More Analysis Of Pentium M Desktops

Hack Jandy writes "The Pentium 4 has gotten enough attention lately as a slow, over heated monstrosity; but does Intel's Pentium M fare any better? Intel's decision to introduce the Pentium M as a desktop processor (East Fork) may not be all it's cracked up to be. Sudhian has an in-depth article, and Anand has benchmarks (on Linux!). I will stick with my Athlon 64, thank you very much."

Comments

Failed Pentium

[superpulpsicle]

So is Pentium M just a bunch of failed Pentium processors that didn't fare well in the assembly line? Sort of like Celeron... cough cough.

Re:Failed Pentium

[0111 1110]

and will actually beat a Pentium 4 clock for clock in some applications.

Actually make that all applications. At least clock for clock. It also tends to beat the Athlon64 clock for clock but that's a much closer race. The P4 is such a marketing-driven dog of a processor. Thank god I will never have to own one.

Re:Failed Pentium

[Thnikkaman]

Many Dothans died to bring us this information

Pentium M clocks down too much

[dotslashdot]

My experience with Pentium M is that it clocks down BIG time if you don't plug in the power cord. So much so that the laptop is virtually useless. YMMV.

Re:Pentium M clocks down too much

[the angry liberal]

Then turn it off in the BIOS and quit complaining?

Re:Pentium M clocks down too much

[Momoru]

I had this same problem too, and I could not turn it off in the BIOS. My 1 Ghz chip ran at 500Mhz most of the time, even when plugged in.

Re:Pentium M clocks down too much

[Bloater]

> My experience with Pentium M is that it clocks down BIG time if you don't plug in the power cord. So much so that the laptop is virtually useless.

Funny, my desktop does the same...

Re:Pentium M clocks down too much

[n1ywb]

I've been using my Fujitsu Lifebook P5000 1GHz P-M for a few months now, and I have to say I don't really notice the performance difference when it clocks down. It's still perfectly useable. The only time I really notice it is when I'm compiling or something, and even then it's pretty fricking fast IMO. People are spoiled by fast CPUs nowadays, consarnit.

Re:Pentium M clocks down too much

[Covener]

I had this same problem too, and I could not turn it off in the BIOS. My 1 Ghz chip ran at 500Mhz most of the time, even when plugged in.

The info returned by /proc/cpuinfo will only reflect how things looked when you booted, but it doesn't mean your CPU speed isn't changing. see cpufreq (/proc/cpurfreq)

Re:Pentium M clocks down too much

[MooseGuy529]

That's totally bogus.

If you are running a modern, ACPI-enabled OS, processor speed is fully controllable by the OS. My Pentium M sits at 600 MHz all the time, unless I need it, and then it throttles up to 1700 MHz as needed. My guess is that you are running Windows, since Linux uses the highest clock speed unless you install a throttling daemon (I use speedfreqd.)

I do know, however, that the Pentium 4-M throttles down a ton, because its power management features are less efficient and the battery life would be less than an hour. As it is, most only get 1 to 2 hours.

What OS are you running, anyway?

Re:Pentium M clocks down too much

[Goonie]

That's entirely configurable. Under Linux, on my Pentium-M laptop I run cpufreqd, which allows you to configure exactly how you want the clock speed to change under power conditions and cpu load. If the CPU load goes up, mine cranks all the way up to full speed again.

I believe that the Windows drivers allow you to do the same thing, if you want.

Re:Pentium M clocks down too much

[Sivar]

Meanwhile, my brand new Athlon 64 laptop:

a) Doesn't have any drivers available online
b) Refuses to install both 32- and 64-bit versions of Fedora 1-2, SuSe, and Mandrake (locks up before setup completes)
c) Locks up on Windows 'shutdown'

Funny, my Athlon64 laptop which I purchased over a year ago:
a) Uses standard hardware so drivers are no problem to find online (or from the reseller or on the included install discs). One exception being the Radeon 9600m, which I can still easily find drivers for.
b) Has compiled both 32-bit and 64-bit Gentoo from stage 1 and never crashed (though even with an Athlon64 it takes forever)
c) Doesn't lock up on Windows shutdown, suspend, hibernate, or when transcoding xvid three days in a row.

