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."

Comments

Fans die so quickly

[DaNasty]

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.

If you want a quiet machine

[nighty5]

Buy a shuttle.

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.

Google for the website to slowdown the slashdot tidelwave.

pentium M laptop + docking station = heaven

[mikey573]

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.

Re:GamePC

[bersl2]

As you were saying...

Change

[FiReaNGeL]

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?

Low-tech way for almost totally silent PC ...

[xmas2003]

I got some long video cables, PS-2 connectors, and USB cables ... and my PC sites in the crawl space behind my closet. In the middle of the night, the noisiest thing I can hear is the 'fridge downstairs.

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.