Lost track of processors a bit

[news.rcn.com]

Sorry if this question has been asked a million times before but I have lost
track of processors a bit and am using a 750 MHz Pentium 111 Vaio laptop of
some vintage.

I have just been given a 1.2 GHz Thinkpad A31 which has a Celeron processor
and am wondering if the speed would make it worthwhile changing over: The
hard drives are the same size, which makes me a bit suspicious. I can
probably put the same memory in both although the Celeron starts with a big
disadvantage in that the screen size is smaller.

Is there likely to be any significant difference between these two computers
which mandates either changing over OR is the Celeron still regarded as a
crippled chip as it was when it was just a Pentium with no level 2 cache?
Also the Thinkpad makes itself look a bit pathetic and even more suspicious
as it only has a CD drive in it: I have a few spare slimline CD-RWs and DVDs
lying around and wonder how difficult it will be to put something a bit more
useful in it. I kinda presume the Celeron isn't so crippled as to prevent
me using a DVD usefully in it. It would be easy to regard this Thinkpad as a
lowest end model but the slower ones all seem to have had the Pentium 111 in
them (and had DVDs etc). I cant think why IBM would have increased the speed
and lowered all other aspects of the specs?? After all, the earlier ones
seem to have used Windows 2000 and mine was at least made for some form of
XP? And with all these later model dates and supposed specs, the ebay value
seems also suspiciously low. Does everyone know something I don't?

 

[Tony Hill]

Sorry if this question has been asked a million times before but I have lost
track of processors a bit and am using a 750 MHz Pentium 111 Vaio laptop of
some vintage.

I have just been given a 1.2 GHz Thinkpad A31 which has a Celeron processor
and am wondering if the speed would make it worthwhile changing over: The
hard drives are the same size, which makes me a bit suspicious. I can
probably put the same memory in both although the Celeron starts with a big
disadvantage in that the screen size is smaller.

The first question I would have is whether this is a "Celeron" or a
"Celeron M". Despite the similarities in name, there is actually a
decently large difference under the hood. Either way the Celeron chip
will be faster then your current PIII, but with the Celeron it will
probably be only about 20-30% faster while the Celeron M will be
probably 40-50% faster then what you have now.

Whether or not that difference would make it worthwhile to change
over, particularly given the smaller screen, is entirely up to you.

Is there likely to be any significant difference between these two computers
which mandates either changing over OR is the Celeron still regarded as a
crippled chip as it was when it was just a Pentium with no level 2 cache?

The Celeron name has been used for quite a variety of chips over the
past 7 or 8 years. Some of these chips have been quite good value and
very close in performance to their "Pentium" branded equivalents.
Others have been absolute crap.

Fortunately in your case there are only 2 "Celeron" chips, the
"Celeron 1.2GHz" based off the PIII and the "Celeron M 310" processor
which is based off of the Pentium M. The first uses a 100MT/s bus,
256KB of cache and has a TDP of ~29-32W (dependant on stepping). The
latter uses a 400MT/s bus, 512KB of cache and has a TDP of 24.5W.

Neither of these chips will quite have the performance of the Pentium
branded chips that they're based off of (both have half the cache of
their Pentium counterparts while the "Celeron 1.2GHz" has a lower bus
speed), but in both cases the difference in performance isn't much.

Also the Thinkpad makes itself look a bit pathetic and even more suspicious
as it only has a CD drive in it: I have a few spare slimline CD-RWs and DVDs
lying around and wonder how difficult it will be to put something a bit more
useful in it.

Slimline CD drives in laptops are often specific to the individual
bays the companies uses. ie a Sony slimline DVD probably won't fit in
an IBM slimline bay and vice versa.

I kinda presume the Celeron isn't so crippled as to prevent
me using a DVD usefully in it.

Definitely not. The Celeron aspect will ONLY affect the processing
performance, and it's certainly more than powerful enough to handle
playing DVDs.

 

[news.rcn.com]

The most I can establish about this is that it calls itself a Celeron 1.2 in
the BIOS, not a Celeron M although some of the reviews of this Thinkpad A31
have been knowledgeable and astoundingly good. And there is always the
chance that IBM support will remain as good as it has always been whereas
Sony don't want to know and may not even speak to you if you try to call
them about anything.

I wonder if I can swap the drive and get a DVD working simply by installing
WinDVD (and applying the patch supporting this on the Thinkpad site)?