Have you considered that maybe--possibly, your laptop might be damaged, or that the one you chose was horribly crap and that it is your fault, not AMDs? I mean, my god, even eMachine's Athlon64 laptops work fine in my experience!

Re:Pentium M clocks down too much

[araemo]

My experience with Pentium M is that it clocks down BIG time if you don't plug in the power cord. So much so that the laptop is virtually useless. YMMV.

Luckily, this is 100% configurable.

Even if you don't want to turn it off completely, you can set up your system to be less aggressive in down-clocking your CPU.

In windows 2k/XP, open the 'power' control panel, and change the setting from whatever it's set at(I'm guessing "Max Battery" to something less drastic, like Portable/Laptop, or Home/Office Desk(Yes, home/office desk will still allow it to downlock, but it will clock it back up when you start using it more.). "Always on" and "Minimal power management" both disable down-clocking, I believe. And the on-demand CPU frequency scaling does wonders for battery life. I've never felt that my laptop was hampered by being unplugged, but any time I stop using a lot cpu, it down-clocks to save battery.

Under linux, you just need to have a decent kernel and cpufreqd or speedfreqd(And I was just compiling 2.6.9 last night, it seems that it includes a kernel driver that will dynamically change the clock speed dependant on CPU load, so cpufreqd/speedfreqd are not strictly necessary if that is enabled.

I've also done some benchmarks/useage comparisons, and my Pentium M laptop is signifigantly faster than my desktop at several things(Nothing disk-bound though. ;P), like compiling a lot of software, and working with some encryption formats. All-in-all, my 1.5 year old Penium M is still a fairly usefull system, that even plays most games competantly, if not with all the pretty features turned on. :(

Best place for AMD systems

[augustz]

I've gotten old enough that I no longer thrill at the idea of building my own system. I'm looking for something quiet, very reliable, and inexpensive. Performance comes behind these critiera.

Basically I'm looking for the Dell equivelant in the AMD world, someone who cranks them out in great quantities. I checked out HP etc, wasn't blown away. Also open to a smaller shop if they come with a good recommendation (and without the insanely gaudy cases, no rounded plastic please).

Re:Best place for AMD systems

[shellbeach]

Basically I'm looking for the Dell equivelant in the AMD world, someone who cranks them out in great quantities. I checked out HP etc, wasn't blown away. Also open to a smaller shop if they come with a good recommendation (and without the insanely gaudy cases, no rounded plastic please).

Just because you dislike the idea of building your own system doesn't mean you should ignore white boxes from the dodgy-bros. local store. IME, you get exactly the parts you want, there's no proprietary crap and you get it all at the cheapest price (you generally get a discount for buying a system, so getting someone to put it together for you works out cheaper than doing it yourself) You don't need to pay for a useless OS, either. And if something does go wrong with a part, it's no sweat to replace it yourself even in the unlikely event that the shop won't - you save so much you'll still be ahead on the deal.

Re:Best place for AMD systems

[mollymoo]

I've gotten old enough that I no longer thrill at the idea of building my own system. I'm looking for something quiet, very reliable,

So buy a Mac.

and inexpensive.

Oh, OK, don't buy a Mac then :)

Re:Best place for AMD systems

[St. Arbirix]

I would have said Netlux but they recently pulled a fast one on me. My laptop from them is an oversized clunky beast... but it's a 2.00Ghz machine from the summer of 2002 that cost me $1100, an amazing deal at the time (Clemson school laptops were $1500 1.5Ghz IBMs).

And talk about dependable... I've taken it apart about 5 times, once to paint the exterior with my own designs, cut holes in the casing, etc and it still works fine. Occasionally the flourescent light for the LCD would flicker out but that was just a matter of opening her up, unplugging the screen, and plugging it back in a couple times. The parts are all Sony, Fujitsu, Toshiba, and other brand names... the laptop runs really hot and sometimes the harddrive (Toshiba) will click a few times and stop working on me which has been happening for a year and just a matter of letting it cool down. Since I never actually move the laptop (there are 6 firewire drives daisy-chained off of a poorly placed 4-pin port in the front center of the laptop) I plan on shelling out the slot fan and copper radiator in favor of some cheap water-cooling experiment (hopefully involving a decorative waterfall).

