Intel Core 2 Duo SP9300 vs Intel Core 2 Duo T6570 vs Intel Core 2 Duo P8700

Intel Core 2 Duo SP9300

The Core 2 Duo SP9300 is a power efficient (25W TDP) dual core CPU for laptops. Compared to other Core 2 Duo with 2.26 GHz, the SP9300 features the full 6 MB level 2 cache of the Penryn core. Usually 3MB are enabled for 25 W CPUs at this clock range (e.g. P8400). Therefore, the performance is a bit better than similar clocked C2D CPUs.

Intel Core 2 Duo T6570

The Intel Core 2 Duo T6570 is an entry level dual core processor for laptops. It is based on the Penryn core but offers only 2 MB level 2 cache and a slow clock rate of 2.1 GHz. Compared to the Core 2 Duo T6500, the T6570 offers Virtualization VT-x and is therefore aimed at business notebooks.

The performance should be suited for non demanding applications like office, internet, entry level video editing or image correction. CPU intense games may be limited by the power of the T6570.

Intel Core 2 Duo P8700

The Intel Core 2 Duo P8700 is a mid-range dual core processor for laptops. It features 2.53 GHz and a shared level 2 cache of 3 MB. Due to the smaller cache (Core 2 Duo T-Models got usually 6 MB at this clock rate), the TDP is only 25 Watt (instead of the 35 Watt of the T-models). Technically, the P8700 is a slower clocked P8800 CPU.

Due to the relatively high clock speed, modern games (in 2009) should not be limited by the CPU speed (in conjunction with a middle class graphics card). High end gamers should choose a higher clocked Dual Core instead (when using a high end GPU).

The P8700 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 as low as 1200 MHz to save power (in idle mode).