Someone has wiped off the hard drive so I cant install from a back up and
have to install XP Pro and attend to 80% of the "unknown devices" in Device
Manager. The real problem is the curious trade-off between my Vaio being
quite so old and this unit being practically a current model but with no
upgrade in HDD size and a downgrade in screen size.

 

[Yousuf Khan]

Someone has wiped off the hard drive so I cant install from a back up and
have to install XP Pro and attend to 80% of the "unknown devices" in Device
Manager. The real problem is the curious trade-off between my Vaio being
quite so old and this unit being practically a current model but with no
upgrade in HDD size and a downgrade in screen size.

There's been a paradigm shift in emphasis for laptops in the few years
between your older Sony and your newer IBM. Laptops were following the
same pattern as desktops: bigger, more powerful. Then the emphasis
shifted to more efficiency. Smaller screens save more power. So they
came up with smaller screens with higher resolutions packed in, though
you might have to squint a little.

The hard drives may have stayed the same size but they may have
increased in rotation speed. The faster the HDs are, the more power they
take up, so it's more common to see slower HDs in them. At one time the
most common speed was 4200rpm, but now it could be 5600rpm, or 7200rpm.
It probably won't be 7200rpm, but 5600rpm, as they've gotten as power
efficient as the older 4200rpm ones. The 7200rpm ones are reserved for
less efficient DTR notebooks (DeskTop Replacement).

Yeah, that's another thing, there are several different segments of the
notebook market now. The extreme performance ones are the DTR ones, not
built for efficiency but speed. The extreme power-savings ones are
ultralights, typically less than 6-lbs. And there are stuff in between.

Yousuf Khan

 

[David Kanter]

The most I can establish about this is that it calls itself a Celeron 1.2 in
the BIOS, not a Celeron M although some of the reviews of this Thinkpad A31
have been knowledgeable and astoundingly good. And there is always the
chance that IBM support will remain as good as it has always been whereas
Sony don't want to know and may not even speak to you if you try to call
them about anything.

There is no such chip as a celeron M, you have to infer the uarch based
on the clockspeed and cache. At 1.2GHz, I guarantee you are using a
Celeron based on the Dothan/Banias core.

DK

 

[George Macdonald]

There is no such chip as a celeron M, you have to infer the uarch based
on the clockspeed and cache. At 1.2GHz, I guarantee you are using a
Celeron based on the Dothan/Banias core.

.... which would be a uhhh... oh why don't you just go look it up! Two
clicks will do it.

 

[news.rcn.com]

... which would be a uhhh... oh why don't you just go look it up! Two
clicks will do it.

Not sure what I can do to respond to this posting save to say what happened
when I looked it up and posted the result to which this was the response?
As to certainty, it seems to me that the Dothan/Banias core came with
substantially newer computers than my 1.2 GHz, though if I did have a
Celeron with that architecture, changing over would be a no brainer.

ALSO SEE EARLIER POSTING:
Fortunately in your case there are only 2 "Celeron" chips, the
"Celeron 1.2GHz" based off the PIII and the "Celeron M 310" processor
which is based off of the Pentium M. The first uses a 100MT/s bus,
256KB of cache and has a TDP of ~29-32W (dependant on stepping). The
latter uses a 400MT/s bus, 512KB of cache and has a TDP of 24.5W.

 

[Yousuf Khan]

Not sure what I can do to respond to this posting save to say what happened
when I looked it up and posted the result to which this was the response?
As to certainty, it seems to me that the Dothan/Banias core came with
substantially newer computers than my 1.2 GHz, though if I did have a
Celeron with that architecture, changing over would be a no brainer.

Just download and run the latest version of CPU-Z, it will remove all
uncertainty about what it is.

Yousuf Khan

 

[Tony Hill]

The most I can establish about this is that it calls itself a Celeron 1.2 in
the BIOS, not a Celeron M although some of the reviews of this Thinkpad A31
have been knowledgeable and astoundingly good.

Sound like it's just a Celeron and not a Celeron-M, not altogether
unexpected. This also helps date the unit as being a few years old.

And there is always the
chance that IBM support will remain as good as it has always been whereas
Sony don't want to know and may not even speak to you if you try to call
them about anything.

I wonder if I can swap the drive and get a DVD working simply by installing
WinDVD (and applying the patch supporting this on the Thinkpad site)?