My basic point is that a well rated off-brand computer store from pricewatch.com will land you with a Volvo among computers that outruns Miatas, isn't winning design awards, and despite the fact that sometimes it shuts off by itself or won't start immediately it can always be depended on to come up with a few retries and not get any worse with age (my girlfriend's 1984 tank/Volvo is just like this).

Re:Best place for AMD systems

[shellbeach]

That'd be CentreCom. I know that CPL isn't bad either. But check The Age's Green Guide - there's heaps of other cheap stores out there (though can't comment on their service).

Re:Best place for AMD systems

[geekoid]

"I have a faster computer, a larger penis and better hair than you."

Mom?

A very neat processor indeed

[elh_inny]

When I browsed through the test, I headed directly to the database section and I was positively surprised, P4M excels in this area.
In my computing I actually find hard disks to be a bottleneck. I use databases all the time and any improvement in that area is a plus.
I bet Gentoo fanboys will lament on processor's performance while compiling, I think it has more to do with the lack of the optimisations yet and what's even more important I don't compile much, I just use the computer.
Overall I find this processor to be a very attractive solution for a typical desktop computer.
It's a great base for a SFF or even smaller computer with more than adequate computing power.

Re:A very neat processor indeed

[Jeff DeMaagd]

I was positively surprised, P4M excels in this area.

It is not P4M. Aside from the FSB and the latest SSE version, Pentium M is not even remotely based on the Pentium 4 core.

Review focused on gaming

[Man in Spandex]

http://www.gamepc.com/labs/view_content.asp?id=dot hangaming&page=1

and it shows how differently it performs compared to things like compiling a kernel in linux. According to the review, it competes almost as fast or sometimes as fast as the A64 in some games.

It's still an impressive cpu and better than tha bacon-cooker (prescott).

Re:Review focused on gaming

[katorga]

I'm seriously thinking about a Pentium-M for my next homebuild for one reason: QUIET. I've had it with multiple fans, massive heatsinks and the noise from top of the line amd/intel chips.

The P-M would be a perfect chip for a media center or SFF gaming rig. 95% of the performance of an AMD 55FX or P4 3.6 at half the cost and 20% the heat is nothing to sneeze at. And that running with slow ram and agp 4x. Last time I checked a 55FX as $800ish, a P4 3.4EE or 3.8 was $700ish, and the 2Ghz P-M is only $400ish.

And Anand is missing one fact on the compiler front. GCC may not have great P-M support, but Intel gives away their optimizing compiler for Linux.

Given the heat characteristics of the Pentium M, Intel could likely put 4 on a die for the same heat cost as a dual core Prescott or a dual core AMD64. It remains to be seen if they can overcome their Hubris and give the Isreali chip team the ball.

Pentium M

[MrRuslan]

I have no clue why would anyone buy this. I mean Pentium M is great for laptops because of the lower power consumption but there is very little to gain from it on the desktop. It is very overpriced for a standard workstation onfiguration where somone dosent need power. I mean it saves power but not enogh to make it worth the trouble.

Re:Pentium M

[mollymoo]

I have no clue why would anyone buy this. I mean Pentium M is great for laptops because of the lower power consumption but there is very little to gain from it on the desktop.

Noise. If you produce less heat you don't need as much cooling, so you don't need to shift as much air. Moving air through a PC makes noise.

Other than noise, the lower power consumption may not help much for a single PC, but saving 40W per PC when you have 200 or 2000 can add up. Remember you often pay twice for you PC's power consumption - once to heat the air and once for air-con to cool it again.

Re:Pentium M

[afidel]

electricity is expensive and certainly isn't getting cheaper. If you can get a new box with a Pentium M and a LCD then you are going to use less power even for a more capable rig. This might not matter for your home PC, but it matters if you are running an office with a couple hundred PC's or a business with thousands of them. It also matters if you want a box capable of decoding video but don't want a bunch of noisy fans, or if you run on alternative power. A capable, low power cpu is definitly going to find a niche for itself. Oh yeah and throw 4 of them on a die with a couple megs shared cache and you now have a chip that draws about the same amount of power as a P4 but kicks its butt all over the place on multithreaded code.

Re:Pentium M

[Jeff DeMaagd]

Reductions in air conditioning needs actually far outweigh reductions in power.

