The Intel Core™ 2 Duo Arrives on
the BTO Notebook Platform Scene
 

Full Core™ Improvement
 
The arrival of the Intel® Core™2 Duo Mobile processors, previously codenamed "Merom", completes Intel's revamping of their entire line of processors (Desktop, Server, Mobile) over to the Core™ micro-architecture, which we covered in the September ASI Technical Newsletter. The first "Core™" mobile processor debuted in Q1 2006 in the form of the Core™ Duo mobile processor, but the Core™ 2 Duo mobile family adds several new features to enhance performance and reduce overall power consumption. While the original Core™ Duo ("Yonah") processor has some of the major features of the  Core™ micro-architecture, the Core™ 2 Duo processor family is greatly improved and now fully implements the entire Core™ micro-architecture feature set. Besides these additional Core™ micro features, the Core™ 2 Duo mobile processor gets a face-lift with 64-bit OS support (EM64T) as well as a larger 4MB shared L2 Cache for some models. The Core™ 2 Duo mobile processors are architecturally identical to the desktop Core™ 2 Duo's ("Conroe"), but get the addition of more aggressive power management technologies. Merom utilizes higher clock multipliers than Yonah and consumes a bit more power to operate, but with its aggressive power management improvements, the overall battery-life is just about as good as Yonah, but with far greater performance being realized.
  
Intel Core™ Microarchitecture with Additional Mobile Technologies
 
We covered the new Intel Core™ micro-architecture extensively in our September ASI Technical Newsletter article and is online Here if you need a quick refresher on the main features of Core™. The Core™ 2 Duo mobile processors differ from the desktop Core™ 2 Duo's (Conroe) with regards to following specialized mobile technologies and are tuned for power savings.

Intel® Core™ 2 Duo mobile processors include these advanced innovations:

• Intel® Dynamic Power Coordination - Coordinates Enhanced Intel SpeedStep® Technology and idle power-management state (C-states) transitions independently per core to help save power.
   

• Intel® Dynamic Bus Parking - Enables platform power savings and improved battery life by allowing the chipset to power down with the processor in low-frequency mode.
    

• Enhanced Intel® Deeper Sleep with Dynamic Cache Sizing - Saves power by flushing cache data to system memory during periods of inactivity to lower CPU voltage.
   

• Advanced Power Gating - Allows parts of the CPU core to be shut down even during periods of high performance execution to optimize performance per watt.
   

• Enhanced Deep C4 Sleep State - Extends power-saving capabilities by further reducing processor core voltage when the L2 cache is off.
   

• Split Bus Array - Many buses and arrays are split so data required in some modes of operation can be put in a low-power state when not needed for improved power savings.
   

Core™2 Duo Mobile processors (T7000 & T5000 Families)
 
The Core™ 2 Duo Mobile processor family consists of five processors currently: the T7600, T7400, T7200, T5600, and T5500. They run at clock speeds from 2.33 GHz all the way down to 1.66 GHz. The T5600 and T5500 are equipped with a 2MB L2 cache and the T7x00 models  have a 4MB L2 cache. All five of these new mobile processors use Intel's 65 nm manufacturing technology packing 291M transistors into a die size of approximately 143mm². Like the previous Core™ Duo, the Core™ 2 Duo processors utilize a 667 MHz front-side bus, and support DDR2-667 SODIMM memory. These Core™ 2 Duo processors voltage draw ranges from 1.0375V to 1.3V, are rated at 34W thermal design power (TDP), have a thermal specification of 100°C, and use the standard mPGA 479-pin socket (Socket M) found in all current "Napa" (945GM/PM) BTO notebooks.

ASI SKU	Processor Number	Clock Speed	Cache Size L2	Front Side Bus	Dual Core	Intel® VT	Enhanced Intel SpeedStep® Technology	Intel® EM64T	Execute Disable Bit	sSpec#
51677	T7600	2.33 GHz	4MB	667 MHz						SL9SJ
51678	T7400	2.16 GHz	4MB	667 MHz						SL9SK
51679	T7200	2.00 GHz	4MB	667 MHz						SL9SL
51680	T5600	1.83 GHz	2MB	667 MHz						SL9SP
51681	T5500	1.66 GHz	2MB	667 MHz						SL9SQ

 
Performance Comparison -  Core 2™ Duo  vs.  Core™ Duo  BTO Notebooks:
 
In Intel speak "the new Intel^® Centrino^® Duo mobile technology with the Intel^® Core™2 Duo mobile processor gives you greater than 2x the overall performance when multitasking on gaming and graphics applications compared to previous generation Centrino^®-based BTO notebooks." From what we've gathered and read, the
Core™2 Duo knocks the socks off Core™ Duo based notebooks in most real-world benchmark tests. In the benchmark testing from Intel and others, the Core™ 2 Duo mobile processor proved to show performance advantages anywhere from ~7% to as much as almost 50% in certain applications when compared to the prior generation Core™ Duo.  This increase in performance was achieved with about the same power consumption characteristics as the Core™ Duo mobile architecture.

If we look at some real-world benchmark testing results we find that in terms of raw CPU throughput, PCMark 05's CPU test module shows a 14% advantage for Core™ 2 Duo over Core™ Duo. PCMark 05's Memory subsystem test shows roughly a 35% advantage for the Core™ 2 Duo T7600 processor versus the fastest Core™ Duo chip on the market. This is most likely attributed to the additional 2MB of L2 cache, and the more advanced pre-fetch algorithms that Intel calls 'Smart Memory Access.' In the 3DMark '05 test, the CPU performance gains come in at 48%, and realizes a 50% gain over Core™ Duo in the well-regarded SPEC CPU2000 test.

More official Intel Core™ 2 Duo performance test results can be found Here.

 
Notebook Shell Support for Core™2 Duo Mobile processors

Currently the Core™ 2 Duo processor is pin-to-pin compatible with the existing Socket M (479-pin) 945GM / 945PM "Napa" platform notebooks currently being sold by ASI. Of course you will have to update the notebook BIOS to a version that will properly recognize the Core™ 2 Duo processors. The lone shell exceptions are the older ASUS Z62F and VBI S62J/F models, which don't have the necessary voltage (VRM) circuitry to support the Core™ 2 Duo processors. All of these BTO notebook shells will have updated versions to support the Core™ 2 Duo processors => Z62Jm, S62Jm and S62Fm respectively.

To obtain the correct BIOS versions to support the Core™ 2 Duo processors on the ASI sold BTO NB shells go Here.