Socket Adapter Brings Pentium M to Desktop

EconolineCrush writes "Intel's Pentium M processor is widely regarded as the company's most compelling chip, and although desktop versions of it won't be available until next year, a new adapter from Asus allows users to run a Pentium M on existing Socket 478 motherboards. When coupled with a compatible motherboard, the CT-479 adapter is much cheaper than existing Pentium M desktop platforms, and also offers better performance by allowing the processor access to dual-channel memory configurations. Considering the Pentium M's frugal power consumption and great clock-for-clock performance, this could be an interesting upgrade for those looking for a low-noise system."

Comments

Fairly Cheap

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, now I know what the question was for the answer of life, the universe, and everything. It's, "how much does the CT-479 cost."

Re:Fairly Cheap

[thegoogler]

quite a bit more than even a 3800+, 1.7ghz is $250 at newegg, and i think 2ghz was at about $399-410 right now, so

more than you would want to pay for a chip+adaptor

Re:Fairly Cheap

[/ASCII]

I don't understand Intels pricing of the Pentium M. It is like they really don't want anybody buying it. Quite a lot of people want to trade in a tiny amount of performance for a huge decrease in wattage. But the way Intel price the Pentium M and associated motherboard circuts, that option is far to expensive for most people. Why not diversify the processor line by selling both fast low wattage processors and slightly cheaper fast high wattage processors?

Re:Fairly Cheap

[eobanb]

Dude, he was asking how much the adapter, the CT-479, in the article was. It's $42.49.

Re:Fairly Cheap

[Anonymous Coward]

Sure AMD is cheaper to buy but nobody ever count the actual cost of running the damn thing...

Heck, if the pentium M is quieter (easyer to cool) AND it saves me more than 70$* per year in electricity bills hell I will certenly shell out a few bucks more for it.

Of corse if AMD put out a CPU that has reasonable power consumption (less than 20 watts) then the hell with Intel, but in the mean time, Intel has the lead with this baby

*Calculated wit the local (Québec) rates so it will most probably be double or more that for anyone else outside

Re:Fairly Cheap

[Bill Wong]

everything is cheaper on ebay.
although, the quality and condition is often dubious.
I've built quite a few low-power p3m/p4m/PM systems for my own home, and for family, mostly using 1.4 Ghz P4Ms (SL5ZH). They are fairly low power, and, generate only-just-enough-heat, that i've been able to run them fanless (with a huge heatsink, albeit). I've been very lucky with ebay, often being able to pick up my processors for 20~30 bucks. And, ever so often I manage to snipe a p3m for $5 bucks :)
the ultra low voltage Pentium-Ms that I like are a bit rare on ebay though. I've only picked up one SL7F4 (the 1.1Ghz P-M ULV) on ebay, and I paid out of my nose for it (but, still cheaper then retail!)
But, again, the quality is often not so good. I've gotten quite a few DOAs and processors that only lasted a few days before dying. But, such is the price of cheap processors :)

Re:Fairly Cheap

[scum-e-bag]

Why not diversify the processor line by selling both fast low wattage processors and slightly cheaper fast high wattage processors?

The Intel marketing dept doesn't want to look foolish after having spent all that money on promoting the P4...

Re:Fairly Cheap

[Quattro Vezina]

Because Intel doesn't have the balls to admit that NetBurst (the P4's microarchitecture) is a steaming pile of crap, and that the Pentium M is far superior to anything that's ever been based on NetBowel.

And, for the record, the PM already contains the only two good features the P4 ever had: SSE2 and the QDR bus. And that's on top of all the wonderful features of the PM that have nothing to do with the P4.

Yeah, Intel is really insecure right now. They're too ashamed to admit that the P4 was a massive fuckup, so they're trying to hide what could have been an incredibly good desktop platform.

Re:Fairly Cheap

[ciroknight]

But that's just it, if it wasn't for the Pentium 4, there'd be no Pentium M. Pentium M was designed as a comprimise between the Pentium 3 M and the Pentium 4 M. The P3M was a fast mobile chip, but they needed something faster and lower in heat production. So, taking the technologies from the Pentium 4 (Netburst-style micro-ops fusion, QDR FSB (and pretty much all of the logic dedicated to bussing), SSE2, (SSE3 eventually), along with the Pentium 4's voltage profile, etc), they made a fairly compatible chip (testimony to the ability to use a small adapter to fix the pinout for the P4 board to use a PM).

Now, the Pentium 4 serves the Pentium M in one last service until they can retire this iteration of Netburst; a technological proving ground for new technologies. Think about all of the innovation going into the Pentium 4, better virtualization support (vanderpool), dual cores, EM64T, NX Bit, the list goes on and on. These are all things that will find their way into the Pentium M, but aren't appropriate as of current for a mobile processor.

Lastly, I'd hate to say that Netburst is dead. I think just as everyone does, Intel has made some mistakes with the Pentium 4 that are unforgivable. The next iteration of the Pentium series based on Netburst will probably have the Pentium M's cache system, a shortened pipeline, and a lot of micro-op revamping. It'll probably only see the light of day in the Xeon department, giving Intel something they've been working towards for quite a while; having different archetectures, better suited for work that they're doing.

Normally, I'd go into everything AMD is doing to compete, but since this articles all about Intel, I'm just gonna sit back and be done. Note that I'm an all-around processor fanboy from lowly ARMs to the biggest of the bigboy processors IBM's cranking out.

Re:Fairly Cheap

[habibcs]

Now machines like MiniPC needs to be more common rather than conventional desktops.
we need a miniature packed PC like ps2/3 or xbox or perhaps even smaller :P

Re:Fairly Cheap

[Antique Geekmeister]

The Pentium M is basically a souped-up Pentium-III. The Intel vice presidents and managers who were responsible for the Pentium-IV and its thefts of technologies from DEC don't want to admit that the theft was wasted and the switchover to RAMbus heralded by the Pentium-IV was a complete waste of many billions of dollars of everyone's time, effort, and money.

Tom's Hardware goes into good detail on why the Pentium M is superior, but the basic reason is vastly lower power consumption by not using unnecessary technologies, with its improvements in cooling and reliability.

Re:Fairly Cheap

[Kurisuteru]

Sure AMD is cheaper to buy but nobody ever count the actual cost of running the damn thing...

I'll go check the Intel and AMD sites for specs later (I'm currently on a very expensive GSM dialup) but does the P4 have a speed throttle?

Every P4-based machine I've seen (including new HT) runs at full speed with full fan from startup. They also run very hot. very fast.

My AMD64 3000+ runs at 1 GHz when I'm not doing anything very intensive, the fan runs almost silent, keeping the system at ~30 deg.

This leads me to think I save on my power bill since it runs "slow" 70% of the time. Granted, when I do renders or play games, it is Teh Noise itself with the fan running FAST. Even if this may use even more power than the P4 at full blast, the benefits of silence (and cooler room temp now in the summer) when I'm writing/coding/openofficing outweights the possible power drain when I'm gaming...

Re:Fairly Cheap

[walt-sjc]

I would also gather that there is no major roadblocks tht would prevent Intel from creating a dual-core Pentium M that is socket compatible with 478. That would be a chip that I would be interested in...

Re:Fairly Cheap

[Renegrade]

I've personally found the opposite in my LAN. The one P4 (3ghz/HT) machine's fan runs silent until the ambient temperature becomes too high (over 28C; too many windows, not enough air conditioning, and the blinds suck), but I had to install a regulator on my 64 3000+, since it almost immediately cranks the fan to 5700 regardless of load or external temperature. While it may be impressive having a 34C processor temperature, I found it a lot less ear shattering to have a 38C processor and a 3500rpm fan. Oh, and this was before I assigned full workload to the 3000+. The P4 was already running a full workload for many months before summer/high external temperatures came.

Disclaimer: this is only a sample set of two. All the other machines are AthlonXP/400mhz bus P4s/P3s/P2s/etc. But it does illustrate that not ALL P4/HT machines have that issue, and at least ONE Athlon64 3000+ that does (or did, until I installed the regulator).

Re:Fairly Cheap

[Grishnakh]

First, there is no "Pentium-IV". It's the "Pentium 4". They stopped using roman numerals with the 4.

Second, what thefts? Intel bought out portions of DEC when it collapsed. Using rights to IP you've bought isn't theft.

However, the rest is correct. RAMBUS was a big waste of time and money, and the P4 is based on a lot of bad ideas, and as a result doesn't perform that well. Why are we stuck with it now? Because there's a lot of big egos at Intel who can't admit it was all a mistake. Unfortunately, we're all pretty much stuck with it; AMD isn't really a viable option for most of the industry. Most of the large computer makers only use Intel, and even if everyone wanted to change all of a sudden, AMD doesn't have the manufacturing capacity to churn out that many CPUs. One thing you have to admit about Intel is that its biggest strength is in manufacturing: they have a lot of fabs, and can crank out a lot of chips really fast and really cheap. No one else can match them there. If only they had the best designs...

Re:Fairly Cheap

[Antique Geekmeister]

Even Intel employees get the P-4, Pentium 4, P-IV, etc. names mixed up now and then, but yes, I misnamed that one, although the chanfe of format was silly on their part.

