The quad-core laptops are here . . . sort of
Summary: Back in August Dell, HP and Lenovo all announced mobile workstations that offer Intel's first quad-core chip for laptops. Those systems are now available for order and reviews of at least one model--the Lenovo ThinkPad W700--are giving a glimpse of the performance you can expect from these 17-inch powerhouses.
Back in August Dell, HP and Lenovo all announced mobile workstations that offer Intel's first quad-core chip for laptops. Those systems are now available for order and reviews of at least one model--the Lenovo ThinkPad W700--are giving a glimpse of the performance you can expect from these 17-inch powerhouses.
The ThinkPad W700 and Dell Precision M6400 are both available for order with the 2.53GHz Intel Core 2 Quad Extreme QX9300 (though it looks like you'll have to wait a few weeks for them to ship). HP announced that its EliteBook 8730w will also offer the Core 2 Quad Extreme processor, but the pre-configured models currently available top out at the 2.53 GHZ Core 2 Duo T9400, a dual-core chip.
The Core 2 Quad Extreme is a pricey part--Intel charges more than a $1,000 for the processor--and it will only help with multi-threaded applications, though many of the typical workstation applications (high-end image editing and video editing, and computer-aided design) fall into that category. But there are other high-end features on these workstations that boost performance across the board including lots of fast DDR3 memory (up to 16GB on the Precision M6400), Nvidia Quadro GPUs with up to 1GB of memory and dual hard drives (including SSD options) that can be configured in RAID 0 for best performance.
The 17-inch widescreen displays on these mobile workstations are also a step up. They are high-resolution, brighter and can display a much wider color gamut--more colors--than a typical laptop display. The ThinkPad W700 also comes with an integrated color calibration utility.
The obvious drawback to these mobile workstations is size and weight, or as Wired.com puts it, "Lenovo's Mega Notebook Crushes Benchmarks, Femurs." That's obviously an exaggeration, but at nearly 10 pounds these systems are really semi-portable--you can occasionally move them from one workspace to another, but you won't want to take one on the road regularly. Then again, these mobile workstations outperform many desktops and even the fastest gaming laptops such as the Alienware Area-51 m17x and Gateway P-7811FX.
Lenovo ThinkPad W700 reviews:
- ChannelWeb
- ComputerShopper.com (8.5 out of 10; Editors' Choice)
- LaptopMag.com (4 out of 5 stars)
- MaximumPC (9 out of 10)
- Wired.com (7 out of 10)
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Talkback
Oh yeh, I have one of these. It's ok.
We only need 1.6 processors
Software will change this
You do need more study on this issue ...
RE: The quad-core laptops are here . . . sort of
equals FASTER results. I can tell you that from my
computer with a single core, compared to my other two
with a dual core and quad core, respectively.
The speed goes from good to better to AWESOME! with the
more cores in the machine.
Your are quite nut!
Multi-core is useful for your web-servers.
Not for most of your laptop programs.
You don't use laptop for web services.
What a consultant wants
Why? Because we all want to run a Hypervisor and multiple VMs so we can do our jobs. Also on the leading edge, we want our own laptop OS to be portable from one system to another so we can stop the perpetual reinstall of all our apps every year or two that we upgrade our laptops.
If I could find my ideal laptop it would run Windows Server 2008 Core with the hypervisor and then have a Windows Vista client (my main work VM) and a Windows 2008 DC and probably a couple other Windows Servers so I could do my testing and my build docs and all the other things I would normally need to go to some desktop VMs for.
Are any of the hardware vendors listening? And where's AMD in all of this??? Personally I only buy systems with AMD's.
Ironically you may get the half the speed ...
I suggest you to consider main frames that give you real parallel processing with multiple channels and real parallel disk drives. This will solve your problems.
This is multi-core, so some of those issues are not there.
tasking. As per virtualization, this allows one to run
(depending on the number of cores, allocation per VM,
etc.) multiple virtual systems, each one with a certain
number of cores that it utilizes. This is similar to what
mainframes and midrange Unix boxes, as well as some
other mid range servers.
What he is getting at is that when you virtualize an
environment, it gets allocated a core (or 2 depending on
how it is provisioned). This allows true multitasking
(similar to a mainframe) and thus you can run multiple
hosts on a single machine, even using virtualized storage
and memory (among other aspects of the machine). For
blade servers, 1U and 2U servers, this means that you can
run more machines in less (physical) space.
When you do this on a laptop (as per what consultants do),
you can then virtualize environments that you are working
on, or virtualize multi host infrastructures, though with a
minor performance loss. This means that the consultant
can deliver in a more timely manner, as they can take their
environment/infrastructure or a similar one and work on it
or adapt it to multiple clients before implementing it for
the client.
RE: The quad-core laptops are here . . . sort of
Agreed!
Dual core is the equivalent of dual processor.
means:
Dual core means that you can actually run 2 processes
concurrently without swapping to RAM. Having 4 cores
(quad core) is the equivalent of having a 4 CPU system.
Having multiple cores means that you have symmetric
multiprocessing on a single chip wafer, plus faster
interconnects between the cores. Typically, this also
means that the CPU (physical) has more cache memory in
the chip to accommodate the processes (L1/L2/Ln caches).
Having 2 of these quad-core CPUs is the equivalent of
having up to 8 CPUs for a given system (See Dell 2950,
etc.). Even current Sun SPArc chips are multi-core, thus
allowing faster processing of data and offering true
multithreading.
This is only bringing that level of consolidation into a
laptop (granted, a heavy one) and gives people the option
(if using virtualization) to run multiple systems or
applications (not actually requiring virtualization) that can
run in their own threads of execution (look up the Mach
kernel or other multi-threaded systems).
I used to use tens of thousands of processing elements ...
I have been using two laptops with 1.6Ghz exact. Dual core a bit smooth on GUI rendering. But it us a bit slower data crunching operations. I think that's the cost for synch! Normally average people will expect twice faster! Turned out to a bit slower. They will ask questions!
For another spin....
processor, 1600 MHz FSB, 32GB RAM, 4x1 TB HDD) is
(rightly) known as a "personal supercomputer". Persistent
rumor has it that the next MacBook Pro refresh will offer
Core2Extreme quad-core processors in place of the
Core2Duo used now. A lot of us are quite curious to see
how they'll solve the thermal issues (MBPs are usually
pretty toasty sitting on your lap cross-country) and
battery-life issues. Mac folk are less price-sensitive than
Windows usees [i]provided that[/i] they see value/features
going up proportionally to the price, so this is more of a
battery technology/size/weight issue than anything else. I
expect to get 8 hours' battery life on a MBP at least two to
three years before I get 6 on my (existing or replacement)
Lenovo or Acer laptops. Which reminds me, I need to buy a
spare battery....
not neccesssarly