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Core 2 Duo Processor Family for Mobile Platform
Although mobile Merom processors are hardly any different from their desktop analogues aka Conroe, there are still some noticeable differences between these two processor families. In fact, this is not surprising at all, as pure system performance has never been a major parameter for notebook platforms. Mobile users care more about the performance-to-consumed power ratio. That is exactly why Merom processor family differs from Conroe processor family dramatically, even though they are both being sold under the same marketing name of Core 2 Duo.
In fact, the Core 2 Duo processors for desktop and mobile systems differ only by the clock speed and thermal and electrical specifications. In other words, Intel engineers reduced the Vcore and maximum clock speed barrier and this way turned Conroe into Merom that could be used in notebooks. Thus, the maximum Vcore of the mobile Core 2 Duo equals 1.3V and the maximum clock frequency is limited by 2.33GHz. It means that mobile processors on Core microarchitecture are 25% slower in terms of clock frequency than their desktop brothers. However, the typical heat dissipation of the mobile CPU rests within 34W thermal envelope, while the CPUs for desktop platforms can dissipate up to 65W (or even 75W for Extreme models).
However, although Core 2 Duo processors look very economical against the background of the desktop CPUs, they still lose to their predecessors in this respect. Dual-core Core Duo (Yonah) CPUs boasted lower heat dissipation of 31W maximum. Although they were working in about the same frequency range.
In order to better illustrate what has been just said, I would like to present a complete list of dual-core processors for notebooks that Intel is currently offering:
CPU | Codename | Clock | Bus | L2 | Typical |
Core 2 Duo T7600 | Merom | 2.33 GHz | 667 MHz | 4 MB | 34 W |
Core 2 Duo T7400 | Merom | 2.16 GHz | 667 MHz | 4 MB | 34 W |
Core 2 Duo T7200 | Merom | 2.0 GHz | 667 MHz | 4 MB | 34 W |
Core 2 Duo T5600 | Merom | 1.83 GHz | 667 MHz | 2 MB | 34 W |
Core 2 Duo T5500 | Merom | 1.66 GHz | 667 MHz | 2 MB | 34 W |
Core Duo T2700 | Yonah | 2.33 GHz | 667 MHz | 2 MB | 31 W |
Core Duo T2600 | Yonah | 2.16 GHz | 667 MHz | 2 MB | 31 W |
Core Duo T2500 | Yonah | 2.0 GHz | 667 MHz | 2 MB | 31 W |
Core Duo T2400 | Yonah | 1.83 GHz | 667 MHz | 2 MB | 31 W |
Core Duo T2300 | Yonah | 1.66 GHz | 667 MHz | 2 MB | 31 W |
As we see, the major formal specifications of the Yonah and Merom processors are not that very different. The same is true for the prices. Notebooks with similar features set based on Core Duo and Core 2 Duo belong to the same price category. In other words, Intel doesn’t make any principal difference between these two processors.