The technology thefts from DEC by Intel for the P-4 were fairly well recorded in the press when the Pentium 4 first appeard. Yes, they stole technologies and violated patents, yes, they got caught, and yes, they settled out of court. It was sad but hilarious how the money Intel made with lesser quality chips made with stolen technologyy, but better marketed, less expensive, and more Microsoft partnered, were able to help bury DEC and put them out of business, leaving their remaining few assets for sale. DEC had their VMS technolgoy stolen by Alpha, and their Alpha technolgoy stolen by Intel. Between the both of them, they ate DEC's lunch.

AMD is doing interesting work, but Intel is lagging now that they lack companies like DEC to steal from.

Re:Fairly Cheap

[Grishnakh]

I agree that the change of format was silly on their part (in fact, keeping the "pentium" name when the chip was architecturally completely different from its predecessors was pretty stupid too), but that's marketing for you.

I thought Alpha was just a processor made by DEC, not a separate entity from DEC at one time. Do you have any references for this?

Intel can still take ideas from AMD if they wish: as I understand it, they have a cross-licensing agreement so that either one can use patents from the other. But the big egos at Intel can't admit that the P4 was a terrible idea (it's good for video encoding, but that's about it), so it looks like we're stuck with it for a while unfortunately.

Re:Fairly Cheap

[Antique Geekmeister]

I do seem to be having a typing problem. The VMS technology was stolen by Intenl from DEC, by hiring away David Cutler and his peers in a very famous case of grievous intellectual property theft. The settlement is apparently why NT was contractually promised by Microsoft to operate on Alphas: its kernel was basically written for Alphas, although the support soon became so poor and so few applications were ported to it that the market dried up rather quickly for DEC.

I'm not sure Intel can steal from AMD as easily as Microsoft and Intel stole from DEC: AMD is more willing to fight in court than DEC was, and less likely to accept a settlement that buys them a year of viability at the expense of their core technologies.

awesome

[poind3xt3r]

w00t. now ive got a reason to smash open my ibm t30

Re:awesome

[mpathetiq]

You need a reason?

Re:awesome

[darkjedi521]

Hate to break it to you, but those things had the short lived Pentium 4-M mobile chips in them. They make nice space heaters.

Re:awesome

[poind3xt3r]

tomatoes, tomatos

Re:awesome

[toddestan]

Hate to break it to you, but those things had the short lived Pentium 4-M mobile chips in them. They make nice space heaters.

Actually, the P4-M is still around, unfortunently. Seen mostly in bottom of the line budget notebooks, where it is still barely cheaper than the Celeron-M, or in those big gamers notebooks that can heat a small house.

Re:awesome

[bhtooefr]

Hell, even the big gamers notebooks, they're going to the Pentium M... (*cough*XPS Gen 2*cough*)

Re:awesome

[level_headed_midwest]

Yup, I have a 2.2GHz P4-M in my laptop (2002-vintage Gateway 600). It was top 'o the line when it came out, but unfortunately, the Pentium Ms came out about a year later. 35W from the chips does make the lap toasty.

Re:awesome

[goneutt]

Gamer notebooks? I lug my tower PC around to lan battles. And I win. Wonder why?

And the LCD display is the only reason I get away with that.

Re:awesome

[bhtooefr]

Naturally, you're gonna have faster components on the top end - an FX-57 will blow any stock P-M, and some OC'd P-Ms, out of the water. Also, I believe that the GF Go 6800U has lower clocks than the desktop 6800U. Also, LCD users typically run their screens at the native resolution, which on most gaming laptops is higher than that of most sanely priced desktop LCDs.

However, that doesn't necessarily mean that a desktop user will beat a laptop user. Put someone who's never gamed before in front of the desktop, and put a pro in front of the laptop, and guess who wins...

Low noise?

[daviq]

So then your not going to overclock it with really big fans?

In other news...

[nxtr]

Intel releases the Pentium M processor.

Next logical step for quiet PC's.

[Sv-Manowar]

I've always wondered about the potential of today's mobile cpu's as quiet/silent & power efficient replacements for the current crop of desktop processors. It'll be interesting to see how Intel react to this, and if enough people make use of these adapters to noticably affect P-M sales. After reading articles about silent PC's, and the various steps/careful hardware choice required to create them, its only logical to move to components where the cooling & noise issues have already been considered in the component design.

Re:Next logical step for quiet PC's.

[Anonymous Coward]

Why not just get a laptop?

If you need additional storage, TV tuners, etc. you can attach them via USB or firewire.

Re:Next logical step for quiet PC's.

[Sv-Manowar]

I use a Powerbook, and I'd pretty much suggest the same thing myself.. that most people looking for a quiet pc would be far better served with a laptop of some kind instead (not to mention the numerous benefits of laptops combined with wifi etc). However moving well-thought out, power conserving chips from the laptop to the desktop can only be a step forward for desktops in general, and a crucial change of direction from the bigger-is-better P4 Extreme Edition style upgrades that have been delivered in the last few years.

Re:Next logical step for quiet PC's.

[syukton]

Laptop screens are not friendly to gaming.
Laptop RAM capabilities are usually limited at 1GB or 2GB.
Laptop CPUs cannot generally be upgraded.

Those are probably the big reasons.

Re:Next logical step for quiet PC's.

[EnronHaliburton2004]

Because a laptop is about $500 more expensive then the equivilant desktop?

Heck, I have a spare AGP video card, spare 80G hard drive, spare soundcard --- combine it with an AOpen Metropolitan XC Cube EY855-II for $225, and it's looking like a pretty good deal.

Re:Next logical step for quiet PC's.

[LurkerXXX]

Also most laptops don't come with upgradable video cards. Plus the video cards they do come with generally aren't nearly as good as similarly priced desktop video cards.

Re:Next logical step for quiet PC's.

[Kjella]

I'm sure Intel will be happy to sell them at the current extra high laptop-premium. The real question is if/when the same characteristics will be available in a common desktop. I don't think Intel is ready to cannibalize their laptop margins so they can sell it to the mass market, at least not until they have to. And while the PIVs aren't exactly dazzling, they are holding their ground against the A64.

Kjella

Re:Next logical step for quiet PC's.

[EpsCylonB]

As far as I am aware Intel is planning on implementing the Pentium M processor as a desktop processor anyway, this adapter simply means that you can be ahead of the curve.

Re:Next logical step for quiet PC's.

[fulldecent]

So what you're saying is throw away the iMac G5's and bring back the lamp?

Re:Next logical step for quiet PC's.

[level_headed_midwest]

Several reasons: 1. Desktops are less expensive for the same amount of CPU horsepower. 2. RAM, hard drives, opticals are all faster and less expensive. 3. Desktops are easy to fix if something breaks- parts are standard (except for some Mac parts.) Laptops are all proprietary. A $30 CD drive will cost $200 to replace.

Re:Next logical step for quiet PC's.

[Chandon Seldon]

$500 more is a good first guess, but I think you're shooting low. I'd suggest "More than twice as expensive" as a good starting point.

As a data point, I recently got a new laptop and built a new destop for my cousin. In both cases I took full advantage of the internet and got everything as cheaply and efficiently as possible.

For systems with the following specs:
~1.8 ghz gaming processor (Athlon 64 3000+ for the desktop, Pentium M 750 for the laptop); 1 gig of RAM; 80 gig hard drive; PCI Express GeForce 6600; Dual Layer DVD Writer; Large, high resolution display (19" crt @ 1600x1200 & 15.4" LCD @ 1680x1050)

I paid about $1800 for the laptop and about $800 for the desktop. That's not taking into account a secondary battery and external mouse that I needed for the laptop, bringing the actual laptop price up another $150.

Re:Next logical step for quiet PC's.

[scum-e-bag]

In such a case, you are not going to want a Pentium-M. You will want raw cpu power which is not the Pentium Ms forte.

Re:Next logical step for quiet PC's.

[freidog]

As one of the many people who picked up an AthlonXP-Mobile, I can tell you it's pretty nice.
An SI-97 and a Panflo ultra quiet fan, it's nice and cool, and the loudest thing on the computer is a pair of WD ATA hard drives.

The biggest drawback to intel right now for me is the 80-100+W TDP on most of their chips.
I look forward to a dual core Yonah ~40-50W part.

Re:Next logical step for quiet PC's.

[mccoma]

Tom's Hardware has an article from today about the new Pentium-Ms and Celeron with TDP listed.

Pentium-M 778 - 1.6 GHz - TDP of 10 watts
Pentium-M 780 - 2.26 GHz - TDP of 27 watts
Celeron 380 - 1.6 Ghz - TDP of 21 watts

Re:Next logical step for quiet PC's.

[mcrbids]

Several reasons: 1. Desktops are less expensive for the same amount of CPU horsepower. 2. RAM, hard drives, opticals are all faster and less expensive. 3. Desktops are easy to fix if something breaks- parts are standard (except for some Mac parts.) Laptops are all proprietary. A $30 CD drive will cost $200 to replace.

Based on this post, I'd guess that (pick one)

1) You've never used a laptop system.

2) You've only used a dysfunctional laptop system.

3) You are tight of means.

