Intel Arrandale Core i5 and Core i3 Mobile platforms – Raw Innovation!

The i-series simply blows away the Core 2 Duo series

Intel officially gave out details on the Arrandale notebook platform in mid-November. As promised, the Core i3 and core i5 came out first. The 32nm architecture is said to be special, especially in terms of improved performance and considerably less energy consumption possible together – for the first time.

Folks at Hothardware.com benchmarked the Core i5 and Core i3 Mobile and found out they are the fastest yet, although quite pricey at this stage. One thing for sure – Intel has been playing on pure innovations of late, and the dry second half of 2009 is duely compensated by the first Pineview processor in early January the form of Atom N450 which brought the CPU and the GPU into one chip, giving you the same power of an Atom but at a much less energy consumption level. Intel did not stop at tat and went on to release the Core i3 and i5 at the opposite end of the product line. The Core i series spell raw power and promises the fastest possible processing speed yet. To make your life easier thoug, there are CULV versions of this – so you get the core i series which are not exactly energy guzzlers.

The Arrandale has the DDR3 memory controller and the GPU both in the same chip. It aims at achieving the most important triangle theuser will consider for a notebook – higher performance, lower power consumption and an affordable machine. The 32nm architecture allows for a smaller size CPU, with an excellent hyperthreading exercise makes all the four cores run simultaneously. Not only that, you get some pretty awesome I/O potential (you get HDMI, eSATA, HD Audio, Gigabit Ethernet  and DDR3 support – as reported by Hothardware).

The HD playback capability also has increased a great deal with the much improved integrated Intel HD 5 series Graphic cards. It now supports dual video decoding, dual simultaneous HDMI output, DisplayPort audio etc. which are pretty necessary as we move up the technology ladder.

Let’s have a look at the notebook that got the privilege to feature this platform – Asus K42F. It has a 14-inch display panel with 2GB of memory. The 6-cell battery adds to the portability. I don’t know when Asus will stop giving out the fingerprint-magnet body, although that way it looks more beautiful and sleeker. Hothardware reports that the paint does a good job hiding the marks though. The machine runs the Core i5 M 540 processor, inside a pretty standard-looking body. The platform has a pretty neat and uncluttered architecture. The price tag is on the expensive side right now with about $1000, as Intel is expected to charge a premium for the new innovation. This should go down once the Arrandale carrying notebooks become a common site in the market. Te notebooks with the Core i3 processor will be atleast a couple of hundred dollars cheaper.

Now about performance – it is a breeze! Windows 7 gives it a good rating as reported by Hothardware. Also the Intel graphc card is rated at par with that of NVIDIA and AMD. In the PCMark tests, the Core i5 and Core i7 completely blows away Core 2 Duo. In most of the other tests also, the Core i-series could easily outperform the Core 2 Duo ones. Go here for the detailed test scores.

Aarrandale plays HD videos effortlessly, with a CPU utilization as low as 3% at times. So if you can’t live without 1080p,this is the perfect thing for you. This doesnot mean it will drain battery life. The Aarrandale were found to last almost as long as the Core 2 Duo, shelling out much better performance in the meantime.  

 The bottom-line is that Intel has delivered raw power and innovation this time. With this kind of a portfolio, it is not hard to imagine the chip giants supremacy in the chip market, and the way things are moving right now – this supremacy won’t be challenged in a hurry.

Update

We just published our own Core i5 review and extensive Benchmarking of the Dell Studio 1558. Check it out here.