Now that both Intel and AMD ship fully 64-bit dual-core laptop CPU offerings, it is interesting to compare their performance and battery life - especially since both claim to have kept or even extended their battery run times.

I tested the battery life under several scenarios:

I turned on the notebook PC, and let it run idle till the battery was exhausted and the machine shut down or went into hibernation mode.

I ran two typical applications concurrently, like a full anti-virus scan and repeated large document search.

I played 3D games - the newer ones, like Fifa 2007 and Lord Of The Rings: Battle For Middle Earth II.

For a realistic apples with apples comparison, I got two similar notebooks from HP - the Compaq Presario V3132TU and Presario V3124AU. On the outside, they are absolutely identical down to the casing design and integrated interfaces. However, the interior is different: the V3132TU is based on 1.67GHz Intel Core 2 Duo CPU and i945GM chipset with integrated graphics.

The V3124AU uses 1.83GHz AMD Turion64 with Nvidia GeForceGo 6150 chipset and its own 3D graphics. Both have the same 1GB RAM, 120GB Samsung Sata hard disk and 14-inch 1,280 by 800 wide XGA LCD screen.

For my first test, leaving both systems idle, the results were close - the AMD system lasted 154 minutes, while the Intel system kept up for 161 minutes.

Next, the applications. I ran a long - more than half an hour - exhaustive Norton 360 antivirus scan across 30GB of copied files (two repetitions). Simultaneously, I also did encyclopaedia text searches. When performing these task, the batteries on the AMD machine lasted 107 minutes, and 119 minutes on the Intel machine.

Finally, when playing Fifa 2007, the difference increased: the AMD-equipped notebook lasted 73 minutes, the Intel machine lasted 91 minutes.

And how did the two platforms fare in the Sandra 2007 processor, memory and multimedia benchmarks? Intel excelled in most areas, except in memory speed, where AMD's integrated memory controller helped.

FINAL SAY

For now, Intel has a slight advantage in processing and battery life.