Intel's 2010 'Arrandale' Laptop CPUs

PC World - Intel has unveiled 11 new mobile processors for 2010 -- five Core i7s, four Core i5s, and two Core i3s. The chief difference between these processors and their predecessors is the brand new architecture, which couples the 32nm processor and a 45nm integrated graphics controller onto a single chip.

To see how the new chips stack up, we tested a pre-production notebook provided by Asus, the K42F. It carries the 2.53 GHz Core i5-540M processor, and sports a 14-inch display with a resolution of 1366-by-768. The unit also contained 4GB of DDR3-1066 RAM, a 500GB hard drive, and Windows 7 Ultimate (64-bit).

For comparison, we also looked at the Samsung NP-Q320, which offers similar stats: 13.4-inch screen, a 2.53 GHz Core 2 Duo P8700, 4GB of RAM, a 320GB hard drive, Windows Vista Home Premium (64 bit), and the nVidia GeForce G105M discrete graphics card with 256MB of RAM. While it's important to keep in mind that the Asus K42F is a pre-production model and results are subject to change, it performed amicably, scoring a 105 in the WorldBench 6 test suite. The Samsung scored a 96.

The Arrandale line's strengths lie in features borrowed from the 45nm Nehalem architecture -- namely Hyper-threading, and Turbo Boost technology. Hyper threading doubles the number of processor threads per CPU core, offering increased multi-tasking performance without the added power drain of a quad-core processor.

Intel's Turbo Boost technology provides a kind of automated overclocking, pushing the i5-540M from 2.53GHz up to 3.06GHz when applications call for a bit more power. The processor will also dial down performance and power consumption when it isn't required, which will be crucial for media-hungry consumers looking for a portable, energy efficient machine.

Energy efficiency and portability are important, but Intel's chief aim is optimizing media playback, specifically of high definition content. With Flash 10.1 offering GPU accelerated streaming, stronger GPU performance is going to be essential for portable machines hoping to tackle web media or Blu-Ray playback. The K42F handled both tasks well, though the battery died around the 2 hour mark of our Planet Earth Blu-ray marathon. Battery performance on standard definition DVDs fared better.

By bundling the GPU and CPU onto a single chip, manufacturers using Intel's new line will be able to work with smaller motherboards. This will in turn lead to smaller, thinner machines. While we've seen nettops like the Acer Aspire Revo R3610 tackle HD streaming with aplomb care of nVidia's Ion platform, Atom-based machines have typically failed to deliver when it comes to performance. (Netbooks with Intel's upcoming upcoming 'Pineview' Atom processors, such as the N450, will use an optional Broadcom Crystal HD video accelerator chip to handle HD video playback).