processor help - pentium m or pentium 4

[dustin.mcbride]

im looking to buy a new laptop, and i was wondering about the differences in
the 2 processors (pentium m vs pentium 4). this computer will be used as a
desktop replacement. i am looking for a computer that will let me play my
games as well as all other stuff that my desktop will let me do. currently
i am looking into the hpzd8000 and the dell inspiron 9300, with the pentium
m and pentium 4, respectively. any help or suggestions would be
appreciated.

thanks,

dustin

 

[Boba & Ilinka]

If you do not need laptop do not buy it. You will have lot of wires on the
table. If anything goes wrong you have to buy new computer (keyboard for
example.)

Boba Vancouver

 

[kony]

im looking to buy a new laptop, and i was wondering about the differences in
the 2 processors (pentium m vs pentium 4). this computer will be used as a
desktop replacement. i am looking for a computer that will let me play my
games as well as all other stuff that my desktop will let me do. currently
i am looking into the hpzd8000 and the dell inspiron 9300, with the pentium
m and pentium 4, respectively. any help or suggestions would be
appreciated.

thanks,

dustin

Clock per clock (per MHz) a Pentium M is faster than a P4.
P4 runs at higher speed. These things were obvious enough
but a nice preface. Point is that you have not mentioned
specific models, speeds of either. Pentium M is a fine
choice but consider the other factors of each laptop more
heavily, for gaming this of course means the video card in
particular.

You are looking in vain if you want the laptop to do what a
desktop does, if that were the case we'd all have laptops.
Decide what you don't care about, specifics count.

You mentioned two models, just pick the one you like more
ignoring the CPU.

 

[Paul Murphy]

im looking to buy a new laptop, and i was wondering about the differences
in the 2 processors (pentium m vs pentium 4). this computer will be used
as a desktop replacement. i am looking for a computer that will let me
play my games as well as all other stuff that my desktop will let me do.
currently i am looking into the hpzd8000 and the dell inspiron 9300, with
the pentium m and pentium 4, respectively. any help or suggestions would
be appreciated.

thanks,

dustin

If you want a processor which uses your battery faster but makes your laptop
into a lap warmer then Pentium 4 is the way to go. Pentium M on the other
hand consumes much less power but is much more efficient in what it does.
Personally with the current P4 desktop CPUs using over 100 Watts (vs about
30 ~ 40 for Pentium M), there's no way I'd buy a standard Pentium 4 for a
new PC (desktop or laptop). Intel need to think more about providing an
"efficient" CPU for desktop use and deliver it soon otherwise peoples PCs
will end up just like American cars with regards to fuel efficiency.

Paul

 

[CBFalconer]

.... snip ...

Intel need to think more about providing an "efficient" CPU for
desktop use and deliver it soon otherwise peoples PCs will end
up just like American cars with regards to fuel efficiency.

I agree on Intel. However American cars are not that bad, although
the Soggy Useless Vehicles are a plague. My 1999 Ford Escort, with
a slush box, can get 38 mpg (6.2 l/100km) or better on the highway
in summer. That's keeping up with traffic at over 70 mph (120 kph)
and with air conditioning.

 

[Paul Murphy]

I agree on Intel. However American cars are not that bad, although
the Soggy Useless Vehicles are a plague. My 1999 Ford Escort, with
a slush box, can get 38 mpg (6.2 l/100km) or better on the highway
in summer. That's keeping up with traffic at over 70 mph (120 kph)
and with air conditioning.

It's primarily the SUs and V8 engined cars I refer to and the USA is home
(the origin) to both. Sure there are some cars that are more fuel efficient
(such as yours) and its getting better but things are still nowhere near the
same as say Japans car culture. I wouldn't mind so much if there was an
unlimited supply of oil and the atmosphere over the USA had no effect on the
rest of the world but thats not the case and the fact that the current
president wont sign up to the Kyoto Global Warming Agreement makes me
question whether such issues are a serious priority to him.

The fact that Intel could even consider releasing products such as Prescott
to market before solving the effeciency issues suggests tp me a similar
mindset is in place there.


Paul

 

[CBFalconer]

It's primarily the SUs and V8 engined cars I refer to and the USA
is home (the origin) to both. Sure there are some cars that are
more fuel efficient (such as yours) and its getting better but
things are still nowhere near the same as say Japans car culture.
I wouldn't mind so much if there was an unlimited supply of oil
and the atmosphere over the USA had no effect on the rest of the
world but thats not the case and the fact that the current
president wont sign up to the Kyoto Global Warming Agreement makes
me question whether such issues are a serious priority to him.

You can't have such trivial things as the Kyoto protocols
interfering with personal wars, destruction of the ANWR, promotion
of religious fervor, torture, removal of civil rights, Texas
gerrymandering, feeding Haliburton, cutting Medicare, and such
important issues. Where's your sense of proportion? First thing
you know you might even be suggesting banning land mines,
preserving Social Security, or even increasing the CAFE standards.