The energy cost of cooling is usually less than the energy cost of making heat. Usually it is about 10:1 on a decent A/C system, it takes 10W of electrical power to remove 100W of heat.

Re:Pentium M

[MemoryDragon]

The Pentium-M is a kickass desktop processor, it just has not the brand GHz on its package. Still one of the fastest there is, excellent power management (which is a big plus on a desktop where you dont want to hear fans all the time and where you idle 99% of the time anyway)

The main problem is the price, it is just much to pricey compared to an AMD64, I probably will go the AMD 64 route in the middle of next year because they also have a good power management. The main selling point for AMD64 for me is its Coool&Quiet technology, I could not care less about the 64bit features, which are totally useless currently for the stuff I do. (wake me up once the emulators start to use the higher number of general purpose registers)

So there is this decision between a Pentium-M and AMD 64 bot excellent desktop processors and in the end AMD will win again due to its lower price tag.

But the article says...

[obeythefist]

That the Pentium-M isn't optimised at all for what they were benchmarking (apart from some stuff compiled with a non-commercial intel C compiler).

While I'll be one of the first to put my boot into intel and their behind-the-market sloppy overpriced inefficient CPUs, it would be at least fair to do it on a reasonably even playing field.

Re:But the article says...

[AKnightCowboy]

That the Pentium-M isn't optimised at all for what they were benchmarking (apart from some stuff compiled with a non-commercial intel C compiler).

Because God knows that all the software in the world is compiled with a highly optimized commercial Intel C compiler right? Come on guys, why do you expect them to use some crazy expensive compiler when 99% of the software on the shelf will never use it? It's just a marketing gimmick to boost their performance. If nobody uses it then it might as well not exist.

Re:Big Surprise

[bzebarth]

That's so not true. I know a lot of 30 year old Athlon lovers who play games and look at porn all day.

Re:Big Surprise

[wvitXpert]

For what reason are Athlon 64 processors not "stable"?

Every geek...

[Doolspin]

Every real geek has owned a dual proc. Intel machine.

Re:Every geek...

[mr_z_beeblebrox]

Every real geek has owned a dual proc. Intel machine.

No...every REAL geek can remember saving up for their first math co-processor.

Re:Every geek...

[FFFish]

Every real geek can remember the first time they took a soldering iron to the motherboard to piggyback 4k RAM chips in a hack to double the memory of their machine.

64-bit goodness

[pp]

Was unfortunately left out. I mean, Athlon 64 makes a fine Pentium 4 competitor when running a legacy 32-bit operating system, but it's so much more. Those cool extra registers you get in 64-bit mode make the thing just scream!

And no, the intel EM64T stuff isn't even competing in the same league, 40-45% slower with 40% more GHz is what I've seen in real-life workloads (heavy numbercrunching). For some other types of loads it does just about as well as the a64/opteron, though.

Revised x86_64 support (possibly in the pentium m core and in the same price range as the new 90nm a64's) and Intel has a chance. That and Microsoft delaying 64-bit Windows for a couple more years.

Re:Big Surprise

[lsmeg]

For what reason are Athlon 64 processors not "stable"?

You get what you pay for?

I hope you don't use linux then... :P

Bus speed is the big issue

[StandardCell]

If you look at the front side bus speeds of the Pentium M, they're low. Very low, in fact, at 400MHz. Certainly not in the 800MHz -1066MHz range that's required for a lot of operations. A 1.5GHz P-M is about the equivalent of a 2.4GHz P4 Northwood UNLESS it comes to data-intensive operations requiring FSB access, and then it gets constricted.

Let's reserve judgment on the P-M's future unless and until Intel builds a higher FSB speed or unless the biggest priority is low overall system power.

Re:Bus speed is the big issue

[Jeff DeMaagd]

If you really looked, you'd find that the newest one comes in 533MHz FSB.

I really don't know what operations require 800MHz and up for best performance (I/O intensive vs. compute intensive), but if East Fork is a reality, I bet that faster FSB speeds are in the works for a desktop version. The lower FSB was intended to minimize power consumption, which is a major priority on power sensitive laptops, but even if a higher bus speed means a couple extra watts, I doubt it would make a difference even in the fanless systems.

