Intel and AMD in handbag fight over battery life
THE TWEEDLEDEE AND TWEEDLEDUM of chips are engaged in a handbags at dawn fight over a standard which tells which of their wares makes for the longest laptop battery life.
AMD has been telling world, plus dog, that Intel's laptop ads contain unrealistic battery-life claims because the data come from tests where laptops aren't used in real life scenerios.
Last month, AMD's view was backed by a class-action lawsuit filed in a US District Court which accused Intel of rigging tests to inflate the battery life of laptops powered by its chips.
The Seattle Times reported that Intel claimed the suit was groundless. Intel said that the tests accurately reflect the way most people use laptops and disputed claims that the public was confused.
But the tests are under a benchmark dubbed MobileMark, which was adopted several years ago by the Business Applications Performance Corporation - or BAPCo - a nonprofit organisation whose members include AMD, Intel, Dell, Hewlett-Packard and other tech companies. Strangely the class action claims that the tests were pushed on BAPCo by Intel.
Intel said that this claim is pants as MobileMark was "vigorously debated and cooperatively developed" by its members.
If that was the case, then AMD appears to have been napping when MobileMark was debated. Data provided by AMD shows batteries in laptops equipped with Intel's chips consistently last longer in the tests than laptops with AMD's chips.
AMD said that is nothing to do with overall efficiency. AMD makes graphic-oriented chips and MobileMark doesn't reflect use of such features.
Patrick Moorhead, AMD's vice president for advanced marketing said that the measurements are at best case confusing and at worst misleading consumers.
Rob Enderle, technology analyst with the Enderle Group, pointed out that most people will get half of MobileMark's battery life. This is because the standard measures battery life much like you might measure gas mileage if you put a car in neutral and coasted down a long hill.
AMD said that when you use other tests where the laptops get a proper test the battery-life difference between its chips and Intel's virtually disappeared. µ
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Dear AMD, although I'm your fan and have bought two laptops for myself and at least 6 for my friends that used AMD chips. But you need to be more focused on this mobile/ultraportable/netbook segment by pushing your chips (or platform, whatever) to the market. Stop this humiliating trash talks cause it won't make you gain any market shares.
Where the hell is Bobcat? Or even K10.5-based mobile chips?
Here is a list of pending "class action" lawsuits naming Intel as a defendant:
http://www.classadvocate.com/?direct=y&category=defendant&defendant_root%5B%5D=14103
I gotta concur with pai here.Lately I think AMD is putting way too much resource into their ATI/GPUs' strategy hence why we're seeing stumbles on the CPU end.Hey I'm a gamer too,though I don't care much about anything that can run Crysis or not but seriously you can really see the stubborn focus there.Which is still misfiring in a way when you think about it,people are still griping about drivers so there's another sticky issue.They got the mobile IGP and midrange GPU covered but as platform,power consumption to heat aspects goes..well let's just say I'm still worrying.They gotta shape up and shape up double time.
What a load of dingo's kidneys!
Who the f**k cares about Intel and AMD when it comes to battery life. Either one should be measured in minutes, not hours.
Everyone knows ARM kicks 'em both in the gonads.
Now if it were battery life in dildos they were arguing about...
Firstly, anyone arguing against a more accurate real world benchmark is crazy!
The best analogy I read thus far is measuring fuel efficiency only on a down hill in neutral gear... I wonder who wouldn't be up in arms when they go to a dealership and see 235 MPG (1 L/100 km) car but only get 2.35 MPG (100 L/100 km). Sure you can fudge the numbers a bit say 25% people hitting +/- 5% the advertised numbers but rest are within 80% range (+/- 20%) or something like that. With laptop battery life numbers... it is like virtually no one ever gets even close to advertised numbers... you'll be lucky if you get close to 80% mark!
Yeah, it is a little humiliating when you are the underdog calling for more realistic benchmarks and don't have anything, in the short term, to address the underlying reason why you are behind in the benchmarks in the first place. Still that is separate from a real need for relevant and meaningful benchmarks. Why you, as a consumer, be against having say realistic battery life for different usage scenarios like gaming/office/internet/video/audio/idle? Or some way to condense a little more? If anything, I think we should all back AMD on this, even if it also serves AMD's pocket along the way (AMD is doing this out of self-interest for sure).
Also let me remind you... Patrick Moorhead, AMD's vice president for advanced marketing??? MARKETING?!!! He is doing his job and I am not sure if he can make Bobcat / K10.5 mobile ready any sooner?
Would a "6hrs" Intel laptop with say 3hrs of DVD playback vs. "4hrs" AMD laptop with 2.5hrs DVD playback change buying patterns? It probably would...
NOTE: Just making up numbers (using Intel getting 50%, AMD getting 62.5% of advertised numbers for DVD playback).
If that is true or anything close, I think Patrick Moorhead should push even harder. I want to see Intel stepping up and improving battery life even further than totally idle state.
Sure there are probably several Intel optimisations but there is only so much you can do. You still need energy efficient chipsets, disk drive, screen etc. AMD platforms may include better 3D graphics but it comes at a cost which Intel has been careful not to blow the power budget to chase. AMD may allow the CPU to use less power at low load but they drain the battery fast under high load due to slower moves to smaller fabrication. The PR and lawers budgets should be raided to pay for more R&D. PC gone wrong, can't read what I've said. Sorry. Blank box.
The CPU is just one factor in a laptop design. GPU, screen size, hard disk, chipset, cooling, etc. etc. etc. all suck juice as well. Comparing battery life based on CPUs alone is, at best, misleading if you can't build two laptops with exactly the same components except for their CPUs, which is, of course, often not the scenario since most manufacturers don't go with just one supplier for a particular component, let alone chipset exclusivity for both CPU camps.