 

[William W. Plummer]

You can't have such trivial things as the Kyoto protocols
interfering with personal wars, destruction of the ANWR, promotion
of religious fervor, torture, removal of civil rights, Texas
gerrymandering, feeding Haliburton, cutting Medicare, and such
important issues. Where's your sense of proportion? First thing
you know you might even be suggesting banning land mines,
preserving Social Security, or even increasing the CAFE standards.

The comparison in the article was good. I still wonder why people need
all that horsepower sitting there tapping its fingers waiting for a disk
to turn.

 

[Paul Murphy]

The comparison in the article was good. I still wonder why people need
all that horsepower sitting there tapping its fingers waiting for a disk
to turn.

I too believe its a good comparison. People can always find "higher
priority" issues but the point is that while other issues may be more
"immediate" in terms of effect, if ignored, problems with pollution will be
there for generations to come (as well as the young people of today as
ageing occurs). Unfortunately many political "leaders" are more interested
in what gets the most votes for the next election and not 20 years down the
track - a short term view. The Intel problem is that although the fastest
Pentium 4 desktop CPUs consume large amounts of electrical power (watts),
proportionally their "computing power" (horsepower to borrow your term) is
nowhere near as good as the Pentium M and even the faster overall Atlhlon
64FX CPUs guzzle fewer watts (and they have Cool n Quiet). The problem's not
so much why (some) people require computing power - Windows MCE 2005 with
dual tuners will take care of that as an example (not to mention many
games) - but why the Pentium 4 Prescotts are so inefficient with the
electrical power they do use. If they were much faster overall on benchmarks
than the competition then I could understand but they're not.

Paul

 

[kony]

The Intel problem is that although the fastest
Pentium 4 desktop CPUs consume large amounts of electrical power (watts),
proportionally their "computing power" (horsepower to borrow your term) is
nowhere near as good as the Pentium M and even the faster overall Atlhlon
64FX CPUs guzzle fewer watts (and they have Cool n Quiet). The problem's not
so much why (some) people require computing power - Windows MCE 2005 with
dual tuners will take care of that as an example (not to mention many
games) - but why the Pentium 4 Prescotts are so inefficient with the
electrical power they do use. If they were much faster overall on benchmarks
than the competition then I could understand but they're not.

Paul

I"d have to disagree with your closing statement, that it's
not really significant that they're not (much faster
overall), rather that performance will always be a moving
target but the thermal design power never should've been
allowed to get as high as it is regardless of how much
performance could be gained. While it's true that power
consumption "can" go way down idling with ACPI enabled OS,
it's also quite common for myriad things to keep the CPU
busy even if in an essentially displaced idle loop that's
not doing anything productive, so regardless of what
performance the CPU "could" have, it may be creating excess
heat when doing little to nothing.

 

[Paul Murphy]

I"d have to disagree with your closing statement, that it's
not really significant that they're not (much faster
overall), rather that performance will always be a moving
target but the thermal design power never should've been
allowed to get as high as it is regardless of how much
performance could be gained. While it's true that power
consumption "can" go way down idling with ACPI enabled OS,
it's also quite common for myriad things to keep the CPU
busy even if in an essentially displaced idle loop that's
not doing anything productive, so regardless of what
performance the CPU "could" have, it may be creating excess
heat when doing little to nothing.

I cant understand your statement "thermal design power never should've been
allowed to get as high as it is regardless of how much performance could be
gained". Surely if the thermal design power was as high as it currently is
but (as an exaggeration to make things clearer) a machine equipped with such
a CPU could achieve benchmarks of twice what is currently available - i.e.
twice the performance, then wouldn't the fact that this could perhaps be
used to replace a server pool of 2 machines with only one, justify the high
power consumption? It's performance per watt which really matters and not
just total power consumption. I do understand your reference to things such
as idle loops. Just as CPUs can be inefficient, software can be designed
without efficiency placed as a high priority. I once had a piece of comms
software which took 25 seconds to initialise my modem ready for answering
machine use, I complained about it to the software publisher because I also
had a competing product which could do exactly the same thing on the same
hardware in about 3 seconds. The product which took 25 seconds is no longer
in production whereas the other (faster but uglier and less user friendly)
product is.

Paul

 

[kony]

I cant understand your statement "thermal design power never should've been
allowed to get as high as it is regardless of how much performance could be
gained".

I mean, even if they could triple performance, they
shouldn't have released CPUs with that high a TDP to achieve
it. The matter should've been one of an upper limit to TDP,
not one of "what performance gain would there be".

Surely if the thermal design power was as high as it currently is
but (as an exaggeration to make things clearer) a machine equipped with such
a CPU could achieve benchmarks of twice what is currently available - i.e.
twice the performance, then wouldn't the fact that this could perhaps be
used to replace a server pool of 2 machines with only one, justify the high
power consumption?