Re:Bus speed is the big issue

[1000StonedMonkeys]

That's why the 800MHz bus pentiums use dual channel DDR. Two 400MHz channels sync up with an 800MHz channel pretty well.

Re:Big Surprise

[lacheur]

Translation: I am 14 years old and I have no need for any sort of stability in my "rig". I don't have to worry about getting any sort of real work done, so I play games all day and look at porn. If I can overclock a 3% performance increase, I'll cream my virgin shorts.

Translation: I am an out-of-touch Intel fanboy who enjoys hemorrhaging money for equivalent performance because of a delusion that that Intel products are somehow more "stable".

Intel still holds the major share in market

[adeydas]

Though AMD Atlon may be rising as a global giant, Intel's Pentium processors still holds a major share of the market primarily because the large choice of processors it offers, the number of years it has been in business and compatibility with a large number of OS and softwares not to mention hardwares. I believe that Intel is going to stay in business atleast for some more years. What do you think?

Re:Big Surprise

[AttillaTheNun]

My Athlon64 rig is solid as a rock and the more articles I encounter like this, the more I believe I switched over from Intel at the right time. I think AMD has pulled ahead permanently this time. Like most ./ers, I put together my own 'rig', allowing me to select the most highly rated, well-known and supported components at an affordable price. I have no need for underpowered systems with a bunch of useless software bundles - I prefer to put my money where I know it counts.
I'm not a 14 yr old gamer, either. I earn a living designing software. The Athlon64 is about the best price/performaner (esp. considering the 'free' upgrade when moving to a 64-bit OS) that's come along in a very long time.

Is AMD really that much better for games?

[Saint Stephen]

It seems to me that midrange AMD is far better than midrange Intel for games -- so this is probably why the impression "AMD rules for games" is out there. Buncha kids with no money think it is.

But my 3.2 P4 Northwood running at 3.52 with 6800GT seems plenty competitive -- with everything except the FX 55, which is *extraordinarily expensive*.

It seems that AMD is better at the low end and the extreme high end, but the "ordinary" high end (3500+ and 3.2 P4), Intel and AMD are about the same. Plus with things like MPEG encoding and compiling, which is also important to me, P4 beats even the AMD FX.

So AMD is only better than Intel at the extreme high end and the low end. But the low end isn't worth playing at, unless you ain't got no money.

So in short it seems to me that in the real world a 3.2@3.52 P4 is plenty great for games.

Or would an AMD 3500+ give me a "smoother feeling" experience?

Re:Is AMD really that much better for games?

[zx75]

Yesterday's 'extreme' high-end is today's 'ordinary' high-end. AMD has been putting out some amazing processors for a couple years now, so if you're looking for an 'ordinary' high-end CPU check out some of their previous offerings. I've been running a 2800+ for over a year now under a lot of stress (I'm a programmer, gamer, and play around with a number of CG renderers) and it still holds up admirably.

Re:Is AMD really that much better for games?

[be-fan]

In reviewing the 3.8GHz P4, Anand did a comparison of the CPU with a bunch of Intel and AMD CPUs. The Athlon 3400+ only lost to a 3.6GHz P4 twice, by one fps each time. It even beat the 3.8GHz P4 in nearly every benchmark. Given that the 3.6GHz P4 is nearly twice as much as a 3400+, and a full $200 more than the 3500+, the choice (for gamers), is a no-brainer.

Has Intel Peaked?

[upsidedown_duck]

Opteron is better than Xeon in most ways that matter. Itanium, even with all its FP muscle, has to be given away. Has Intel peaked?

Intel is trying to shift the battle, not catch up

[Anonymous Coward]

My parents and the bulk of the people out there do not need a 64bit 5ghz monster under their desk. And honestly most of thosethat have them probably only use the power 5-10% of the time, if that.

Intel could care less about us, they care about Fortune 500 companies that buy computers by the truck load... and what those companies care about is saving money. 5-20W here and there don't really mean much to you and I, but when you're footing the electric bill for several hundreds or thousands of people then giving everyone barn burners to run Excel starts to look pretty foolish.

You might as well be comparing a Prius and a Ferrari or a jumbo jet and an SR-71.

Use the right tool for the job folks.