I resisted having a laptop, until my work more or less forced me to buy one. I bought a 1.7 Ghz Dell Inspiron 600m, and I run RedHat Fedora Core on it. It took a few months for me to get used to 60 GB instead of 250 GB. I think it was when I upgraded to 1.5 GB of RAM that it really started to grow on me.

Now, I go anywhere, compute on the couch, back patio, coffee shop, airport, etc. I take "workations" now, where I go on vacation with my wife/kids, knowing that I'll be working a partial workweek. Throw the laptop in the back, and off I go...

Once you've experienced the freedom and comfort of a good laptop system, you'll *never* want to go back! I know I sure won't!

Re:Next logical step for quiet PC's.

[ciroknight]

I'd argue against that. The Pentium M is a number crusher, with an IPC up there with the newer AMD64's. When the first generation came out, they were destroying chips that were clocked nearly one and a half times faster, and it was doing it without putting out the absurd amount of heat that now makes these chips legendary.

With that, the Pentium M is an overclocker, game enthusiast's dream. If you could get it to run (Vcore problems I would assume forthright), it could soar to the cycle-rate of the P4's today and be crushing newer processors. And I assure you, everyone, including Intel, gets this.

I'm very, very surprised that Intel hasn't tried to slip it on desktop consumers yet. I guess they wouldn't get away with it thanks to enthusiasts, which would spread pretty quick to the general public, especially without 64-bit support. I really don't understand the panecea it's supposed to offer (more ram addressing, a few more registers, anything else worth my while?), but right now, it's the key to public support.

Re:Next logical step for quiet PC's.

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow. You give three options with no facts or reasoning to support them. And then do nothing to refute his claims. Everyone knows laptops are portable, that's kind of the point of a laptop really. If you don't have any use for the portability, laptops really don't have a lot to recommend them.

Re:Next logical step for quiet PC's.

[level_headed_midwest]

Actually, the computer that I own and have used primarily for the last almost three years is a laptop. It is far from dysfunctional, but it is getting old. It was an extremely nice and fast laptop when it came out (late 2002) and still runs passably. But, if you look at the details: 1. My laptop has a 2.2GHz P4-M chip, the fastest made when I bought it. Desktops were just shipping with the original 3.06/533 HT chips, which are considerably faster than my P4-M (same architecture, more GHz.) Centrino chips, which in some cases can run with the Athlon 64s and fast Pentium 4s, were not introduced until about a year later. 2. My laptop has a maximum of 1GB of DDR266 RAM. Desktop systems generally had a maximum of 2 GB when my unit was shipped as the Intel 865 chipsets were in the desktops and mine's an 845. SODIMM RAM is also about twice as expensive as regular RAM. 3. I would love to upgrade my hard drive, but a 60GB, 7200 rpm IDE drive costs about $250 while the same drive for a desktop would be $50. And that's a standard part as I can use any 2.5" hard drive. 4. My CD-R/RW drive is slow. But to replace it would costs about $200 as it is a special modular unit made only for my model and one other (Gateway 600, it also fits the 400.) A CD-R/RW drive for a desktop is a $20-30 item. 5. You can keep a monitor from a desktop and reuse it. My 15.7" LCD panel stays with my laptop. Yes, the portability is nice. I do take my laptop around with me for my job, too and it is handy. But that's really only because I like using my full-size keyboard on my unit (as opposed to the small-pitch ones on the little Dell laptops lying around) and that I have grown to hate Windows XP and the way that the IATS-owned computers are set up. (I work at a hospital.) So I drag my 8.5-pound SuSE 9.3-running laptop around with me pretty much only because I have to. I almost never take it to class unless something needs to be typed up or I have to give a slideshow presentation. Being an engineering student, that's very rare outside of labs, where I choose not to use the old NT4 machines to type up (and lose) my reports.

Re:Next logical step for quiet PC's.

[neildiamond]

FYI, you can DIY fix some laptop parts rather easily... mostly. Usually (I stress usually) you can swap drives and cd-roms. You have to attach and detach the outside bevel parts with tiny screwdrivers. Yes, the potential for screwing up bigtime is there (I've done it). Once you get used to working on the little guys, they aren't that bad. Ebay has a lot of replacement parts available. Nowadays, upgrading the RAM is pretty well thought-out. You used to have to rip the whole thing apart and pray it went back together properly. Unfortunately, the lcds are mostly proprietary, though you might get lucky. I've had one that was interchangeable with another laptop, but that's it.

Of course, you usually can't change the video card (with the exception of one Dell model I read about), but who uses a laptop for serious gaming anyway?

My advice for long life, keep the CPU fan clean.

Re:Next logical step for quiet PC's.

[Renegrade]

I'd argue against that. The Pentium M is a number crusher, with an IPC up there with the newer AMD64's

Yes, it is. I have a 1600mhz Pentium M, and a 1833mhz AMD64 (3000+), and the Pentium M is on par with the 64's processing capabilities. That's pretty impressive considering the Pentium M is saddled with crappy, low speed, single-channel memory and is 233mhz slower.

Re:Next logical step for quiet PC's.

[kelnos]

Laptop screens are not friendly to gaming.

Then buy an external monitor. You can either have portability or a nice large screen. With a laptop you get the former.

Laptop RAM capabilities are usually limited at 1GB or 2GB.

So? At present, that's more than enough for the majority of users. When need for more actually materialises, expect to see laptops with support for more RAM.

Laptop CPUs cannot generally be upgraded.

Yep, that's a problem. Then again, I've been using an Athlon 1.33GHz on my primary machine for four years now. An upgrade would be nice, but far from required. With new chipsets, CPU sockets, RAM types, etc., if you wait a few years for a CPU upgrade, you're likely to have to replace more than the CPU. For me, I'd need a new motherboard, new RAM, and even a new video card if I wanted a CPU upgrade. To buy significantly powerful parts that would justify the upgrade, I'd likely be spending $400 on it. I'm not saying that that's comparable to spending over $1k on a new laptop, but it's certainly not peanuts.

Sure, a laptop as a desktop replacement isn't suitable for everyone. But in many situations, the benefits of this arrangement far outweigh the downsides.

Re:Next logical step for quiet PC's.

[cthulhu11]

[i]Laptop screens are not friendly to gaming.[/i] The average 12 year old probably isn't shopping for a laptop anyway. [i]Laptop RAM capabilities are usually limited at 1GB or 2GB.[/i] [b]Limited to[/b]??? I assert that the fraction of even [b]desktops[/b] that will ever see 1GB is tiny. [i]Laptop CPUs cannot generally be upgraded.[/i] So? How many x86 desktop buyers ever upgrade their CPU? They pass the machine alone to someone else after 5-10 years and buy a new one.

Re:Next logical step for quiet PC's.

[mcrbids]

I guess you missed my point: performance on a computer now is marginal in value. Good enough, is good enough. So long as it's reasonably current, who cares? Really, unless you're in a specialized field or have special needs, how much does a 2.x Ghz chip vs 1.x chip make for you? How much time do you *really* spend waiting for your computer?

A 60 gig drive can be had for just $77 on pricewatch. (and I'm well aware that it's 4200 RPM, not 7200, see above about performance being marginal in value)

My Dell Inspiron 600m has a 60GB, 4200 RPM drive. With 1.5 GB of RAM installed, it manages to run Fedora Core 3, Windows XP, AND Windows 98 simultaneously (VMWare) with enough speed to allow for my primary job to go quite successfully. (I write database software in PHP/PHP-GTK)

I won't argue that laptops aren't more expensive, I never did. But what I'm saying is: It's worth it and now having tasted the fruit, I will not stop eating it! The ability to manage my servers while sitting in my back patio by the pool while the kids swim is priceless.

The ability to show up at a client's location, armed with all relevant and available information (a la email, web, bookmarks, and documents) and update things in realtime according to changing specs in real time is priceless.

If the $150 for a replacement CDROM is a big deal, then you fall under "limited means". Note that your $30 CDRom is a piece of crap that might last a year if you're lucky - a decent, quality, name-brand item with a warrrantee is going to cost more like $75, and you haven't figured in the cost of installation. If you have it done by a "service professional" at your local best buy, it'll be another $50, while the laptop cdrom is installed/removed by just yanking on it.

Hmmm - now your $170 savings just dropped to $75 or so. How much is an hour or two of YOUR time worth?

Re:Next logical step for quiet PC's.

[jeffgeno]

Hmmm - now your $170 savings just dropped to $75 or so. How much is an hour or two of YOUR time worth?

I'd imagine 90% of the people reading your post, including me, can swap out a defective optical drive in less than 10 minutes. And unless Sony, LiteOn, NEC, Toshiba, and Pioneer are "piece of crap" drives, you can most certainly get a DVD burner for less than $50.

'compelling' chip?

[cheezus_es_lard]

Can someone explain to me exactly what the chip compels one to do?

Re:'compelling' chip?

[Kris_J]

Given that it has high performance for very low power consumption, it compels one to buy it. 130W less than a P4 @ 3.4GHz under load? Depending on your video card, that might make the difference between a power supply with fans and one without.

Re:'compelling' chip?

[wankledot]

Buy, buy, buy!

