand: the less powerful) are able to take a full film can still work after and rare are the ones we really recommend to our readers.Are things about to change? Certainly, the first laptop-based processor Arrandale to land in our test lab, the Asus K42F, equipped with a range of multimedia-oriented functions, does not entirely allowed us to finish a film in Blu - ray, but it is nevertheless a reference in terms of autonomy. We have indeed managed to watch the first 120 minutes of Transformers in Blu - ray before the exhausted the 63 W of its battery, and it is much more impressive to look at all of the 300 DVD film and 44% of remaining autonomy.
For comparison, last October, we had thrown a glance to the Intel Core i7-920XM, the first processor based on the Nehalem architecture to be intended for the market of desktop replacement (for obvious reasons, we skip the elephants at base of Bloomfield who had preceded him), and he was able to read that the first 44 minutes of 300. Hardly surprising when you know that the TDP was 55 watts and was coupled with a separate graphics card, but there is not less that its consumption was somewhat disappointing, and this, even if we notions a change in performance over the previous platform, the Montevina.
But you should know that Intel never had the intention to make the Clarksfield stars of its new mobile platform, the Calpella. More focus on performance than on self-government, these processors are indeed intended for the segment "Extreme", high-end according to Intel, often unaffordable (after all, the Core i7-920XM was launched at a price of $1054, and even a 720QM sells at $364 unit). Since our first tests of desktop replacement, we attentions therefore anxiously the arrival of the Arrandale processors designed to equip laptops of Mr whole world: portable classics, lightweight laptops and the ultraportables. Get a DVD with a troop, it can be said that this is not bad for a test run, bravo Asus. Now let's see what our small Arrandale 14 inches can be other…
A platform designed to dominate
Arrandale processors are mobile equivalents of Clarkdale, that we have already presented in detail in our article Intel Core i5-661: Clarkdale Rings The Death Knell Of Core 2 (in English). Like these, they are engraved in 32 nm and are in the process of manufacturing high-k / metal gate, reducing consumption to 35, 25, or 18 watts according to models. Most observers of you will notice that the TDP are identical to those of most of the Core 2 Duo (standard and medium voltage) current, yet etched in 45 nm. Where therefore improving?
The big difference lies in the fact that, as the Clarkdale, Arrandale processors are composed of two dies in a single package: engraved in 32 nm part includes the processor itself, a dual-core with Hyper Threading, while the second die, with the 45 nm, brings together the graphical circuit, the memory controller and the controller PCI Express (in practice)(it is therefore a northbridge integrated processor). The integration of all these features in the processor makes the use of the traditional unnecessary northbridge, which once again gives us a platform to two chips, as for the Lynnfield/P55 and Clarkdale/H55 and H57. Removing a chip (the GM45 of the Montevina Platform, which contained graphical circuit and the memory controller) Intel removes a component which consumed up to 12 watts. Therefore, even though the processor Arrandale, taken separately, does not really energy savings, the platform in its overall has the potential to do better than any other mobile platform current comparable, in terms of performance and autonomy.Next to these new processors, Intel is also launching a series of chipsets and wireless modules together under the Centrino brand.
Finally, we now fortunate to have in our laboratory of one of the first copies of Arrandale in circulation. We will make a small tour with the new laptop from Asus, the K42F, and compare it to a laptop HP as similar as possible configuration.
Comparisons with the App Store for Apple Mac are necessarily many presentations of the Store Windows by Microsoft. The firm of Redmond for example also insisted on the fact that its policy of validation would be less restrictive. Developers will have such access to the tools used by Microsoft services, allowing them to test themselves in advance if their application is likely to be rejected. For more transparency.