Nothing wrong with a PM

[AbRASiON]

I've been using a Pentium M Dell Inspiron 8600 for the past week (configuring it for a friend)

I've had nothing but luck with it, it's warm at worst and the fan comes on for 90 seconds every 25 minutes when it's sitting on a soft pillow (practically covering ALL vents in the machine)

It browses very fast, it's responsive and it plays back movies fine

Absoloutely no qualms here, an Athlon 64 would be far hotter, far noiser and (potentially) less stable.
(intel chipset / cpu in a laptop is just the only way to go... I wish it was different but it's not)

Re:Nothing wrong with a PM

[AbRASiON]

Actually I find browsing nowadays is limited to the shitty browser and the way windows works with files on the hard disks etc.

If you pump up the threads in firefox and tweak it a little bit plus defrag you can get pages to load fast.

I'm betting under 98 it could be even quicker as smartdrv was an awesomely fast caching tool whereas XP's is a little safer but ass slow in comparison

Re:Big Surprise

[N5]

I don't know where you get your info, but i've had a 64 since march and it's been rock solid. The major problems with stability people have with a 64 is:

1. Amperage too low on 12V rail. This is becomming more common with all systems. A number of Mobo makers are now taking the CPUs power out of the 12V rail, and since the memory controller is integrated into the CPU, well you see the issue. It's a simple fix, get a decent PSU with at least 20+ amps on the 12V rail.

2. Memory. A common problem with ALL machines. This is also an easy fix: BUY DECENT MEMORY. You don't need corsair, but get a respected name. People also claim that you can't run at any timings faster than 3-3-3, but that ISN'T the case. I'm typing this with a Gig of PC 3200 running 2-3-3. Haven't tried to oc it because I have no need, but tighter timings might be possible.

As far as overclocking goes, no you won't get massive numbers, but with the basic understanding that you're dealing with more than just FSB and multiplyer, you can get a decent overclock.

Intel fan boys need to calm down. Netburst hasn't been what intel needed. AMD gave them plenty of warning that they were going to release a pretty advanced chip. Intel decided that GHZ are what matter, and that everyone would want an Itanium for 64 bit computing. wrong on both accounts. It's good to know that they are going back to more reliable tech, but when I have a cool running, stable machine that can go toe to toe with an Intel Extreme Edition (I hate extreme marketing) and cost me a fraction of the price, I'm happy.

I'm so glad I have a Pentium IV Mobile

[digitalgimpus]

My ideal laptop for college was an Apple G4, but school insisted on Windows for it's 'stability, reliability, and security'.... yea, that's a joke in itself.

Decided to get an IBM Thinkpad with a Pentium IV Mobile.

Everyone with laptops running P4's seen to have issues with heat, and power consumption. Despite my oversided screen, dual HD's, and CD-RW... I'm actually doing all right.

It cost more to get a laptop with a real mobile chip, rather than just a P4 as some companies offer... but I think it saved me a lot of trouble.

Re:I'm so glad I have a Pentium IV Mobile

[lachlan76]

I'm a Linux user, and use x86 assembly enough that I don't expect to switch in the near future.

So I just use VMWare, which is IMHO one of the greatest closed source programs I have ever used.

Re:fscommand protocol?

[BoneMarrow]

From www.macromedia.com: Macromedia Flash can use the fscommand action to control the playback and appearance of standalone projectors, as well as launch external applications. The fscommand action takes two parameters: a command and an argument. In some cases, an argument is not required.

Re:Intel is trying to shift the battle, not catch

[statusbar]

My parents and the bulk of the people out there do not need a 64bit 5ghz monster under their desk. And honestly most of thosethat have them probably only use the power 5-10% of the time, if that.

You know, 10 years ago I was saying the same thing about the bulk of the people not needing a 32bit 1 gHz monster under their desk. Now this is the minimum that they need.

Don't underestimate Microsoft's ability to make software that brings yesterday's supercomputers to their knees today.

--jeff++

You don't appear to be very smart

[melted]

First of all, you will only find P4 "Mobile" in P4 laptops. Non mobile versions draw too much juice and have heat dissipation of at least 100W.

Second of all, Pentium-M blows the doors off P4 "Mobile" while at the same time running much cooler and consuming much less power.

