Does Core Duo sacrifice battery life for performance?
If you've just unwrapped a brand new Core Duo-powered laptop, you may have noticed something a little odd: sure, it offers a noticeable performance boost for certain applications. But Core Duo-powered computers also, apparently, suffer from relatively short battery lives, at least according to tests conducted by Tom's Hardware. According to Tom's, the battery on a typical Core Duo tester laptop will run down after about two hours, barely enough time to watch a film on its DVD drive. However, after extensive testing and analysis, Tom's found that the fault doesn't lie in the Core Duo processor itself, which the site says "is definitely one of the most efficient and energy saving (mobile) processors we've ever seen." So, where's the power going? Tom's hypothesizes that it could be the graphics engine (and its 512MB of video RAM) or Intel's 945GM chipset, but finding out will require further testing. So, in the meantime until we get more conclusive results, rejoice in the fact that you've got a powerful and potentially energy efficient computer -- and wait it out for the sleuths at Tom's to figure out what's sucking up the spare juice.
[Thanks, Sam]