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Pentium-M Notebook Put To The Test
BedivereW writes "Tom's Hardware has an interesting review of the first Intel Pentium-M (codenamed Banias) notebook. There are a few pieces of information missing, like heat production, but on the whole it is a good review. Intel appears to be moving in the correct direction." I'm looking forward to seeing more info on this one - seems to be the x86 response to the PowerBook series.
seems to be the x86 response to the PowerBook series
And with a name like Centrino, sounds like a response to the apple Centris series too.
But that was a dumb name that apple didn't keep around for long. I suspect within 6 months we'll see it renamed, and my dreams of a Quadra resurrection will be fulfilled
muahahaha!
It is weird to me that Intel plans to have an 802.11a/b solution in these notebooks as a standard. It seems that going with 802.11g would be a better choice considering it works with B and is fast as A but has better range (some speculation here about speed etc since it is not as well tested).
These notebooks arent planned to come out for a while, and considering there are 802.11g-draft products already available for purchase it seems that they would also go this route.
Anybody know why they may not be considering this? Possibly it is in the works, who knows.
This sounds a little odd. Combining cpu and lan and some other things all on the one chip. It's suspiciously like lock-in
This means you don't get a chance to upgrade without completely changing your system. ie you are locked-in to one solution, the one commercial vendors want.
Now technically it's possible to add for example 802.11g to this, but why would any manufacturer bother when there is already 802.11b, and likely a "pentium-Mg" or somesuch, which will have it.
You will be forced to upgrade to an entirely new machine to get just one feature you need.
Perhaps they are following Apple's lead more than it seams there.
Not only the lock-in effect, but with all these features in one chip means you can't for example repair your 802.11b if it goes down. You'll need to replace a whole new processor
I would have expected the x86 response to the PowerBook series to be something more along the lines of "......um, we will...ah...ummm...we have this new....ummmm.....what do we have, now? .....?".
After all, PB's are all about form and function, and since Intel doesn't make a laptop, all the function in the world won't help if the form sucks.
Or was the PB bit just an attempt to start another war? Afterall, why compare a processor to a complete product...guess I don't get it.
Heat production is the same as the power used by the chip. 99% of the watts ultimately transform into heat.
Pentium-I ...
Pentium-II
Pentium-III
Pentium-IV
I wasn't expecting Pentium-M before a thousand years.
It seems as though, with each Intel announcement, that AMD is not quite there as much as it used to be. Although notebooks have never been AMD's strong point because of greater heat production.
Its always good to have peripherals separate from chip. Another danger is that intel can have a set of proprietry registers and pipelines which are not disclosed however the WLAN card from intel will be able to use it to give better performance!. Not really good i think. Its okay to have own WLAN cards but the way intel is going about is not really ethical
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Wow, Intel actually made a CPU that runs at a slower clock speed that keeps up just fine with one that is running 600 MHz faster. Tom does mention that this will cause it's marketing folks a bit of backpedaling, but he kinda just glosses over it at that.
Seems to me that the Pentium-M's approach is a bit like the AMD's and the G4's - Do more each clock cycle. As a Mac convert, it warms my heart to hear that Intel is admitting that this approach DOES in fact work.
Let's kill off that MHz myth once and for all shall we?
DaveC
There are no stupid questions...just stupid people.
Centrino = Pentium M + Intel 855 chipset + Calexico 802.11a/b However, each of the above three is a separate component. In theory a manufacturer could choose not to package the three together. However, to achieve the Centrino specification, they would have to conform to the above standard. Hope that this makes it clear.
"The 855PM (Odem) is meant to be the link to a dedicated GPU via an AGP 4x port, while 855GM (Montata-GM) comes with Intel's own integrated 3D-decellerator."
Did Tom's Hardware slip up and accidentally let their opinion of the 855GM's graphics out, or did they intentionally say this?
I'm thinking they slippped up in letting their opinion out, since it's accelerator/decelerator. (One L, not two.)
Either way, I'm not surprised, as Intel's integrated graphics solutions always have (and probably always will) suck.
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
Apple just introduced 802.11g, bluetooth and Firewire 800 in one stroke, but Intel and the rest of Wintel box makers are still pushing the awkward and more expensive b & a combination. Let's face it, even the name is confusing - version a is a few years older than version b - wtf.
Similarly, when Apple dropped the floppy drive and added USB and Firewire 4 or 5 years ago, people were laughing at them. Now even Dell are moving away from the floppy.
As another example, USB is a nice and simple low bandwidth technology for connecting mice and printers, and Firewire is ideal for high bandwidth. But oh no, things have to be more complicated, so Intel must chip in and muddle the water with the theoretically faster but practically slower 480 Mbps USB2 than Firewire 400. Now Apple has Firewire 800 and potentially 1600 and 3200 soon, are we going to see USB3 and USB4?
Intel execs have been reading slashdot in hope to hear good news, there wait was not in vain.
BedivereW wrote "...Intel appears to be moving in the correct direction."
One intel execs was heard saying "thank God BedivereW likes where we are going, I have no idea how we would have survived if he didn't"
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
For the most part that's true, but it also comes down to the question of what platform runs your $20k per seat license workstation software fastest AND most reliably. In which case, you might decide an entire platform and just go with the standard IT OEM buy. In this case, Intel does have some nice control because they sell the platform, not just the processor. After all, if you're an OEM and you want to sell intel chips, do you offer them on VIA or Sis chipset motherboards if you're, say, Dell or even IBM?
Now if my software ran in 10 minutes on an AMD box vs 30 minutes on Intel box and they asked what they could do to improve my performance, I'd ask them to direct me to an OEM building around their reference systems--after all, the performance is already there, I just want reliability, and no company should be sending out crappy machines as reference boxes.
So, when's lunch?
The chart immediately above this quote shows the Pentium-M lasting about 30% to 50% longer than the older Pentium-4-M, depending on the test. On a smaller battery. So the conclusion that it only gets you about 20 minutes is far too conservative.
On the other hand, I'm suspicious of any such dramatic increases in battery life. It would probably be fair to deduct points for the smaller screen size on the Pentium-M because it should draw less power than the 15-incher on the P-4-M.
Bandannarama