I can't see any reason why this wouldn't work as long as you can get a
DVD drive compatible with IBM's multibay slot. Certainly the system
should have more then enough resources to play DVDs.

Someone has wiped off the hard drive so I cant install from a back up and
have to install XP Pro and attend to 80% of the "unknown devices" in Device
Manager. The real problem is the curious trade-off between my Vaio being
quite so old and this unit being practically a current model but with no
upgrade in HDD size and a downgrade in screen size.

There is always a range of models at a variety of price points. The
VAIO was probably originally sold at a somewhat higher part of the
range then this IBM when they were both new. As for dates, I would
guess that the Sony would be about 4 years old now and the IBM
probably about 2 years old, possibly even a bit older on either count.

 

[Tony Hill]

There is no such chip as a celeron M, you have to infer the uarch based
on the clockspeed and cache. At 1.2GHz, I guarantee you are using a
Celeron based on the Dothan/Banias core.

?!?! Both your points above are incorrect actually. First off, YES
there is indeed a Celeron M processor, here's Intel's page for these
chips:

http://www.intel.com/products/processor/celeron_m/index.htm

Secondly, at 1.2GHz Intel sold two processors under the "Celeron"
brand, one based off the Banias (Pentium M) core, the other based off
the Tualatin (PIII) core. The slowest speed "Celeron M" (Banias core)
that Intel sells is their 900MHz Ultra Low Voltage model, while the
highest speed "Celeron" (Tualatin core) that Intel sold ran at 1.4GHz.
As you can see, there was a reasonable amount of overlap in clock
speeds between the two.

 

[news.rcn.com]

Just download and run the latest version of CPU-Z, it will remove all
uncertainty about what it is.

Yousuf Khan

Well that was quite a good idea: It's called a Tualatin, does run at 1.2 GHz
but only has a measly 256K of level 2 cache. I suspect that not increasing
in any way the size of my hard drive and coupled with a similarly measly
13.1 inch screen, this wouldn't be any sort of worthwhile upgrade to my
ancient Vaio, even if the support may be better. I suspect I should put it
out on Craigslist or ebay and get it to someone who WILL find it a suitable
upgrade. Then get a proper upgraded computer.

 

[news.rcn.com]

Yes, it's upgrading, transferring all my settings, data, software,
partitioning, OS patches and a year's worth of customisations, taking the CD
drive out and changing the CD drive in the caddy to a DVD I happen to have
lying around and reinserting and installing all the software (along with an
IBM patch to WINDVD) without actually achieving much

(The Tualatin info came from running CPU-Z on it)

The

 

[chrisv]

Well that was quite a good idea: It's called a Tualatin, does run at 1.2 GHz
but only has a measly 256K of level 2 cache.

256k L2 is not horribly bad. Doubling or quadrupling from there only
results in tiny gains, in most cases. This is called diminishing
marginal returns.

 

[Yousuf Khan]

Well that was quite a good idea: It's called a Tualatin, does run at 1.2 GHz
but only has a measly 256K of level 2 cache. I suspect that not increasing
in any way the size of my hard drive and coupled with a similarly measly
13.1 inch screen, this wouldn't be any sort of worthwhile upgrade to my
ancient Vaio, even if the support may be better. I suspect I should put it
out on Craigslist or ebay and get it to someone who WILL find it a suitable
upgrade. Then get a proper upgraded computer.

The Tualatin means it's the last of the Pentium 3-based Celerons, not a
Pentium-M based Celeron. That was the last generation of the Pentium
3's. Your Sony Viao probably has an older generation of the Pentium 3,
you mentioned 750Mhz, so you'll definitely find that the 1.2Ghz is
faster. But I don't think there is that much of a difference in
generations between your Viao and your Thinkpad, maybe 1-1.5 year
between the two of them.

If you're looking for a suitable upgrade, then these days you can find
AMD Turion-based laptops for about Cdn$900 (US$775) with 1GB of ram,
100MB HD, 15" screen, DVD-DL burner and weighing about 6-lbs. That's a
full 64-bit PC, ready for Windows Vista already.

But why debate about whether to use it as an upgrade? You got it for
free, just keep it and use it as a second computer. I got two laptops
here, and I use them both constantly and at the same time. I have XP
Professional installed on them both, so I'm able to use Remote Desktop
to control both from one machine. If one machine is busy doing things,
then the other one is available.

Yousuf Khan