Centrino Mobile Equals Desktop Pentium 4 in Speed

Spy Handler writes "On Wednesday during the launch of its new Sonoma Centrino Mobile, Intel put on a demonstration running a video game on a laptop. It matched the performance of a high-end Pentium 4 desktop running the same game, declared Intel. The contenders were a laptop sporting a 2.13 GHz Pentium M processor, 1GB RAM, and the Alviso chipset versus a desktop with a 3.6 GHz Pentium 4 with hyperthreading, 1GB RAM, and the Grantsdale chipset. Is this a testament to how far the Pentium Mobile architecture has come, or a sad comment on the clockspeed-pushing design of the Pentium 4?"

Comments

Both!

[Theovon]

Intel's finally learning the lesson everyone else knew about 5 years ago. Too little, too late? Or can Centrino save them?

Not CPU-limited.

[Temporal]

Is this a testament to how far the Pentium Mobile architecture has come, or a sad comment on the clockspeed-pushing design of the Pentium 4?

I think it's a testament to the fact that whatever game they were running doesn't bottleneck at the CPU. Most video games are not CPU-limited beyond a GHz or two.

Re:Not CPU-limited.

[gl4ss]

maybe they were using intels graphic chips too? that would explain it.

also. what kind of idiot they got in marketing? the whole comparision is just saying "look, our top of the line desktop chip is shit for gaming!"(not totally true even).

Re:Not CPU-limited.

[Anonymous Coward]

The sad thing is, they were testing using Solitare.

Not enough information

[holymoo]

hmm I would like to know which video game it ran to get equal performance. Also, was the game software rendered or was there a graphics chipset involved?

Not enough info for a statement

[MarcoPon]

> Is this a testament to how far the Pentium Mobile architecture has come, or a sad comment on the clockspeed-pushing design of the Pentium 4?

No, it's probably only a testament on not showing enough info about the benchmark system/conditions to provide any useful technical data, but only marketing data.
Who know? Maybe the game was simply framerate limited by the similar integrated graphics chipset.

I'm not saying that the Pentium M isn't fast, or as fast as a desktop P4; only that probably that demo don't prove that.
Just my 2c.

Bye!

Performance of Pentium 4...

[SharpFang]

...with the fan attached or without?

I had the "pleasure" of performing a heavy number crunching on a P4 laptop. Luckily it was winter and one of the rooms in my house is unheated. Leaving the laptop there (temp. about +3C) with bottom lifted off the floor by some books to allow free access to the built-in fan prevented it from entering thermal throttling mode and allowed it to run at full speed...

It's a sad comment all right

[Spacejock]

I 'upgraded' from a P3-1 ghz to a P4-2.26 ghz and noticed hardly any difference. I upgraded from my P4 to an Athlon64 3400+ and it not only smokes it, it also has a variable clock speed which only ramps up when needed.

I've been a loyal intel user since the Pentium 90 came out, but after building several cheap and stable AMD systems for friends and family I took the plunge myself, and I'm more than happy.

Re:It's a sad comment all right

[sh0dan]

It isn't just an issue of clock speed, but also CPU core voltage. Throttling the clock speed from 2Ghz to 400Mhz can also be combined with a lower CPU voltage. So you are not only running the CPU slower, but also supplying it with a lower voltage.

I don't know about P4, but on AMD systems this allows for the CPU fan to completely stop when the CPU is idle (on desktop systems).

Why are we still married to clock speed?

[Dagny Taggert]

As an earlier poster mentioned, most newer games depend more on the GPU than the CPU; anything over 2Ghz is almost overkill.
Intel and AMD are in the awkward position of needing to create a market for new processors in a world where a 1Ghz processor will do most office tasks brilliantly. They pushed speed, speed and more speed for so long that the average consumer doesn't give a whit about HyperThreading or anything else. Tech heads and researchers and universities are different, but is that enough to support to very large chip manufacturers forever?

Re:When will they compare Pentium M vs 4?

[illumin8]

Centrino is fine and dandy, but I still want a little bit more speed than that. I want a Pentium M, but I also want to know how it really is vs that desktop. I would really like to have the fastest thing for a new laptop, as judged by experienced people. So Intel, come on and test all your chips against that 'fast' desktop!

FYI, Centrino is the same thing as Pentium M. Centrino just means you bought a laptop with a Pentium M processor and Intel's wireless chipset. bundled together. Why, oh why does Intel insist on giving everything some crappy marketing name and confusing customers?

Benchmark time

[Zeinfeld]

I think it's a testament to the fact that whatever game they were running doesn't bottleneck at the CPU. Most video games are not CPU-limited beyond a GHz or two.

Its time to do what we used to do back in 1990 before the Pentium arrived, run benchmarks to determine how fast the machine is.

The only interesting thing about using a game as a benchmark is if the thing will run. Its not unusual to find that a game simply does not run on a laptop.

Pentium M will catch up ONLY when FSB goes up

[StandardCell]

As I had mentioned in a previous comment, the front side bus speed is the biggest limiting factor on Pentium M processors. The day we see an 800MHz FSB Pentium M is the day the direct MHz comparisons will apply (i.e. 1.8GHz P-M vs. 1.8GHz A64). Even the Tom's Hardware Guide review of the new Sonoma chipset for P-M shows fairly marginal gains and proves the FSB is the limitation, PLUS they do the stupid thing here and put in DDR-2 which does little for performance but increases system costs.