Hardware
Intel’s New Centrino Core2Duo Processors Show Dramatic Performance Difference
I’m lucky at the moment. I’ve got my hands on two new devices, the HP 2730p Elitebook Tablet PC and the Lenovo ThinkPad X301 Notebook. Both are running Intel’s latest Centrino Core2 Duo processors The Lenovo X301 is running a u9400 rated at 1.4GHz. The HP 2730p is running a L9400 rated at 1.86GHz.
I’ve got to say flat out that I’m impressed. Both of these devices qualify as screamers and excellent performers, in my opinion. Now let me qualify that by saying I am really early in evaluating both machines, and we all know that with Vista things tend to bog down as time goes on. That said, the performance of these two devices is simply amazing to behold.
While the ThinkPad X301 is running an SSD, the HP 2730p is running a HDD. Neither of which are running Intel’s newest SSD technology which is supposed to boost performance even more. To be honest, it makes me question whether or not the expense for the new SSD technology will be worth it for most users given how snappy these two machines run out of the box.
Both of these devices are intended as business devices and run Integrated graphics. The Lenovo reports a Windows Experience Index of 3.4 with the lowest score going to Graphics. Disk performance (remember this is a Samsung SSD) is reporting 5.9.
The HP 2730p reports a Windows Experience Index of 3.6, again the lowest common denominator being graphics. Not that the HDD score is 4.5. Keep this context in mind, specs mean certain things to me and I do pay attention to them, but how a machine operates in my work flow is much more important to me than specs and benchmarks. To my eye, I’m seeing very little significant difference between these two machines in the way I’m working with them right now. Your usage may be different though, and of course the difference between the two processors accounts for the other variables in the Windows Experience Index.
My bottom line is this, and again, this is very early in getting to know these two machines: Intel’s latest Centrino Core2Duo platform is a vast and significant improvement over what we had seen before. We certainly expected an advance here and we got one.This is such a step up to my eye, that I think that this advance is definitely worth considering upgrading your hardware.