Third, I type this from a 20" iMac G5. Envy me. :0)

Re:You don't appear to be very smart

[bStrom]

That's not true. Some laptops use a Mobile Pentium IV (upt to 3.2 Ghz w/533Mhz FSB), while others use a plain Pentium IV (up to 3.4 Ghz w/800 Mhz FSB). See Pentium IV vs. Mobile Pentium IV.

I do agree with you about the Pentium-M, though.

I actually read the review, and...

[Dr. Spork]

I think the blurb on the front page was quite misleading. I was pretty blown away by the performance data of the Pentium M. It was on a crappy board with prehistoric features, and it was still kicking ass. It overclocked perfectly to 2.1 Ghz and beat a standard-clocked A64 3500+ on almost every benchmark, and never broke 40C with a tiny little heatsink and a tiny little fan.

If Intel were serious, they could be making these right now at 2.4 GHz (I'm sure they'd run fine, and still quite cool) at which point it would be beating every desktop processor in the world. I say that's a hell of a start for an Intel processor line. The most important thing is that with such a low heat output, Intel can eventually clock these things pretty high. The Athlon64 seems to have less headroom.

One clear lesson is that the Pentium4 and everything based on it is done. The P4 gets creamed by the M, it's quite embarassing. I think Intel will just ride out the P4 advertising investment, but we know that their next big thing involves the M cores. And they will be quite fearsome once they start putting multiple M cores into desktop chips, and putting their marketing muscle behind the result.

I'm a huge AMD fan and will remain loyal, but... I think AMD is in a good place now only because they've consistently out-engineered Intel since the first Athlon. Now I'm scared that they won't pull it off in the next generation. Intel seems to have a really promising starting point.

Re:Big Surprise

[Teckla]

Translation: I am 14 years old and I have no need for any sort of stability in my "rig". I don't have to worry about getting any sort of real work done, so I play games all day and look at porn. If I can overclock a 3% performance increase, I'll cream my virgin shorts.

Better translation: I prefer superior hardware that also happens to cost less.

You're a troll, and should be modded as such.

Re:Anyone know what Gentoo stage to use?

[ultraslacker]

gcc 3.3.x? Then pentium3.

More recent gcc (3.4.x) has explicit support for centrino, with cpu-type pentium-m

Re:Anyone know what Gentoo stage to use?

[MarcQuadra]

The pentium M is NOT a P4 at heart, it's an intel i686 core (same as PIII) with added instructions and a different bus to the northbridge. It has the same feature set of a P4 but that doesn't make it a P4.

GCC-3.4.3 has a "-march=pentium-m" option, btw.

If you're stuck with an older gcc, try:

"march=pentium3 -msse2"

which should get you as close as can be to optimal scheduling.

Using "march=pentium4" will probably yield slower code than using just "pentium3" because the scheduling for these CPUs is so different.

I spend too much time doing this shit.

the pentium M is amazing

[0111 1110]

A couple of more links
here and here.

At the moment AMD is kicking Intel's arse in the performance sector. The pentium M (Banias) is the only remaining tech that Intel really has. Lots of chickens have come home to roost now that Intel's super-ultra-mega clockspeed boosted chip has reached the end of the line.

For the sake of a continuing healthy, competive market even the most die hard AMD fans had better hope that Intel gets back on track and allows some engineers to actually make some product decisions for a change. The Banias core seems to be their only hope.

I have found all of these recent benchmarks to be rather amazing. It's tough for anything to beat an overclocked Pentium M in games even with the huge disadvantages of an aging platform without all the latest goodies. Intel should be embarrassed. Deeply. Their Pentium 4 is a disgrace.

It is clear that for anyone who cares at all about power consumption, heat, or noise, nothing can touch a Pentium M, not even a Cool n' Quiet enabled 90nm Winchester Athlon64. If Aopen releases a desktop motherboard with the upcoming alviso (PCI-E, DDR2 etc) chipset, things could get very interesting indeed.

Did AMD run on a 64-bit OS?

[Jeppe Salvesen]

It seems to me that Anandtech didn't run the Linux benchmarks in 64-bit mode for the AMD processors. Given that they are giving an indication of processor performance, they should allow AMD to use that extra gear. It's there to be used!

Re:Anyone know what Gentoo stage to use?

[Florian Weimer]

[Pentium 4 scheduling in GCC]

I think it does have at least something rudimentary in that department

This was a bug.