Intel Core 2 Duo P9600 vs Intel Core 2 Duo SU9400 vs Intel Core 2 Duo SL9380

The Intel Core 2 Duo P9600 was a upper middle class dual core CPU for laptops, at the time of introduction. It is similar to the Core 2 Duo T9550 except for the lower TDP of 25 versus 35 Watt).

Due to the relatively high clock speed and 6MB Level 2 cache, the P9600 offers enough performance for demanding games (in 2009) and applications. The newer Core i3-330M should deliver a similar performance due to the hyperthreading support.

The P9600 uses a Penryn (Montevina Update) core that features 2 integer units, 1 floating point unit, 1 load unit, and 1 store unit in a 14-stages long pipeline. Due to the Wide Dynamic Execution Technology, the core is able to simultaneously execute up to four instructions.

The integrated Enhanced Speedstep is able to downclock the core dynamically to save power (in idle mode).

The Intel Core 2 Duo SU9400 is a power efficient subnotebook processor based on the Penryn 3M core. It features all functions of the Penryn core, like Virtualization (VT-x), Trusted Execution and Speedstep. Due to the low core clock, the performance is limited.

The Core 2 Duo SL9380 is a power saving low voltage CPU for thin and light laptops. It offers a good performance for the 1.8 GHz clock rate, as it features the full 6 MB level 2 cache of the used Penryn core. Compared to the SL9400, the SL9380 offers only an FSB with 800 MHz clock rate (instead of 1066) and exactly 1.8 GHz (SL9400 1.86).