We've already seen Intel's Sandy Bridge architecture offer compelling performance gains on the desktop. But can the fastest second-gen Core i7 beat Intel's 130 W desktop-oriented six-core Core i7-980X in games? We set up a couple systems to find out.
Industry analysts have predicted the demise of the desktop PC almost every year since notebooks first started shipping with color screens. But extra room for power and cooling continues to push desktop performance at least two steps ahead of notebook counterparts. That performance disparity keeps a slowly-shrinking enthusiast PC market alive, even as improved notebooks all but consume other segments.
Enthusiasts alone can’t sustain the large manufacturing infrastructure left over from the desktop’s heyday, and we watch in despair as component firms either die or change targets. As we continue pushing new blood into the desktop market's veins, Intel is driving nails into its coffin with an architecture that delivers very compelling speed on a power budget.

Enthusiasts could view the company's so-called “second-generation Core architecture” as a performance upgrade or a compatibility killer, but reduced power consumption appears to be the real reason behind a broad range of evolutionary changes beyond Intel's Nehalem-based CPUs. The architecture's vastly-improved HD Graphics 3000, for example, isn’t designed to thrill value-seekers as much as to encourage them not to use power-hungry discrete cards, with its related Quick Sync function disabled whenever another GPU is added. Desktop buyers even have to pay a premium to get the full feature set in the form of a K-series processor, while notebook customers can take it for granted, since all mobile Sandy Bridge chips include 12 execution units.

The result of Intel’s efficiency push is a notebook processor that, with its high IPC and GPU-related killer app, could push everyone but gamers towards its notebook portfolio. Yet, that same ultra-efficient design and power-friendly thermals may combine to create a notebook CPU that can take on Intel's best desktop rival in games. The Core i7-2920XM can ramp up to a super-high 3.50 GHz under load, thanks to a wide range of Turbo Boost multipliers.

