AMD’s APUs Bring 61% Better Battery Life Than Intel CPUs

Most of the journalists and experts covering this year’s Computex show were in complete agreement on the fact that it all looked like an Intel/Microsoft Windows 8 party. AMD let Intel enjoy a first day of impressive announcements, but last evening, it decided to crash it.

One of the most impressive claims that AMD marketing slides have revealed was a 61% battery life superiority in a 3D-intensive applications. The application of choice was Futuremark’s 3D Mark 2006 and the processors tested were AMD’s E series versus an unnamed Intel counterpart. While we trust AMD’s mathematics, we don’t believe that the slide is telling the whole story. The Intel CPUs tested were clearly not Atom parts, as Atom could easily equal or surpass the Brazos 2.0 battery performance.

Therefore, the solution tested was most likely a low-power Sandy Bridge part and we feel obligated to mention that the x86 performance of AMD’s Brazos 2.0 E series APUs is clearly lacking by comparison. On the other hand, AMD has carefully chosen test applications in which the iGPUs play the main role. In the end, in each test, AMD’s APUs demonstrate superior performance and impressively longer battery life.

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