Intel Core i7 Mobile CPU (Clarksfield) Review

Intel Core i7 Mobile CPU (Clarksfield) Review
Futuremark PCMark Vantage

Next up, we ran a number of different test systems through Futuremark's PCMark Vantage system performance metric. PCMark Vantage runs through a host of different usage scenarios to simulate different types of workloads including High Definition TV and movie playback and manipulation, gaming, image editing and manipulation, music compression, communications, and productivity. Most of the tests are multi-threaded (up to three simultaneous threads), so the tests can exploit the additional resources offered by a multi-core CPU.

We pitted the Core i7-920XM against a number of other different processors and platforms. It is important to note that unlike when we test desktop processors, we can't just swap out the processor from the notebook's motherboard and pop in a new one for comparison, while keeping all other components the same. Therefore, all of the test results presented here and on the following pages include systems with different configurations, including different chipsets, memory types and speeds, hard disk drives, and GPUs. These comparisons are still valid, but the numbers represent specific configurations and models, and are not necessarily representative of all systems that use these processors.

Our primary comparison system in these pages a Dell XPS M1730, which is powered by a 2.8GHz Core 2 Duo X9000, 4GB 667MHz DDR2 SDRAM, 80GB Intel SSD hard drive, and dual Nvidia GeForce 9800M GTX GPUs using SLI. But we also included scores for a number of desktop processors as well, such as a 2.66GHz Core i5-750, 2.66GHz Core i7-920, and a 3.4GHz AMD Phenom II X4 965.

On the PCMark Vantage test, the Core i7-920XM's score of 12,517 PCMarks easily bests all of the comparison systems by a significant margin. The Core i7-920XM falters a bit on the Communications and TV & Movies workloads, but more than makes up for it on the other tests.

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