Gateway AMD and Intel Laptops, a Platform Analysis

The Final Word

Hopefully we've now answered and explained any lingering questions about how the AMD and Intel platforms compare when it comes to laptops. Intel has much better battery life, but that's only one aspect of the overall equation and there are definitely areas where AMD has the advantage over Intel. Intel also wins in application performance, with noticeably snappier system responsiveness (i.e. loading applications, installing programs, booting Windows, hibernating/resuming). When it comes to 3D graphics, however, the AMD solution is clearly superior to Intel's anemic IGP.

Looking at the big picture, either one of these laptops - or similar laptops from other vendors - would work very well for any student or home office user. With an entry price point of $500, the Gateway NV52 series provides an attractive package that can handle just about any task you might want to throw at it, up to and including entry-level gaming. The Intel system on the other hand is clearly faster outside of gaming tasks, but the $80 price difference represents a 16% price increase. If you're willing to sacrifice graphics performance, you do get more than a 16% increase in battery life and general application performance, so ultimately you need to decide whether you want to have better battery life or if you would prefer improved graphics.

The graphics situation is a bit muddy when we consider the full GPU market. ATI's HD 3200 may be over twice as fast on average compared to Intel's GMA 4500MHD, but that's a lot like beating a Kia Spectra with a Hyundai Accent on the racetrack. There are many faster graphics options if that's your primary concern, and truthfully you would probably be better off sticking to older games on laptops and saving your real gaming for desktops where a $500 PC doesn't fall completely flat the instant you boot up the latest 3D tour de force.

Considering the contestants, it was almost a foregone conclusion, but it's always good to have concrete numbers to back up our recommendations. As far as we're concerned, laptops - especially entry-level laptops - need to function as a mobile computer first and foremost. By that criterion, Intel has the clearly better mobile platform. Faster CPUs that draw less power and provide better battery life rate a lot higher in our book than barely adequate gaming performance. A 16% price increase for 25% more battery life and 25% faster general application performance is hard to beat. Using a higher capacity battery on an AMD platform could give you equivalent battery life, but then you're lugging around a heavier laptop and many high capacity batteries cost far more than $80. If you really want improved battery life, you'd be looking at an Intel platform with a high-capacity battery - or a MacBook.

Finally, we can't neglect the netbook platforms. The vast majority of these use Intel Atom processors, which are completely different from Intel's Core 2 chips. They use far less power, but if the AMD Athlon X2 QL-64 in the NV52 seems slow, it's only 130% faster than an Intel Atom N280… in a threaded workload where the Atom does reasonably well. In single-threaded tests and other benchmarks, the Athlon QL-64 can be 200% or even 300% faster than an Atom N280. On the other hand, with a similar size battery we've seen Atom N280 netbooks manage over twice the battery life of the NV58, so as usual it's a case of priorities. Those who want a "real" PC experience will likely appreciate notebooks like the NV52 and NV58 series a lot more than netbooks, while users that only want something small with reasonable performance and great battery life will gravitate towards netbooks.

In the end, it's all about choice. Battery life, graphics, CPU, size, features... we have plenty of options on where to spend our money and how much to spend. AMD may not be the better platform overall, but they do provide a viable alternative to Intel platforms and the lower cost is certainly an attractive aspect. Personally, I'd stick to gaming on my desktop and if I "need" to game on a laptop I'll stick to less taxing titles or buy a laptop with a discrete GPU, but however you slice it, having choice is a good thing.