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Desktop Pentium M Motherboard Review
Babstar writes "Discussed numerous times on Slashdot, the quiet PC is the holy grail for many, and one step in the right direction could be using a Pentium M (designed for notebooks) in a desktop machine. Here's a review of a desktop Pentium M motherboard. Surprisingly it's also a great game machine."
One thing I've noticed is the more fans your computer has the more often you end up needing to replace components. I've had 2 high-end video cards fry themselves due to the bearings in the fans wearing out.
Now I run a box practically devoid of fans and it's been running great for 4 years & counting.
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I have two, one which is a power workstation, AMD64, Radeon 9800 Pro, 2 gigs ram, sata disks and still is very quiet.
They are both stacked on each other and are very sexy units.....uses liquid cooling mechanisms for cooling and are competitively priced.
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I've been using a pentium M laptop with a docking station at home for months now. Its been silent heaven. You do take a speed hit with keeping the chip in "battery performance mode" in order to keep the fans off 99.9% of the time, but to avoid the high pitch noise of my desktop, its sooooo worth it.
What is striking about such a setup is you can actually forget your computer is even there when watching a movie on TV or reading a book in the same room.
As far as I care, the ultimate sound test is turning off a monitor and seeing if you can tell a computer is on.
Silence is golden.
If this is accurate. VIA's may have trouble with their Epia series of motherboards. I've got an M10000 and I'm looking to upgrade soon.
That is, only if the prices drop on both motherboard and CPU.
AOpen comes up with a great concept, what bothers me is that I came up with the same concept while using their 1555G open book that is slowly falling apart to the point it is becoming a desktop, network card is failing, using a pcmcia replacement. Keys falling off the keyboard, and a scratched LCD, a cdrom drive improperly mounted and a failed battery. All happening within 9-14 months of owning the book. I don't trust the longevity of their products, but i would still be interested in a small form factor Pentium M based system when a higher quality manufacturer produces one.
As you were saying...
It seems that the industry focus is about to change from increasing Mhz (essentially useless for most non-gamers non-content producing desktop users) to decreasing noise / power consumption. I think its a sound strategy, as its the only way I can see my parents upgrading from their (noisy as hell) 1 Ghz AMD Thunderbird.
Anyone got a clue why Pentium M are far more costly than P4s? Something to do with (sold units) volume?
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Yea, low-tech ... but pretty darn effective ... and I rarely need access to the CD/DVD drive and/or box itself, so it works for me.
Having said that, I look forward to the Pentium-M's ... 100+ Watts of power for the 3+ GHz Intel CPU's is semi-ridiculous ... and I gotta believe that if the thermal load from that can be removed, it will create savings in other areas. BTW, if you DO want your PC to be a space heater in the coming winter months, fire up Google Compute.
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There are multiple versions of the Athlon 64 mobile, so you have to be very careful to pick the right one, but... There is a 2800+ part, 1.2V part, that has a total power dissipation (TPD) of 35W. With AMD's ratings, that means that fully utilized (saying running something compute-bound like SETI @home), this part has a power consumption of 35W. (I believe Intel publishes average numbers, not max, although this is something I've read and not researched myself.) Will "Cool and Quiet" turned on the power consumption at low speed is supposedly any retailers that carry them has been difficult. Have they been pulled from the market, or are they not for the retail channel, or what? Anyone know what gives?
The AOpen board does allow basic FSB overclocking and has a PCI / AGP lock, but does not have voltage boosting abilities. Our 2.0 GHz Pentium 4 was stable overclocked to 2.3 GHz levels. Doesn't sound like much, but that's a 15% overclock. There is a section on this in the article, too.
Unless you need a boatload of Linux CPU goodness (and, certainly, there are those that do) or you are looking to put together the most bitchin' gaming machine ever.... ... just buy a Mac.
The iMac G5 (or G4) is dead quiet, barely making any noise when the CPU is cranked.
The PowerBooks are also dead quiet. With the Fan cranking at full blast, it makes a faint whirring buzz.
The current generation of dual proc G5s can make a bit of racket when torqued. I'm a professional developer and I beat the snot out of the CPUs on a regular basis. However, rarely do I ever crank all the fans up to full speed.
CnQ is no doubt a good thing, but nothing revolutionary. CPUs still need to be compared by their MAXIMUM POWER RATINGS.
Despite CnQ, the AMD64 processors are still going to use up 90+ watts of power when doing heavy processing. The Pentium-Ms OTOH, might be able to perform as well, with half the power consumption, when running full-tilt.
Besides that, you don't need to get an AMD64, there is various software that will do the same thing as CnQ. I know of both a Windows program that supports specific models of various brands of (AMD) motherboards, as well as a Linux 2.6 cpu-freq kernel module that will do the same job on nForce motherboards.
Although it won't actually underclock your CPU, RAM, or BUS, if you just run VCool/CoolOn (Windows) or fvcool (BSDs/Linux), you'll also see a huge reduction in power consumption when your AMD processor is idle.
For all the complaints about the P4's high MAX power draw, at least they didn't do something as stupid as AMD (S2K bus disconnect), which basically requires their CPU to run at full power, even when completely idle. In many ways, with AMD64 and CnQ, AMD is just now catching up with every other processor manufacturer.
If you'd like more details, my journal contains a pretty detailed entry about the AMD/S2K power issue.
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I had a bit of buyer's remorse waiting for it to get here even though I spent less on it than I did when I build my last desktop. I was worried a laptop couldn't take the place of a desktop that I could build much more cheaply but I was truely amazed. It compares favorably in every way with desktops in performance while giving me the sort of portability that in Intel based systems was previously unheard of. I get over 4 hours to a battery on this thing and a well under 10 pound travel weight when I want to take it with me. I remember when Apple had a huge lead in the battery life game with the G3/G4 vs the Mobile P3/P4 and that lead has completely eroded. Intel actually made a processor that uses less power without sacrificing much in the way of performance to get it.
I have moved completely to this laptop for all of my computing needs and it has the best of everything with seemingly no comprimise. I know that technology has progressed in the desktop scene as well but compared to the kind of freedom that we have been given in mobility with the increased performance and battery life coupled with wireless networking in the sort of package offered in the new Centrino notebook they don't compare. These notebooks are the sort of progress that changes the way we use a computer and work while being soo stark and beautiful a contrast and change that it truly feels that we have joined 21st century computing in a revolutionary feeling desktops just don't give. I for one will never by another desktop after a couple months with this laptop and suggest that rather than looking to the Pentium M as a desktop chip, as there are far cheaper for the purpose, you should take the plunge and buy a notebook with one and experience the quiet and the performance along with the portability and form factor change that can cut the wires and set you free.
That's funny, when I bought my area-51m system a couple of years ago I thought it was an amazing advancement to put a normal desktop processor in a laptop! Sure, it makes a ton of noise, basically burns a hole in my desk, and sucks 2 batteries dry in 3 hours...but it's fast! And isn't that what we all really want, deep down?
The old G3 iMacs, fanless wonders they are, do indeed run very quiet. Bravo to Apple for creating a near-silent computer (only hard drive noise).
And, in fact, if you want a TRULY silent computer, you can take one of those old fanless G3 iMacs and remove the hard drive. Then you boot it off of an OS X Server using NetBoot. Voila! A computer with literally zero moving parts. TRUE silent computing. Not even the whirr of a hard drive.