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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."
more than you would want to pay for a chip+adaptor
Dude, he was asking how much the adapter, the CT-479, in the article was. It's $42.49.
Take off every sig. For great justice.
Toms's Hardware has a great article on Pentium M's performance. It's definitely worth a read.
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.
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.
Does that explain the apparent contradiction?
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.
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.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
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.
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
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.