Re:'compelling' chip?

[rockola]

It's just like in The Exorcist, where they intone "The power of Christ compels you!" over and over, seemingly assuming that a demon would instantly get what it is... I'd think most demons would have a tendency to skip Sunday school.

Re:'compelling' chip?

[kesuki]

It might also save up to $0.30 cents a day.. in electricity.. up to $9 a month (if you always run at load) the difference won't be so profound at idle speeds, but it will still be noticable.

Re:'compelling' chip?

[Kris_J]

It might also save up to $0.30 cents a day.. in electricity.. up to $9 a month (if you always run at load)

You forget the saving from fewer fans and less air conditioning.

Re:'compelling' chip?

[VectorSC]

Well, if you watch Hellsing (the anime), it compels you to drink blood and kill innocents. Way to go Intel!

Re:'compelling' chip?

[Jedi Alec]

I'll do you one better. 130W running at full load for an entire day means a total use of 3.12 kWh. Here in Holland a kWh is about 20 eurocents, so say about 62 eurocents a day, or 0.75 dollars/day...

Re:'compelling' chip?

[ne0n]

i dunno about you, but i'm nearly naked right now :) that's one compelling chip, amigo

Re:'compelling' chip?

[Antique Geekmeister]

It's also vastly better for Beowulfs and cluster computing, since such a reduction in power consumption will seriously cut cooling costs and reduce the need for extra power cabling and uninterruptible power supplies to handle power outages. Extending the power outage lifetime of a data canter by 50% by using a different CPU at no significant performance cost is a big, big deal. Keeping computing cluster cooling costs and requirements of chilled air down is also a big, big deal.

PentiumM in desktop vs Mobile Barton in desktop

[non-poster]

So, I've been running a AMD Mobile Athlon XP Barton (link) in my desktop for about a year, in a standard Socket A motherboard (NForce2 based). It is easily overclockable, and runs cooler than my previous main CPU, an Athlon XP 1800.

Is the PentiumM that much better, or is it just the CPU du jour?

Re:PentiumM in desktop vs Mobile Barton in desktop

[aetherspoon]

Disclaimer: I'm going off of stats, specs, and what others have said. I don't actually own one.

Picture the idea of a processor that uses less than 30W max (give you a hint, no other current processor comes close), and outperforms similarly speced processors without overclocking.
And at least according to Tom's Hardware, with overclocking it easily outperforms every processor on the market in most areas.

We're talking about a processor that produces so little heat that you can ditch all of those loud and/or expensive solutions on heat dispersion and run a slow fan and/or even none (although that takes effort).

Equivilent in the software world: Microsoft throwing out all of the code in windows and making Windows CE run 4 times as fast and still run the same programs somehow, but cost slighty more.

Re:PentiumM in desktop vs Mobile Barton in desktop

[Kris_J]

Indeed. Can anyone point to an article comparing performance and power consumption between AMD and Intel? Much as I like my current "Frame Rate Monster" PC, I'd like my next one to be near silent again.

Re:PentiumM in desktop vs Mobile Barton in desktop

[Phosphor3k]

Clock for clock (not price/performance mind you) all of the benchmarks I've seen have the newer Pentium Ms beating the ever-loving-crap out of P4 EEs AND Athlon 64s. I'm too lazy to look up any supporting links.

Re:PentiumM in desktop vs Mobile Barton in desktop

[aka1nas]

Actually, the lower voltage Mobile Barton models run on 35W, albeit they don't perform as well per clock as a P-M or A64. The Low voltage A64s, on the other hand, guzzle around 30W to 40W but you have to keep in mind that the memory controller is on the chip as well. On a Pentium M setup, the chipset will be using more power as the mem controller is still on the northbridge so overall system power consumption will be close enough that you wouldn't notice on a desktop system.

Re:PentiumM in desktop vs Mobile Barton in desktop

[Silverlancer]

Imagine a processor that uses 16 watts (at 1.6Ghz, 21 watts at 2.1Ghz, 24 watts at 2.4ghz) that runs faster clock per clock than an A64.

Re:PentiumM in desktop vs Mobile Barton in desktop

[cbreaker]

Other processors come close. And they got more stuff on board, like memory controllers and multimedia extensions.

Again, it's not a 1:1 battle for the least watts of heat like it's not a 1:1 battle for more Mhz. There's other factors.

I think the Pentium 3.. erm.. Pentium M is a fine chip and I always liked the P3 more then the P4. P4 turned me off from the start with it's lackluster performance and expensive Rambus RAM. Pentium 3's continued to beat the P4 in performance for some time until the P4's got into the 2.0+ Ghz range.

AMD has never let me down with any of their chips, way back to the 486DX4 to the K6 to the Athlons and beyond. I see lots of promise on their mobile lines; and after feeling jaded from the Pentium 4 launch I'm not holding my breath for the Pentium-M.

Re:PentiumM in desktop vs Mobile Barton in desktop

[phusg]

Exactly. Maybe the Centrino is slightly more efficient, but it comes down to VCore in the end, and if you're undervolting your XP-M to 1.25V or lower then it's only using up to 25 Watts, according to http://www.tomshardware.com/mobile/20030507/.

I'm running a dual XP-M system and they're both volted at 1.35 VCore and running at 2400+ speed (1866MHz). Pretty comparable to the Centrino I'd say given the figures I've seen.

They're dirt chip at the moment, as are Socket A motherboards, and you don't need to spend money on the socket converter.

Re:PentiumM in desktop vs Mobile Barton in desktop

[i41Overlord]

Clock for clock, yes. But due to different architectures you have to make tradeoffs. Some, like the P4, don't do as much work clock for clock but can run at a very high clockspeed. Others, like the G5, do a lot of work per clock cycle but were unable to clock very high.

The A64 is a pretty good tradeoff, it does more work than the P4 per clock cycle but can still clock pretty high.

There's no use comparing clock per clock performance between two completely different architectures. Sure, you can overclock the Pentium-M to make it it outperform the A64 in official form. But then you can also overclock the A64 to easily outperform an overclocked Pentium-M.

Re:PentiumM in desktop vs Mobile Barton in desktop

[default luser]

Picture the idea of a processor that uses less than 30W max (give you a hint, no other current processor comes close),

No other processor, eh? Take a good, long look at those Winchester core power measurements. 33w for a 2.2 GHz processor, full-load, and 27w for a 1.8GHz, full-load. They sip much less than 10w when idle under Cool n Quiet, similar to the Pentium M.

While the PM uses less power, the Athlon 64 is certainly a close second. Now, take into account that the newer revisions of the A64 offer lower power consumption, 64-bit capability, an on-chip memory controller, and SSE3, and you see just how competitive the A64 is.

I believe what you meant to say is: no current Pentium 4 comes close.

and outperforms similarly speced processors without overclocking.

Typically, the PM is not competitve in applications that require strong floating point (and no, games don't typically require as strong of floating point performance as most people think). In all other applications, it is roughly 1:1 with the Athlon 64 in terms of performance per clock, and roughly 1.5:1 with the P4.

And at least according to Tom's Hardware, with overclocking it easily outperforms every processor on the market in most areas.

You can overclock A64 parts to impressive heights, especially with the latest core revisions.

Re:PentiumM in desktop vs Mobile Barton in desktop

[aetherspoon]

Last I checked, 33 was greater than 30. Other than that, congrats, you found one chip I didn't see before - hardly surprising when I haven't paid much attention to processor stats recently.

Still uses more power than the 27W of the P-M at max load though.

Also, performance per clock? Um... show me a benchmark that pits the P-M against those Winchester AMDs. I haven't seen one yet, but going against the benchmarks over on Toms, it doesn't look like it is as efficient to me...

Re:PentiumM in desktop vs Mobile Barton in desktop

[default luser]

Tom's doesn't know how to benchmark a chip. The folks there only post a limited viewpoint that supports whatever claim they're currently backing.

Note the sensationalist title, even though the Pentium M performs only so-so in the more modern gaming tests like Doom 3 and 3DMark, and falls behind in SSE-intensive tasks like video encoding.

Note also that the review uses Clawhammer and Newcastle core Athlon 64s. This is NO ACCIDENT. These cores are older, .13 micron jobs that produce a lot more heat than AMD's current lineup. If current cores had been used, the power usage difference wouldn't have been dramatic at all.

If you want to see a competent review of the Pentium M, see this review at Anand's. You'll see that the Pentium M is good for general-purpose computing, but but is only so-so for content creation for the most part.

In some cases the PM leads, in others the A64 leads, and in lots of benchmarks they match up fairly well clock-for-clock. Calling a winner depends on what you want to do with it.

Unfortunately, I don't think the PM's performance is going to hold it's own in upcoing games; the floating-point unit will be really stressed compared to all previous games with the coming of real physics simulation for more than a few objects on a map. That is the only reason I don't think Dothan is all-that.

However, Yonah should be an impressive improvement, both with the second core and beefier FPU / SSE unit. We'll have to wait and see.

Review, Pentium M on desktop hardware

[MooseMuffin]

Over at Tom's from a few weeks ago. http://www.tomshardware.com/cpu/20050525/index.htm l Redundant yet?