It would be unusual and arbitrary to assume of the 2 servers
that the only significant bottleneck were the CPU. One
would think then that a single dual CPU server should be
used. Additionally there are server CPU that could have
different design goals, this is a desktop CPU.

It's performance per watt which really matters and not
just total power consumption.

Again I disagree, in the real world the total power
consumption does matter.

I do understand your reference to things such
as idle loops.

Quite simple, many people have their CPUs just sitting there
producing 70W plus, supposedly "idling" at the desktop.
Causes include viri, Yahoo message bars and other kinds of
little tray apps for scanners or who-knows-what. Bottom
line is, 70W continually if not higher, when if the TDP were
lower, so would this pseudo-idle power usage. We could
argue about what these users would do "in a perfect world"
but in this one, it happens and happens VERY often, might
almost be considered typical. Remember that Joe Average does
not get as "hands on" with their system as many do here,
that Joe Average is the majority of users.

Further, some uses do not have the CPU running OS with ACPI
halt cooling working or even that feature.

Just as CPUs can be inefficient, software can be designed
without efficiency placed as a high priority. I once had a piece of comms
software which took 25 seconds to initialise my modem ready for answering
machine use, I complained about it to the software publisher because I also
had a competing product which could do exactly the same thing on the same
hardware in about 3 seconds. The product which took 25 seconds is no longer
in production whereas the other (faster but uglier and less user friendly)
product is.

True, when it comes to performance there are other factors.
That diminishes the perceived need for utmost performance
regardless of TDP in many situations, doesn't it? Do we
keep buying faster/hotter CPUs even for tasks that shouldn't
need them, merely to combat poorly written software?

If soneone had a specific job(s) that need higher CPU
performance such that job length changes, we have a
different situation where higher TDP of CPU might actually
reduce overall power consumption by allowing system to run
shorter period of time, or fewer systems. This seems to be
the minority of uses for theses PC targeted CPUs or the
majority of systems.

 

[Paul Murphy]

I mean, even if they could triple performance, they
shouldn't have released CPUs with that high a TDP to achieve
it. The matter should've been one of an upper limit to TDP,
not one of "what performance gain would there be".

OK thanks for clearing that up - I don't agree but at least I understand
your view now.

It would be unusual and arbitrary to assume of the 2 servers
that the only significant bottleneck were the CPU. One
would think then that a single dual CPU server should be
used. Additionally there are server CPU that could have
different design goals, this is a desktop CPU.

Sometimes servers do have CPU bottlenecks (particularly those running as
Terminal Services Servers where they're basically running all the
applications and doing all the work for a bunch of "dumb" terminals on the
network). Its unlikely that the performance would be double and as I
mentioned that was only an example to get the point across - likewise using
a desktop CPU in a server.

Again I disagree, in the real world the total power
consumption does matter.

I think you misunderstand me here, this is very important - I never said
total power "didn't matter" it does and just like you I don't like the idea
of having a little heater built into a PC. My point is that if the
performance per watt (or efficiency for want of a better word) was improved,
then you could get the same performance at lower power consumption - i.e.
cooler running (or higher performance at the same power consumption).

Quite simple, many people have their CPUs just sitting there
producing 70W plus, supposedly "idling" at the desktop.
Causes include viri, Yahoo message bars and other kinds of
little tray apps for scanners or who-knows-what. Bottom
line is, 70W continually if not higher, when if the TDP were
lower, so would this pseudo-idle power usage. We could
argue about what these users would do "in a perfect world"
but in this one, it happens and happens VERY often, might
almost be considered typical. Remember that Joe Average does
not get as "hands on" with their system as many do here,
that Joe Average is the majority of users.

Further, some uses do not have the CPU running OS with ACPI
halt cooling working or even that feature.

I agree and that's where I think the power related developments in the
Athlon 64 and Pentium M CPUs are so important. Throttling down of a CPU
depending on its workload is the ideal solution and for a laptop, results in
a significant improvement in battery life - e.g. Centrino vs. standard P4
laptops.<snip>

Paul

 

[kony]

I think you misunderstand me here, this is very important - I never said
total power "didn't matter" it does and just like you I don't like the idea
of having a little heater built into a PC. My point is that if the
performance per watt (or efficiency for want of a better word) was improved,
then you could get the same performance at lower power consumption - i.e.
cooler running (or higher performance at the same power consumption).

This statement clarifies your point well and I agree. I was
never very keen on the P4 anyway, felt like they needed to
exploit the Tualatin more than they did at the time.

I agree and that's where I think the power related developments in the
Athlon 64 and Pentium M CPUs are so important. Throttling down of a CPU
depending on its workload is the ideal solution and for a laptop, results in
a significant improvement in battery life - e.g. Centrino vs. standard P4
laptops.

Ideally that will become more widespread.