Laptop Thoughts: Intel's Sandy Bridge Architecture: Great Performance and Battery Life In Notebooks

"Today's desktop replacements deliver a ridiculous amount of performance compared to the mobile flagships we've seen in the past. But these powerhouses come with a trade-off, other than their hefty price tags. You see, there is an unbreakable relationship between compute horsepower and power consumption."

A very detailed report on processor architecture, this story provides scads of information on Intel's latest moves to stay ahead of AMD in their never-ending competition. Some highlights: Intel's naming scheme of Core i7, Core i5 and Core i3 corresponds to good, better, and best; Mobile and Desktop processors now can be nearly equivalent in performance; Top Intel processors are expensive; In benchmarks, Sandy Bridge beats Arrandale, Clarksfield and Clarkdale across a gamut of tests; Sandy Bridge-based chips use less power than older platforms. Last but not least, tom's hardware recommends that if you're looking for a full-sized notebook, wait for one based on Sandy Bridge: you'll get better performance and a substantial increase in battery life.