Re:Review, Pentium M on desktop hardware

[rsrsharma]

Covered by AnandTech back in March. Now that's gettin old.

Re:Review, Pentium M on desktop hardware

[darkmeridian]

Over at Tom's from a few weeks ago. http://www.tomshardware.com/cpu/20050525/index.htm l Redundant yet?


No. The story will not be redundant until next week, when the story is duped on Slashdot.

Re:Review, Pentium M on desktop hardware

[Anonymous Coward]

Over at Tom's from a few weeks ago.

Weeks? It's getting close to two months!

Re:Review, Pentium M on desktop hardware

[Anonymous Coward]

Interesting? WTF? News gets covered multiple times in multiple locations (no dupe jokes please). What do you think slashdot is, a news source?!

Re:Review, Pentium M on desktop hardware

[Man in Spandex]

Gamers will find this one interesting. Covered in November 11 2004. Now that's gettin old!

But it's not 64 bit!

[Soong]

I'm not feeling compelled.

Why take a step back from a G5?

Re:But it's not 64 bit!

[snuf23]

I dunno. I guess you'd have to ask Apple that question!

Seriously, expect to see lots of improvements in the Pentium M. I'm sure dual core and the Intel 64bit extensions will be added in to the line. It's likely the desktop versions won't be called Pentium Ms.

Re:But it's not 64 bit!

[ocelotbob]

While it's not 64-bit, I'm fairly certain that apple will put a chipset in their systems that use the 36 bit physical address extensions that have been in every 686+ processor that allows up to 32 gigabytes of RAM, which is more than what apple boxes are currently capable of supporting. At the moment, there are few apps that use 64 bit integers anyways, as they want to keep compatibility with G4-based systems.

Re:But it's not 64 bit!

[Anonymous Coward]

It's likely the desktop versions won't be called Pentium Ms.

Maybe they will call them M2s. Then we will have Pentium M&M2s.

Re:But it's not 64 bit!

[cnettel]

The roadmaps for next year show both dual-core and (I think) EM64T support in the laptop line.

Re:But it's not 64 bit!

[entrylevel]

What, specifically, are you using more than 4 GB of RAM for?

Also, Mac OS X is highly portable. Intel makes 64 bit x86 CPUs. Who is saying there won't be 64 bit Mactel machines?

Re:But it's not 64 bit!

[linguae]

Because Apple sells more than just Power Mac G5s. The Pentium M would be perfect for Apple's consumer lines (Mac Mini, eMac, iMac, iBook) and Apple's PowerBook line, because of its low energy consumption and good performance (compared to the G4 that the Pentium M will replace). iBook and PowerBook users won't have to worry about their laptops frying their laps, for one. Plus, perhaps we might see some of that Centrino stuff in Apple's notebook lines, since they will probably use the Pentium M.

As for the Power Macs, Intel has a 64-bit Pentium 4 (i.e., one that understand AMD's 64-bit extensions to the x86 instruction set) and the 64-bit Xeon. The Xeon is a server-class chip, so it might be seen on the XServes that Apple sells and is comparable to AMD's Opteron.

Intel actually sells a wide variety of chips for various different types of computers. I'm still a little disappointed that Apple is dropping the PowerPC (I still hate the x86 ISA and architecture with a passion), but Intel seems to have a pretty nice and well-rounded product line that is more suitable for a company like Apple. It's a shame that IBM have failed to deliver on their promises with 3GHz G5s and a cool laptop version of the G5; I would kill for a 64-bit non-x86 laptop with Mac OS X right now. But oh well.

Re:But it's not 64 bit!

[Anonymous Coward]

I would kill for a 64-bit non-x86 laptop with Mac OS X right now.

You will get a call. Don't say anything, you will be told where to pickup a briefcase. In it will be a gun, the target's photo, name, location and time of the hit. After you have completed the job, dispose of the gun and case. Another call will tell you where to get the laptop you desire.

Re:But it's not 64 bit!

[ArbitraryConstant]

Pentium 4s and Xeons outperform G5s by quite a bit, and this Pentium M outperforms them.

Re:But it's not 64 bit!

[Anonymous Coward]

...and they use x times the power and may be used for boiling water when idle... :-D

What I am trying to say is : You don't want a P4 og Xeon in your laptop...

Re:But it's not 64 bit!

[ColdZero]

So where can I get a G5 in my laptop?

Re:But it's not 64 bit!

[ArbitraryConstant]

Indeed.

But Pentium Ms use less power so your point is irrelevant.

So What...

[__aaclcg7560]

I never found the Intel chips to be compelling or exciting or inexpensive. I don't understand why some people go out of their way for an Intel chip when an AMD chip will do the job. Seems like you pay a premium for an Intel chip to be either compelling or exciting but definitely not inexpensive.

Re:So What...

[jericho4.0]

From Tom's Hardware;

"Additionally, we were able to raise the FSB from 133 to 160 MHz without any trouble at all. The result was that our 2.13GHz Pentium M 770 ended up running at 2.56 GHz! At this clock speed, our two year old platform was able to beat the processor heavyweights Athlon 64 FX and Intel Pentium 4 Extreme Edition in all 3D games! "

At 27 watts max compared to 155. How much was that Athlon 64 FX again?

Re:So What...

[blackdragon7777]

The amount of money you'll save on your electricity bill during the life of that computer is more than enough to justify getting the pentium M over any AMD chip.

Re:So What...

[Cryptnotic]

How much was that Athlon 64 FX again?

I don't know, but according to PriceGrabber.com, the Pentium M 770 is $625.

Re:So What...

[Jeff DeMaagd]

Never?

Maybe now, but not in all points of the past. Back in the mid-K7 era, there were times where there weren't any excellent chipsets for AMD. The leading choice was VIA, which really didn't sound like a good idea given their history of compatibility problems and non-compliance with PCI bus mastering. AMD made solid chipsets but they really didn't keep up with memory technologies. At least now, nVidia chipsets are available for AMD.

Re:So What...

[__aaclcg7560]

My last motherboard Intel CPU was a Pentium MMX 233, and my current Dell laptop has an Intel Celeron. I been using AMD CPUs ever since then. VIA chipsets for the K6-3 were a pain, especially with video drivers and USB compatibility. SiS chipset for the Athlon XP were decent for low-end motherboards, but nVidia chipsets rock for everything else! I'm more price-sensitive than I'm performance-sensitive, which is why I lean towards AMD.

Re:So What...

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, if you're into music or anything where the chipset matters you pretty have to get an Intel chip because anything else is CRAP ! The issue is not the CPU it's the chipset. ALL hardware are well tested with Intel chips not with VIA, SIS or NVidia.
Yes AMD CPU are more efficient but unfortunatly the chipsets that comes with it is pure, undiluted monkey poo.
The situation seems to evolve slowly but as of today if I want a computer with wich I can to chipset critical work I'll buy an Intel.

Re:So What...

[etherelithic]

Well damn that beats the price of an Athlon 64 FX and the Pentium EE for sure so 625 ain't so bad!

Re:So What...

[deaddeng]

Not to mention... has Intel fired the assclowns who backed the whole P-4 "Netburst" fiasco? The Pentium-M is based on the Pentium-3/P6 core, with quite a bit of internal tinkering, and it wipes the floor with the P-4 in many performance benchmarks for a fraction of the power consumption and heat.

Back to the future. New Intel marketing motto for the P-4: "Netburst? Nevermind."

Re:So What...

[MP3Chuck]

PriceWatch.com lists Athlon FX's ranging from $799 (FX55) to $1099 (FX57).

Re:So What...

[Petersson]

VIA chipsets for the K6-3 were a pain

I've still got K6-2 333MHz running in AOpen mobo with Intel TX chipset. Works great, the only trouble is 66 MHz FSB and no AGP. And it doesn't have enough power to play dvd in realtime.

However it was last thing when AMD CPU worked with Intel chipset...

Re:So What...

[CuriosityKilledWHAT]

But the Pentium M is being overclocked, so that's hardly a fair comparison--AMD chips can be EASILY overclocked.

How about a more scalable solution?

[NRAdude]

Does anyone know about those neat 386-based computer systems that install into your motherboard's unused DIMM sockets? Has anyone seen the Sun or Apple alternative x86 solution whereas a complete computer is assembled into a PCI adaptor form-factor and installed into a PCI slot to give access to a x86 nativity?

We need more of these solutions. Just for the utility of it, I want a computer for general purpose use; consider a Transmeta solution, and then have a Pentium M co-processor that I can enable or disable when I need it to boost an application, or even better a Hitachi SuperH 128bit solution for quicker and greater math precision. I'm waiting for the days to return when computers were modular, separate FPUs from the die core for example, like back in the late 80's when the manufacturer gave you the manual that has all the BIOS function calls and circuit schematic in such an open manner.

All I see today is a bunch of unnecessary IC bloat, taking advantage of increasing transistor efficieny to use more transistors and obtusely dissipate more heat with a design that is bigger than the previous. Is progress to obsolete computers or give what is needed? I would settle for a fab-shrunk 8-way computer based on the earlier technology because it worked. Where are all those great designs going to, or is it just a fighting statistic? How about a 386 PDA? Anyone seen one yet?

