Tom’s Hardware does the legwork. They conclude:
Though AMD has not landed a great coup with the Turion 64 X2, the first 64 bit CPU with two execution units for laptops, the engineers in Dresden and Sunnyvale deserve commendation. They have succeeded in developing a laptop CPU that provides considerably more performance than its single-core predecessor Turion 64, but whose power consumption is the same or only slightly higher.
However, compared to an Intel platform based on the Core Duo and the company’s own GM 945 chipset, the combination of AMD CPU and ATI chipset is inferior in terms of battery time and multitasking performance. Therefore, under equal conditions, it can only be regarded as the second choice – if it is worth getting at all. The Core Duo 2, Intel’s next generation of laptop processors is already at hand, and first measurements show that the Core Duo 2 is even more powerful while not consuming more power.
This is not to say that buying a Turion laptop is a mistake; after all, the laptop decision rests on a number of other axes, including price, features, weight, etc. There is a lot of room for innovation and the CPU performance is not the sole metric by which consumers make their choices. The Turion looks to be a decent chip at a reasonable price, and its presence in the market is a positive thing overall. With Dell already selling AMD desktops and soon to follow with its notebook lines, the new Turion simply means more choice.
Still, it will be fun to see Sharikou‘s reaction to these benchmarks 🙂 He hasn’t posted yet…