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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."
w00t. now ive got a reason to smash open my ibm t30
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
more than you would want to pay for a chip+adaptor
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?
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.
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.
"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
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.
Does that explain the apparent contradiction?
Does it go on forever?
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
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.
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.
;) (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).
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
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.
"Victory means exit strategy, and it's important for the President to explain to us what the exit strategy is." G.W.Bush