Re:How about a more scalable solution?

[hyc]

I kinda agree with you, except that there are definitely gains in efficiency by cramming all the components as close together as possible on a single chip.

But yeah, personally I'd like to have a cluster of 68030s built on a modern fab process. Most of what you need a PDA to do could easily be handled by one of those processors, and you could probably fit a dozen of them in the same silicon as a Pentium 4 core...

Re:How about a more scalable solution?

[bhtooefr]

A 386-based PDA? The Nokia Communicator 9000 was one, IIRC (VERY fuzzy on that stuff, b/c those models were non-US, and I've never set foot outside the US).

Re:How about a more scalable solution?

[Urusai]

The Amiga had such a board way back when, a generic CPU emulator that used FPGAs to emulate multiple processors. It could supposedly emulate a Mac faster than a real Mac (probably using the Amiga's CPU, though). They were still trying to get 486 emulation debugged last I heard, many moons ago.

Re:How about a more scalable solution?

[canadiangoose]

The original Blackberries werre 386 based as well. I'm not sure what the newer ones run, but the original 386 solution was excellent.

Re:How about a more scalable solution?

[Quattro Vezina]

I saw one of those Sun x86 PCI cards a while back, sitting around in my local LUG's lab. It was quite impressive...basically a mobo-on-a-PCI-card. It came with a processor, chipset, DIMM slots, PATA ports, onboard USB, onboard audio, integrated graphics, and probably some other stuff I'm forgetting.

Quite cool.

Re:How about a more scalable solution?

[HunterZ]

Did it have PCI slots too? ;)

Re:How about a more scalable solution?

[Emil Brink]

A dozen? Don't be so conservative. :) I couldn't find any transistor count number for the MC68030, but this page says the MC68040 had 1.2 million transistors (quite a jump up from the 68,000 of the original MC68000).

A Pentium 4 seems to have either 55 million or 125 million, depending on the core generation (those are "Northwood" and "Prescott" cores, respectively), all according to this page. There might be newer generations still, I'm not 100% up to speed on Intel CPUs.

Thus, you can fit either 55/1.2 = ~45 or 125/1.2 = ~104 MC68040s in the transistor budget of a single Pentium 4. Of course, this is just back-of-the-envelope numbers, and I'm not enough of a silicon geek to know how much "glue" would be needed. Plus, trading cache transistors for gate transistors as this calculation does is probably not OK. Not to think about memory bandwidth requirements to feed 55 cores ... But still--one can dream!

Re:How about a more scalable solution?

[bjb]

If you're referring to the Emplant board, then it wasn't exactly as you describe. Emplant was a combination hardware/software emulation system that provided Macintosh and i586 emulation (though the latter came out MUCH later and not to much fanfare, from what I remember).

The idea of the package was that you could emulate any computer (and multiple ones at the same time, from some of the hype) and typically faster than the equivalent machine of the day. Looking at the software, it was equivalent to Shapeshifter (aka SheepShaver, aka Basilisk II), which meant that it used the native CPU and took over the system ROM functions and replaced them with native ones. Very good performance. For the i586 module, from what I remember, it was a pure software emulation.

What about the hardware? It appeared that the hardware was simply responsible for holding the actual ROM chips of the Macintosh being emulated, an optional no-frills SCSI chip, some Mac serial ports and a few other sockets for random things (an audio digitizer, from the site linked, though apparently never implemented). Basically it was a hardware dongle for a pure software emulation solution, with the ability to hook up to an AppleTalk network.

If there WAS such a board, I never heard of it. I was a very active member of comp.sys.amiga.emulation back through most of the 90's, and if it did exist, it was probably mentioned on that newsgroup. Maybe I just forgot over time.

Re:How about a more scalable solution?

[Digz]

FYI, here is an old link to the K6-2 PCI cards for those who don't rememeber.

Re:How about a more scalable solution?

[Anonymous Coward]

I think a '040 might even be overkill for a PDA - don't the Palms run on a 68000 derivative?

Reagardless, based on my embedded systems experience, I'd guess you'd find that modern designs (like the many ARM variants, for example) can offer more CPU horsepower and lower power consumption, and can offer it cheap.

Re:How about a more scalable solution?

[mikefe]

No, it doesn't.

I have one at work that I need to test before it is listed on ebay.

Check out their web site or reply if you're interested.

Great

[Anonymous Coward]

The power of a laptop and the size of a desktop.

More info on tomshardware.com

[bluelarva]

Toms's Hardware has a great article on Pentium M's performance. It's definitely worth a read.

Re:More info on tomshardware.com

[mike.newton]

Toms's Hardware...

I haven't heard of that site. But I'm sure it's very precious.

Grammar Nazi strikes again.

[Anonymous Coward]

your not

Whose not? I don't own a not. In fact, I don't know anyone who owns a not.

Er ... did you mean "you're not"?

Re:Grammar Nazi strikes again.

[JustOK]

Don't you feel that all the picking of nits is for naught? Have a draught instead.

Re:Grammar Nazi strikes again.

[Anonymous Coward]

It goes under my "Entertainment" expense. Thanks for the draught.

Fantastic! Power consumption saves the day

[lightyear4]

This is great..glad that Asus is keeping ahead of the game as always. I think I'll grab this simply for the great reduction in power consumption.

On a similar note, who remembers the OverDrive for your old 486?

Confused by story blurb...

[KenBot_314]

"although desktop versions of it won't be available until next year"

"the CT-479 adapter is much cheaper than existing Pentium M desktop platforms"

WTF?
Which is it?

Re:Confused by story blurb...

[Anonymous Coward]

desktop version = standard socket 478
existing Pentium M desktop platforms = those expensive motherboards and sff barebones that support pentium m

Re:Confused by story blurb...

[Kris_J]

Intel will be releasing Pentium M technology in a CPU package that suits typical desktop motherboards in the future. Meanwhile, several manufaturers have produced desktop computers using laptop chipsets so they can offer a cool Pentium M CPU solution.

Does that explain the apparent contradiction?

Re:Confused by story blurb...

[KenBot_314]

Oh! Yea that explains it...
Very confusing to use "Desktop platform" to mean a laptop mobo in a desktop machine, but it makes sense now...
Thanks!

Will this be a mobile chip as well?

[agentfive]

Or is it mobile? I don't get it.

mod parent more interesting than this story

[Anonymous Coward]

cheers mate :)

Re:Anne says

[Anonymous Coward]

Computer says no.

Underclocking

[iamplupp]

Wouldnt it be cheaper to buy an Athlon64 and then underclock it and lower the voltage? I got a barton 2500+ running at 1.6ghz (8x200) @ 1.2V which by my calculations would be something like 30W

Re:Underclocking

[Anonymous Coward]

Providing the bios supports cool'n'quiet (seems to be necessary so that the kernel can discover the frequencies and voltages), yes - but you don't need to underclock it, just use the powersave cpufreq governor (kernel 2.6.9 or later).

My winchester 3200 (2.0 GHz) idles at 57 Watts for the whole system (1 GB DDR200, 80 GB drive, radeon 9200se), including power-supply losses. All winchester or newer athlon64s seems to run at 1 GHz for their lowest speed.

Pentium M looks nice for its power consumption, but the price is totally out of proportions.

Re:Underclocking

[thefultonhow]

Yes, and it would give a lot less performance too. As the article from Tom's Hardware that has been posted in these comments multiple times says, When overclocked (and still using only about 35 watts), the Pentium-M beats even the P4EE and Athlon 64 FX-55 in almost all benchmarks. It's especially strong in gaming benchmarks.

BTW, this is old news... I was lusting after one of these back in February.

Re:Underclocking

[jonesy16]

Cheaper? the Athlon64 FX-55 runs for almost $200 more than the top of the line Pentium M . . . Pentium M wins in almost every benchmark . . .

This isn't directed at anyone in particular, but anti-Microsoft and anti-Intel people have one thing in common, they blindly side with their product of choice even if it flies in the face of evidence-rich testimonial.

Heat?

[Orion83]

Just read the article, and I'm disappointed that they didn't mention the heat of the chip during overlock... which would mean quieter cooling.. or did I miss something? He references little green men as how no more watts are consumed by the overclock. Oh well. At Least UT was really fast ;)

Re:Heat?

[VoidWraith]

Watts consumed == Watts output in heat

I just don't understand

[Anonymous Coward]

How come my cpu trolls are always modertad as flamebait, or troll, and yet this guy gets +4, Insightful?

What am I doing wrong? Perhaps I am too subtle for you guys. Any advice appreciated. In the meantime, back to kuro5hin for me.

-

Re:I just don't understand

[__aaclcg7560]

Maybe all the AMD-loving mods got the points today? AMD is suing Intel for being a monopolist. Maybe /. is giving the AMD-loving posters and mods more leeway to avoid being dragged into the lawsuit. :P

WTF?!? more erroneous info?

[Grandmaster Mort]

"...and although desktop versions of it won't be available until next year..." Uh, both AOpen and DFI have had Socket 479 (Pentium-M) motherboards for the desktop available (iirc, both are micro ATX form factor) for several months. Granted, those motherboards are overpriced (at least they were back in January when I built a Dothan box for my mother (mobo was about $250 back then), but that clearly shows the above quote to be bullshit.

