Question : Problem: Intel Core Solo ULV 1400/1500

Hi,
some manufacturers like Sony are now offering notebooks based on Intels new UltraLowVoltage cpu "Core Solo U1400 (1.20 Ghz)" resp. "Core Solo U1500 (1.33 Ghz)". Does anybody know how fast these two processors are compared to an "Intel Core 2 Duo T5600 (1.83 Ghz)"?
Unfortunately I can't find any benchmarks on the web yet.
Thanks.
Ingmar

Answer : Problem: Intel Core Solo ULV 1400/1500

Hello softwarea:

I just looked at the Intel Core Colo U1400 TDP numbers - 5.5 W ... wow!  Compared to the 65+ W of most desktop processors that's quite an achievement.  But that's pomegranates to oranges - notebook processors have been low power for a while, but 5.5 W is a good bit lower than previous minimums.

But that doesn't answer your question....a Core Solo has a single processor core, so it won't do as well in multi threaded environments where either a single multi-threaded application or multiple applications are running.  However, it will do just fine when only one application is running or most of the computing demand is due to a single application.  This is actually the case in most computers these days - few people do word processing, spreadsheets and photo processing at the same time, especially on a notebook.  The low power will get you a lot longer battery life and/or allow a smaller battery.

However, the ULV (ultra low voltage) units do have a slower FSB (front side bus) 533 MHz and access memory more slowly, so even in a single-threaded application they will be slower than a processor with a faster FSB (as the T5600 has a 667 MHz FSB).

If all else is equal, the lower power of the U1400-1500 series will give you a cooler, longer lived unit that will be a bit slower that the T5600 machine - how much I can't say, but I would guess somewhere in the 25-30% range, tops.  Since computers spend most of their time waiting for user input, doing nothing faster doesn't seem like a big return.  I would go for doing nothing more slowly longer.

wb