The best mobile processor is...

Today's notebooks come with a vast range of processors, but will they give you the best performance? Our comprehensive review benchmarks 19 of the latest mobile processors, giving you an insight into the best chips on the market.

Intel and AMD are constantly developing processors, both for notebooks and desktops. To test their mettle of competing mobile processors, they were required to perform typical data processing tasks from word processing to encoding music to creating movies.

This review round-up compares the processing power of 19 mobile CPUs including Intel's previous generation Celeron and Pentium 4 based processors, the new Core 2 processors and AMD's Turion range of processors.

Test procedure
Five test rigs were used with all the notebooks running Windows Vista and 1GB RAM, at a screen resolution of 1024x768. All tests were run three times with the median value taken as the result. If scores varied by more than 3 per cent, the system configuration was checked and the test rerun to achieve consistent results.

To test the CPU performance we used the following programs: PCMark05 (build 1.2.0), 3DMark06 (build 1.1.0), Pinnacle Studio Plus Version 11 for video file conversion, Windows Vista Ultimate Movie Maker, Apple iTunes Version 7.1.1, Adobe Photoshop Elements Version 5.0, Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint in various stand-alone and multitasking processes.

Test platforms

Please note that the test rigs in this round-up are not identical. The graphics power amongst the notebooks is wide ranging from the low-end Acer TM3280 up to the IBM ThinkPad T60. However, in most tests — excluding the dedicated 3D graphics tests — the graphics processors did not play a significant role in the performance outcomes.