Informed consumers ftw!

[Anonymous Coward]

Now wait just a moment... I thought we were all supposed to hate Intel? Short memories?

Re:Informed consumers ftw!

[Anonymous Coward]

hummm well I know sometimes the news take a while to get around, but the benchmarks for this have been out for AGES! It doesn't even come close to news anymore...

AOpen products

[shikra]

If anyone cares, there is already a native Pentium-M board from AOpen based on the Intel i915G chipset. No need for convertor crap. The upcoming small form-factor Pandora XPC from AOpen is Pentium-M based as well.

Re:AOpen products

[ciroknight]

I've read some reviews of that AOpen board; apparently AOpen sacrificed the insanely low heat production of the Pentium M by strapping a heatsink and fan that looks like it came from a northbridge rather than a desktop CPU. To further this, they've formatted the mounting points on the board to be completely industry incompatible, meaning that you're stuck with their heatsink unless you fab your own.

That's a pretty big letdown to me, as I have been wanting a desktop Pentium M since Pentium M's existed. This adapter makes a lot more sense to me.

Old News

[vanka]

How is this news? Tom's Hardware had an article on this 2 months ago. In their benchmarks, the Pentium M out-performed the top of the line Athon64s and Pentium 4s in games. Read the article.

Re:Fantastic! Power consumption saves the day

[vanka]

Yeah I remember those. I wanted to get one of those for a 486 66MHz (I believe it upgraded a 486 to a Pentium) but decided to get a Pentium 166MHz instead. Ah the good ol' days, when was the last time anyone got a double speed increase with a processor upgrade? On another note, am I the only crazy one or is there someone else who liked Windows 3.1 better than Windows 95?

Somewhat old news

[poity]

GamePC.com did a review of it back in march

Benchmarks show it having exceptional gaming and rendering performance. The overclocked Pentium M even beats out the Pentium 4EE and AthlonFX-55, with the stock version still holding its own very well

It's somewhat lackluster in multimedia content creation, though, as it does not yet support SSE3

Re:Somewhat old news

[Klaus Obermeyer]

Those benchmarks are hardly realistic. Who plays UT2004 at 1280x1024 with a Geforce 6800?

I think Anandtech's review was a bit more realistic. That said the Pentium-M does offer surprising performance, even if it does cost nearly twice an equivalent Athlon.

Both GamePC and Tom's hardware also compare an overclocked Pentium-M 750 to unoverclocked Pentiums and Athlons. That doesn't make much sense as one of the primary advantages of both the Athlon FX and Pentium EE series are their unlocked multipliers - overclocked their performance improves at about the same rate as the Pentium M. The cost of the Pentium-M 770 including the adapter is about equal to an Athlon FX-55, about $800.

Re:WTF?!? more erroneous info?

[Kris_J]

I believe the "it" in your quote is a Pentium M in a standard desktop socket CPU package. A DFI board is in fact used in the review.

Aopen boards much more fun

[Anonymous Coward]

There are already Aopen Desktop P-M boards out for quite a while.

I own the i855whatever version and run it with a P-M 1.7@1993Mhz(117FSB)

In video encoding it sucks.
But for day to day development work, like compiling, it beats the 3.6Ghz Xeon "big boy" by a small margin.

Expensive? Sure
Heat+Noise?
CPU needs only small and silent cooler
GPU onboard - screw 3D performance for development work
2x GBit NIC onboard the Aopen board

With a good small uATX case+PSU the ultimate development machine for a no noise system, very good for concentration+productivity

Would I buy one again? YES

how about

[Student Activist]

The power EFFICIENCY of a laptop and the size of a desktop.

Re:how about

[bhirsch]

Why not just use a late model P3 then?

Re:how about

[eluusive]

That's basically what the Pentium M is....

Re:how about

[bhirsch]

Hence the question.

Re:how about

[Anonymous Coward]

Clock rate. A P3 can't go past 1.4 GHz without extreme cooling measures. A new-ish Pentium M runs at 2.25+ GHz with no problems.

Re:how about

[koinu]

Because a P3 with 500MHz runs on 89W and a P-M with 1500MHz only 10W.

Re:how about

[evilviper]

Because a P3 with 500MHz runs on 89W and a P-M with 1500MHz only 10W.

Where in the hell did you get your numbers? 89W is absolutely INSANE for any PIII processor.

PIII-500E FC-PGA 1.6V 13.2W
PIII-1.0G (6-B-x) 1.15V 12.1W

And the 10W P-M is not typical, but a real rareity. Most are ~25W. eg.

Pentium M-1.5G 1.484V 24.5W

Personally, I would LOVE to get my hands on a PIII 933MHz or 1.0GHz system. Should be cheap, accepts all the old PC133 RAM I've got lying around, and really, really low power. Otherwise, I'm not getting a new system until some of the lowest-power AMD64s get cheaper.

Re:how about

[koinu]

Where in the hell did you get your numbers?

Oh my god. I mixed up some numbers. Sorry for that. The maximal temperature in Celsius is 89C for a P3 500MHz. I don't have the exact numbers. I think it must be somewhere around 30W. My complete system took 95W when idle.

The 10,5W P-M CPUs are all 90nm and start at 200 here.

Re:how about

[bhirsch]

I guess I would just rather see a better price to performance ratio than energy efficiency to performance ratio. If I am going to spend $500 on a CPU, you can bet it's going to be something a little beefier than a P4-M. That aside, a dual P3 1.4GHz system with an OS that is able to scale well with multiple processors (FreeBSD 5 comes to mind) is probably both cheaper, more energy efficient, and quite likely more powerful (depending on what is being done on it).

Re:how about

[evilviper]

The 10,5W P-M CPUs are all 90nm and start at 200 here.

And wont work in this adapter, BTW.

The 10watt CPUs are ULV, and the other approx. ~15watt CPUs are LV, both of which are explicitly mentioned as not working with this adapter. So the PIIIs are actually the lower-power option. P-Ms have much higher clock-rates, though.

DFI 855GME-MGF i855

[mparaz]

One of them is the DFI 855GME-MGF desktop MicroATX board.

Northbridges...

[evilviper]

While it's nice to get a lower-power CPU, your results aren't going to be very impressive. The fact is, northbridges are also very power-hungry, and using the northbridge for a P4 with a Pentium M will certainly not give very good results. You really need a motherboard designed for the Pentium-M to get a low-power system, otherwise you'll just be wasting watts, and making a lot of heat for no reason.

It seems nobody ever talks about the Northbridge, which, IMHO, will over-take the CPU, within a year, as the hottest component in a computer. If you take a year-old system, and put all the components (CPU/RAM) in a brand-new motherboard, you'll see the power consumption go up 10-20 watts. Why do you think they are now requiring fans on many of them? Even the motherboards that don't have one, commonly NEED one. They just leave it off because they know people don't buy motherboards with fans on the northbridge.

They just assume case airflow with be enough to keep the northbridge within spec, which is rarely true. Many people with unstable systems may assume it's a CPU or software problem, while pointing a fan at the northbridge heatsink may be all they need to do to solve the problem. I have some Asus and MSI motherboards that are guilty of this (SiS and VIA chipsets).

What pisses me off (personally) is that repeated requests to Asus, MSI, VIA and SiS for power specs on their chipsets/motherboards have been completely ignored. For that reason, I have kept using my old systems (brand-new Asus motherboard wasting space in my closet) and will not upgrade until I can find specs on motherboards (idle/load) before I buy them.

Re:Northbridges...

[scum-e-bag]

My NF3 chip came with a fan on it.

Re:Northbridges...

[Quattro Vezina]

It seems nobody ever talks about the Northbridge, which, IMHO, will over-take the CPU, within a year, as the hottest component in a computer.

More like the northbridge will disappear in a year or two, at least on AMD platforms. AMD has already integrated the memory controller on-die, and there are rumours of Socket F including an one-die PCI-E controller.

What's left for a northbridge to do?

Re:Northbridges...

[evilviper]

More like the northbridge will disappear in a year or two, at least on AMD platforms.

Yes, on AMD platforms, which are in the minority. This story is specifically about Intel.

Intel has not made any indication that it plans to get rid of the northbridge like AMD has.

Re:Northbridges...

[typical]

It seems nobody ever talks about the Northbridge, which, IMHO, will over-take the CPU, within a year, as the hottest component in a computer. If you take a year-old system, and put all the components (CPU/RAM) in a brand-new motherboard, you'll see the power consumption go up 10-20 watts.

A P4 can consume up to about 100 watts of power, which is significantly more than 10-20 watts.

Re:Northbridges...

[evilviper]

you'll see the power consumption go up 10-20 watts.

A P4 can consume up to about 100 watts of power, which is significantly more than 10-20 watts.

Notice the bolded section. The previous generation of northbridges weren't drawing 0watts.

Your figures on P4 power consumption is completely wrong as well. They are commonly drawing more than 130watts, but their power consumption increases have ceased, but northbridges are increasing in power consumption dramatically.

