Penryn comes to Dell XPS M1730

Dell XPS M1730: now with Penryn.

(Credit: CNET Networks, Inc.)

Those of you hunting for the latest technology in Dell's 17-inch gaming laptop will be pleased to learn the M1730 has received its Penryn update. Since Intel announced its new 45-nanometer chips last month at CES, they've been ever so slowly making their way into systems. Dell is replacing the T7700 and the T7800 Merom CPUs with the T9300 and the T9500 Penryn chips, respectively. There will be no price differential between the older Merom chips and their Penryn replacements.

Dell's XPS M1730 laptop now lists two Penryn CPU options, the 2.5GHz Core 2 Duo T9300 and the 2.4GHz Core 2 Duo T8300 (which has half the cache, 3MB, of the T9000-series chips). The two Penryn chips cost less than the Core 2 Extreme X7900 and Core 2 Duo T7800 options. (Expect the T7800 option to soon be replaced by the T9500.)

Dell's XPS M1330, which got Penryn last week, boasts three Penryn chips, the T8300 and the T9300 plus the 2.6GHz T9500. The T8300 sells for the same price as the T7500 chip, which is a generation behind and clocked slightly slower but serves up more L2 cache. I say you sacrifice that extra 1MB of cache and get the new chip, if deciding between the two. Better yet, spend an extra $125 for the T9300, which is faster and serves up 6MB of L2 cache. The T9300 would seem to reside in the price-performance sweet spot.

Dell has told us that the Latitude line would also be getting a Penryn update this month, but there is still no sign of the new chips on Dell's business laptops.

[royauty]

Intel needs to improve its naming

There are three reasons why Intel must improve its chip-naming:
1, It's incredibly confusing! The difference between dual-core, Core Duo, Core 2 Duo, Core 2 Extreme and anything else is far from obvious. I'm getting a little tired of guessing how many different ways Intel can use the number "two" in a chip name.
2, Using the chip designations is a little creepy: T8000 sounds awfully close to the designation of the original Terminator!
3, I'm really tired of trying to work out which version of what chip is connected to the T number. In other words, how many "cores" (whatever one of those actually is) is on a T9300? How about the T7600?
End my confusion, please! Take a leaf out of a German car manufacturer's book and start naming chips and putting numbers next to the name to designate how fast it is (eg, S500 would be a big car with a 5 litre engine). We need to know the following:
1, Mobile or Desktop?
2, Number of Cores.
3, Size of the architecture.
4, Cache.
5, Clock speed.

eg, M2/45/6-2.6 would be a mobile chip with 2 cores, 45nm circuits, a 6Mb cache and a 2.6 GHz clockspeed. But please explain to me again why it has to be so complicated at all? Is Vista really so difficult to run at a reasonable speed?

[AXG]

Intel chips are confusing

I would like to know the difference between dual core and core 2 duo, centrino duo and what not. Intel is using confusing naming conventions to make consumers believe that they are getting something better. How is Penryn different from Centrino? How a consumer benefits by 45nm technology? Even within Intel Centrino, there are so many variations depending upon the Txxxx number. When I got my HP laptop, it had T7200 Centrino Duo. I had to go on Intel's website and check through the processor's spec to find out that it is actually a 64-bit processor. I think consumers deserve a better disclosure of what exactly they are getting with a particular chip.