my new computer

[rallynavvie]

With my new job it didn't make sense for me to build another desktop so I had to go out and get a good laptop. I picked up a Sony Vaio SZ120 with all the extras. Has an Intel Centrino Core Duo in keeping with my SMP-whore status. CPU-Z report below covers most of it:

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CPU-Z version 1.32.1
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CPUID Output
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Number of CPUs 2

CPU #1
APIC ID 0
Name Intel Core Duo T2400
Code name Yonah
Specification Genuine Intel(R) CPU T2400 @ 1.83GHz
Family/Model/Stepping 6E8
Extended Family/Model 0/0
Package mPGA-479M
Core Stepping C0
Technology 65nm
Instructions Sets MMX, SSE, SSE2, SSE3
Features NX, VT
Clock Speed 1000.0 MHz
Clock multiplier x6.0
Front Side Bus Frequency 166.7 MHz
Bus Speed 666.7 MHz
Stock frequency 1833 MHz
L1 Data Cache 32 KBytes, 8-way set associative, 64 Bytes line size
L1 Instruction Cache 32 KBytes, 8-way set associative, 64 Bytes line size
L2 Cache 2048 KBytes, 8-way set associative, 64 Bytes line size
L2 Latency 15
L2 Speed 1000.0 MHz (Full)
L2 Location On Chip
L2 ECC Check disabled
L2 Data Prefetch Logic yes
L2 Bus Width 256 bits

CPU #2
APIC ID 1
Name Intel Core Duo T2400
Code name Yonah
Specification Genuine Intel(R) CPU T2400 @ 1.83GHz
Family/Model/Stepping 6E8
Extended Family/Model 0/0
Package mPGA-479M
Core Stepping C0
Technology 65nm
Instructions Sets MMX, SSE, SSE2, SSE3
Features NX, VT
Clock Speed 1000.0 MHz
Clock multiplier x6.0
Front Side Bus Frequency 166.7 MHz
Bus Speed 666.7 MHz
Stock frequency 1833 MHz
L1 Data Cache 32 KBytes, 8-way set associative, 64 Bytes line size
L1 Instruction Cache 32 KBytes, 8-way set associative, 64 Bytes line size
L2 Cache 2048 KBytes, 8-way set associative, 64 Bytes line size
L2 Latency 15
L2 Speed 1000.0 MHz (Full)
L2 Location On Chip
L2 ECC Check disabled
L2 Data Prefetch Logic yes
L2 Bus Width 256 bits

Chipset
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Northbridge Intel i945GM rev. 03
Southbridge Intel 82801GHM (ICH7-M DH) rev. 02
Memory Type DDR2
Memory Size 1024 MBytes
Memory Frequency 266.7 MHz (5:8)
CAS# 4.0
RAS# to CAS# 4
RAS# Precharge 4
Cycle Time (tRAS) 12

In addition to all that hardware it has a dual video card. There is a switch near the screen that allows me to switch between the onboard Intel GMA950 or a GeForce 7400 PCI-E card with 128MB dedicated VRAM. Using the onboard video allows the battery to last longer when I don't need the other card's power. Also has fingerprint security, webcam, Bluetooth, A/B/G wireless, and only weighs 4 lbs. I'm liking it so far but I've gotta clean up all the garbage that comes on the Sony bundle and customize it to my liking. I'm disappointed it doesn't have onboard GbE, but the dock I have has the GbE NIC in it so I can move the TV I recorded on my HTPC while I'm away on work to my lapper when I get home.

Did the video benchmark in 52 seconds with the 1.83 GHz dual core 8)

[ROF]

um . . price?

[rallynavvie]

A heckuva lot cheaper than the dual Opteron Italy system I was going to build on a Tyan 2895. MSRP for it is around $2000 USD, I paid $1600 for mine. The only thing missing from mine and the $2500 version is the CDMA WWAN card for true mobile internet access, but I can just connect my EV-DO Sprint phone to my laptop via USB and get broadband speeds when in a PCS area or dial-up speeds when not.

I was pretty impressed with the speeds though, and it handles non-SMP applications a lot better than I thought it would. It actually runs BF2 at decent framerates even though the single 1.83 core is well below the minimum requirement for the game. I uninstalled it after I tested it though, I just wanted to see if it'd run.

[Cobra]

That's a damn nice machine - loving the 6x multiplier - the CPU must have loads of bandwidth to spare!

However...

https://forum.videohelp.com/viewtopic.php?p=1462088#1462088

52 seconds can't be right. That's what my single core AMD managed, and we all know that AMDs aren't meant to be as quick as Intel CPUs at video encoding, letalone dual-core Intel processors!

[rallynavvie]

Well I get different results from CPU-Z sometimes. The first time I launched it it showed the clock at about 1833 as opposed to this report's 1000. It also showed mem timings at 3-3-3-9 unlike the slightly slower ones above. I didn't keep CPU-Z open while running the test though so I don't know if the results were on the above clock scores or not. If it didn't scale up the processor for that 52 second result I'm a little afraid to see what it's like at full speed

[Cobra]

I wonder if there's a way to prevent it scaling for the purposes of this test. Although I think the CPU polls the load many times a second so it responds quickly.