Of course the i7-980X has six cores (rather than four) and a 100 MHz higher Turbo Boosted frequency. But those are just the complications needed to make this an interesting comparison.
- So, You Thought Notebooks Were Weak?
- Test Settings
- Benchmark Results: SiSoftware Sandra CPU
- Benchmark Results: Audio And Video Encoding
- Benchmark Results: Productivity
- Benchmark Results: 3DMark Vantage
- Benchmark Results: Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 2
- Benchmark Results: Crysis
- Benchmark Results: DiRT 2
- Benchmark Results: S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call Of Pripyat
- Power And Efficiency
- Conclusion
Since the 6970M is slower than a desktop 6850, what's the point in even mentioning desktops? Who would pair a $1000 i7-980X with $160 desktop graphics card for gaming?
SB mobile CPUs perform quite good and sometimes as fast as their desktop counterparts which is good because the first gen core "i" laptop CPUs(such as i7 720QM etc) didn't perform anywhere close as the desktop ones.
First of all, Sandy Bridge is not evolutionary. The pipelines were remade from the ground up, and it's (outside of the P4 family) the first real departure from the Pentium Pro. It borrows a lot from the Pentium Pro family, and the Pentium 4 family. It's not just an evolution of the Pentium Pro based Nehalem. It's probably closer to the Pentium 4 in more ways than not, at least at a low level (PRF, new version of trace cache, etc...).
Second, the desktop is not going anywhere, and sensationalizing won't change it. That's like saying I can get a small car with more horsepower than a big one, so all big ones will be obsolete, especially since the small use uses less power to do the same thing.
Desktops will remain not because of performance, which at any rate will always be superior (compare an i7 2600K overclocked to a mobile processor, which can not be overclocked as extensively), but because the form factor is superior situationally. Both will remain, because both are situationally superior. There have always, or almost always, been notebooks with superior performance to what the average desktop is using, but people buy desktops anyway.
There are inherent advantages that are inalienable in desktops. You can't have a huge screen with a notebook. The keyboard has less flexibility as well. They have less flexibility with upgrades.
On top of this, the idea of a larger, better cooled, more reliable unit that is not easily removed, and is less expensive is pretty popular with businesses in a lot of situations. It's also cheaper to work on desktops, and they are more reliable to boot.
Performance is just one advantage desktops have, and if there's a blip where they don't because of some bizarre marketing by a company (it could happen, it just hasn't yet), that wouldn't make desktops extinct. Notebooks become a lot slower than desktops wouldn't make them extinct either. Most businesses and people can be quite happy with the performance of virtually any computer made (with the possible situational exception of the Atom), but that's not why most people buy desktops.
Also, any student of computer history would tell you that the past was littered with laptops that were FASTER than desktops. How about the original Compaq compared to the PC? The PS/2 Model P70 used the same 20 MHz processor as the desktop models (granted, it came with an amber screen, but could just as easily be attached to a monitor).
So, I wouldn't worry too much about desktops going away. You're dead wrong on that issue, as has everyone else who's been predicting it for the past 20 years. And dead we will both be before there are no more desktop computers. Notebooks, on the other hand, might become extinct, or nearly so, but not anytime soon. Tablets could destroy them, and render them obsolete, if speech recognition software ever makes the keyboard a lot less useful. But, even then, there are situations where you can't talk to your computer (too much noise, or you'd be creating too much noise), so even then I think, at worst, notebooks will become less popular, but not completely extinct. Each form factor has pluses and minuses, and with so many people in the world, there will be plenty for each one.
Edited for bad language ...
/washes mouth out with soap !!
Since the title of your article is Mobile Gaming, and we know the bottleneck for gaming isn't the CPU...
There's not a single comment from anyone that mentions not knowing the i7-980X is available in notebooks. It's the inference from the title that mobile gaming performance is comparable to desktop gaming performance based on CPU comparison alone that doesn't sit well.
Hi TA,
Just in the interest of preventing misinformation, I wanted to jump in here and let you know this isn't the case. Sandy Bridge's processing cores are very much evolutionary versions of Nehalem (altered primarily with AVX and the ring bus in mind). Wiggle past Intel's marketing though, and I don't think you'll find anyone over there who would argue that.
Beyond that, it's all a matter of opinion. I only wanted to step in with regard to the technical aspect there.
Best,
Chris
...and then reality bites -- whoops.
I agree with this guy. The article mentions a slowly-shrinking enthusiast market as well. I think the reason for this is because the PC producers have convinced most of the broader market to buy into the disposable model a laptop offers.
What better way to boost sales year after year but to get people to buy into things you can't really make full-scale upgrades to? It's marketing genius. I think the enthusiast market is shrinking because people are buying in and accepting the mediocre performance in a similarly priced laptop and because there are fewer and fewer do-it yourselfers due to an increase in consumer laziness. Again, the PC producers like you to increase your reliance on them, because it just means more money in their pockets.
Sure I can upgrade my RAM or my disk on a laptop, but if I want to jump into the latest processor and architecture, I need to buy a new laptop altogether at $1000s (not just lay down the $3-500 for a motherboard and processor upgrade). In most cases, even if you just want to upgrade your video capability, you need to buy a new laptop.
Laptops are convenient and everyone needs at least one for various reasons, but if you need serious performance, comparatively, you won't find it in a laptop.
My 14 year old kills laptops like they are opponents on a rugby field.
He has 4 scalps so far ...
By comparison I have only had to replace his PSU and Graphics card on the desktop in his room over the same period of time (2 years).
I think apple and toshiba might offer him a job ... as a crash test dummy !!
Or you could build an i7 2600K/GTX 580 PC for under $1500 and then laugh really hard.
That being said, I'm amazed at how much gaming power these notebooks pack. The 2920XM/6970m only used 136W on full load. That's NUTS, considering it performs on par with desktops that would use 2-3 times as much power. Granted the CPU alone costs as much as a similar performing desktop($1,100), but it's still pretty amazing. I think the mobile market is where the real changes happen, at least when it comes to performance/watt.