Homer the inventer

[Anonymous Coward]

[a bored Homer with basketball injury at home tries to mate his cat and dog by putting them in a sack and shaking it].
Good ... we'll have a miracle hybrid with the loyalty of a cat and the cleanliness of a dog!

Re:this is old ass news

[Anonymous Coward]

umm yea... anyone who can read probably heard about this 3 months ago

for the price

[akhomerun]

for the price of a pentium M + an adapter, why not get an Athlon 64 instead? I can't imagine a 1.7Ghz laptop chip performing better than that...

Pentium M versus Athlon 64, poor comparison

[WhiteWolf666]

I don't care about the difference in power usage between a Pentium M (laptop) and a Athlon 64 (desktop) cpus. It's an irrelevant number.

I'd be very curious to see the difference in power usage (and benchmarks) between a Pentium M (plugged into a 478-socket system) and a low-voltage Athlon 64 (laptop version) plugged into a similar desktop board.

Not the difference in power usage by the processor, mind you, but the difference in power usage by the entire *system*, and at the various stages of idling.

A pentium M northbridge will use significantly more power than an Athlon 64 northbridge. And Athlon 64s do an amazing job of throttling down to low powerlevels (enough that they can be cooled via passive cooling, and I believe they survive the heatsink-fell-off test.

Re:Pentium M versus Athlon 64, poor comparison

[ciroknight]

Well I can assure you that the Pentium M wins. Need proof? Go read a laptop review, Turion 64 vs Pentium M. The Pentium M kills the Turion in heat production and battery life, but the Turion's better performance-wise, which is all that matters to a lot of people.

Why I'm answering this is that you're being very ignorant of the fact that the Pentium M, relatively unchanged, is the next Intel desktop CPU, therefore completely invalidating your statement that a Laptop CPU vs a Desktop CPU isn't fair, or irrelevant in any way. Simply put, the Pentium M is about to destroy the competition when it comes to IPC, the entire system around.

A Pentium M northbridge will use more power, this is obvious; it's got to deal with DDR2 memory, it's got to deal with PCI Express and all of these other controllers on the bus. AMD trying to stick all of these controllers on to the CPU is only relocating the heat, and at the cost to the consumer; now every time a bump in CPU speed comes about, I'm going to have to throw out my whole system.

AMD64's do a great job throttling, but I'm sorry to burst your bubble; Enhanced SpeedStep is far superior when paired up with software that can use it right. Fine-grained CPU speed speeds can drop the Pentium M to virtually no output, and it can still run a screensaver or two ;) (to me, this is amazing; my desktop computer's a dual proc Pentium 3 workstation from last century and it can barely run the screensavers that came with my linux distro).

Stop being ignorant. The competition's about to get red-hot again, and we're the ones who will benefit. Choosing sides too early's only going to cost you more money in the long run. And as I'm due for a new desktop very soon, I'm watching the playing field very, very closely.

My Pentium M fries my lap...

[Willis Wasabi]

I have a work-provided Dell D600 from last year. Sticker on the case says it has a Pentium M. It runs at 1.4GHz. Trust me, it fries my lap. Even with the CPU in adaptive speed mode it's unbearably hot unless it's the dead of winter. I shouldn't have to buy an Ergonomic Mobile Cooling Platformto insulate my nuts from a *lap*top. Just sitting here reading and posting to slashdot, the CPU is at a leisurely 37, but the GPU is at 42, the DIMMs at 47 (you can feel an obvious hot-spot at the memory access panel) and the HDD is sitting at 51 (! noticably warming my left hand).

I could live with it in a desktop probably though.

Re:My Pentium M fries my lap...

[jmking1]

I have a work-provided Dell D600 from last year. Sticker on the case says it has a Pentium M. It runs at 1.4GHz. Trust me, it fries my lap.

I think that was a case design issue with the D600/600m, something to do with the hard drive location and heat dissipation near the left palmrest. They fixed it in the D610.

Re:Fantastic! Power consumption saves the day

[ryanov]

Not only do I remember it, I've still got one humming along in an old HP Vectra. Used to run Linux, but it's got WfWg 3.11 on there at the moment (never had a network back then and was curious to see how it worked on one).

Slashdot Submissions?

[Hack Jandy]

Is there any chance Slashdot can stop accepting submissions from the authors of the stories submitted?????

Tom's Hardware and Anandtech reviewed this stuff like 5 months ago; I think one of them even got slashdotted for it.

HJ

Re:Slashdot Submissions?

[jonesy16]

Is there any chance that Slashdot can stop accepting user posted comments that are redundant?????

Several other users have already linked to the Tom's Hardware and Anandtech reviews, I think they even got modded up for it.

ME

I tried it

[vadim_t]

It costs about $50, and comes with the adapter, heatsink and fan.

How good is it? I have no idea, since I broke a pin on it while trying to get it to work.

Here's a warning to everybody thinking of trying it: The adapter is held in the motherboard's CPU socket only by the locking mechanism. The design makes it quite easy to apply pressure in such a way that it will rip the adapter off the motherboard's socket.

For some reason, the instructions go like this:
Insert adapter, insert CPU, lock CPU with screw, add heatsink. But I found that it's very uncomfortable, and risky. Be really careful when doing that, especially while installing the heatsink.

On the next time I'll probably do it differently: insert the CPU into the adapter, lock it, then insert the adapter into the motherboard and add the heatsink.

I broke it because I thought I was applying too much force while trying to fix the CPU and didn't turn the screw far enough. After removing and inserting the adapter several times I finally realized I didn't turn it all the way, but that must be when I bent the pin.

Re:Fantastic! Power consumption saves the day

[stoborrobots]

On another note, am I the only crazy one or is there someone else who liked Windows 3.1 better than Windows 95?

Well, you can notch up two for crazy... Everything about 95 felt wrong compared to 3.1...

My favourite experience was walking onto a customer site last year where they were still running an old machine with 3.1 and getting to use it in a "production" environment... It made those years of playing with one at home feel so much more worthwhile...

Server?

[jasonmicron]

...this could be an interesting upgrade for those looking for a low-noise system.

Or perhaps a low-cost, energy-efficient home or small-office based server, yes?

Re:Server?

[Anonymous Coward]

No, Mr Obvious. (rolls eyes)

broken laptop

[zerkon]

We have several broken toshiba laptops in my office that use the pentium M processors, I have successfully put one in a (stock) shuttle mt-63 motherboard, it works great, even overclocked. the processor is 1.7 ghz stock and it is running (very cool and very stable) at 2.2 with a regular cpu heatsink/fan. These processors are designed for a dinky heatsink/fan combo so a full-fledged cpu cooler is capeable of doing a great deal of cooling on these.

As a note, the processors *should* work in any motherboard that uses that socket, and has a bios that supports undervolting a cpu, IIRC these cpus stock only use 1.25 volts

Re:Fantastic! Power consumption saves the day

[toddestan]

On another note, am I the only crazy one or is there someone else who liked Windows 3.1 better than Windows 95?

Windows 3.1 was a decent OS, atleast for the time. With stable drivers and good hardware, it didn't crash that much so long as you were able to avoid DLL hell. Also, it didn't have the registry from Windows 95 - which would get bloated and randomly corrupt requiring a reinstall. Windows 3.1 had plain text config files like win.ini, system.ini, config.sys, autoexec.bat, and others I'm forgetting. I don't think I ever had to reinstall Windows 3.1, as there wasn't anything I couldn't fix by hacking the config files. In may ways, it was like Linux is now, just very crude.

Of course, Windows 3.1 had its problems. The biggest was DLL hell. Installation programs could write anywhere, and back then it was the norm to just go into c:\windows and c:\windows\system and silently write over existing files with your own, often breaking other programs. I always had my install disks handy so I could restore DLL files that had been overwritten. Towards the end of the 3.1 days, drives were big enough (400MB+) that I just copied the install disks the HDD.

Windows 95 pretty much took over though. It got hard to run 3.1 after about 1996 or so with its lack of a built in network stack and all the new software requiring 95.

Oh yeah, this is pretty offtopic. Hey! I wonder if a Pentium M system could run Windows 3.1?

RIM

[Anonymous Coward]

the newer blackberrys are embedded 386s. There is a free c++ and j2me api.

Empirical Results

[Lagged2Death]

Actual measurements of system power consumption, running a Pentium-M on a Pentium-IV mobo, have been done. That configuration consumes much less than a comparable Pentium IV system.

Not to say there isn't even more room for improvement. But I, for one, am impressed.

Re:Fantastic! Power consumption saves the day

[i41Overlord]

This is great..glad that Asus is keeping ahead of the game as always. I think I'll grab this simply for the great reduction in power consumption.

Getting a new motherboard +Pentium M processor will probably cost you $600. How much electricity costs will it save you? I bet not $600.

Re:Ummmmmm

[Renegrade]

If you want less heat, less performance, in an old socket, how about using an old chip for a tenth of the price ?

Well, because this isn't less performance. But it does bring up a topic I've been fascinated with lately: What if you made a 386, as in 80386DX (or other, 1985ish processor), with a 90nm process? What speed could it be run at? How many could you fit on a modern die? How much L2 cache could you package with it on a modern die?

And, since this is Slashdot, I am forced to say: Imagine an on-chip Beowulf cluster of these..