Intel’s Mobile Core i5 And Core i3: Arrandale Is For The Rest Of Us

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Benchmark Results: Media/Transcoding Apps

It isn’t hard to imagine using a notebook for converting your favorite CDs to iTunes-compatible .aac files. The Core i5-540M benefits from Turbo Boost technology in this single-threaded title, shaving 10 seconds off of the task.

Solid utilization of Hyper-Threading and an on-package memory controller gives the Mobile Core i5 a notable lead versus Intel's Core 2 Duo architecture in MainConcept. When you consider the fairly similar platform power consumption figures between these two machines, such a performance advantage is fairly incredible.

The same optimizations that make MainConcept a quicker application to run on Arrandale-based systems also affect the freely-available HandBrake title. Here, we see our The Last Samurai transcode drop from 20 minutes to roughly 13 minutes by virtue of the architectural changes made to Intel's latest-generation mobile platform.

Hyper-Threading helps accelerate our DivX transcode, but a less aggressive form of Turbo Boost technology doesn't really help the speed of our unoptimized Xvid batch job.

Chris Angelini
Chris Angelini
Chris Angelini is an Editor Emeritus at Tom's Hardware US. He edits hardware reviews and covers high-profile CPU and GPU launches.
20 Comments Comment from the forums
  • burnley14
    Well played, Intel. You've been knocking it out of the park lately, keep up the good work.
    Reply
  • I'm looking forward to getting an HP laptop with the Arrandale Core i5 processor in the near future.
    Reply
  • It's going to be interesting to see the performance/battery time of the LM and UM processors as I'm in the market for a thin-and-light myself.

    Performance is good but I'm hoping for a viable update to the CULV offerings of yesterday.
    Reply
  • Computer_Lots
    Looks like there are finally some replacements for the Atom, at least in efficiency anyway. Too bad the price is currently too high for the UM versions of these processors to make their way into netbooks. I would guess that even the i5-520UM would destroy the Atom in every benchmark, except maybe power consumption.
    Reply
  • HansVonOhain
    C2D was one of the longest living platforms. But newer tech will replace slower processors.

    Keep it up intel. I do hope that AMD will release some new chips that will be able to compete with intel offerings.
    Reply
  • jasperjones
    ^^^ true that. arrandale will further diminish AMD's role in the mobile processor market. and there's nothing coming up before may.
    Reply
  • Luscious
    Chris, the dv4 series from HP has a 12-cell extended battery available as well rated for 94Wh 2.2A. Once HP makes the transition to Arrandale, all else being same, you can expect the dv4 to hit 8-10 hours easy.
    Reply
  • cangelini
    Thanks for the tip Lucious. I didn't have the higher-capacity battery available to test, but I'd absolutely love to see 8-10 hrs. real-world from an Arrandale-based machine.
    Reply
  • Reynod
    Good bye NVidia ...

    That chops them completely out of the mobile graphics market for the masses ... Intel will pay the RIGHT OEM's some "adjustment" just to make sure their "Strategy" is right to ensure AMD's mobile market is thin and restricted to the backwaters of Bejjing.

    Reply
  • spydercanopus
    Wish you would have compared it to Intel Extreme Graphics 2 or something.
    Reply