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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."
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."
w00t. now ive got a reason to smash open my ibm t30
Intel releases the Pentium M processor.
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.
Business Voyeur
Can someone explain to me exactly what the chip compels one to do?
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?
Over at Tom's from a few weeks ago. http://www.tomshardware.com/cpu/20050525/index.htm l
Redundant yet?
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.
Sometimes my arms bend back.
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?
without prejudice
The power of a laptop and the size of a desktop.
Toms's Hardware has a great article on Pentium M's performance. It's definitely worth a read.
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?
Which is it?
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.
"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?
"A language that doesn't affect the way you think about programming, is not worth knowing" - Alan Perlis
"...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.
si vis pacem, para bellum..."if you wish peace, prepare for war"
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.
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.
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.
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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.
WhiteWolf666 an exBush supporter. All you new-school,compassionate,save the children Republicans can rot in hell
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
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.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
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.