Intel Centrino vs other mobile?

Hey all

well reading up on the centrino cause i am likely going to buy a laptop soon.

What is the major advantage of the centrino - to me it seems simply it does not use as much power on battery - but the speeds are much lower, like 1.6ghz....

is the 1ghz speed decrease over a mobile worth the extra saved on battery life?

whatotehr advantages does the centrino offer over other mobile chips?

generally a 1.6 centrino is equal to a 2.4-6 p4 mobile. but the battery life is insane and the cache perf is just huge! but also centrino's seem to be more expensive than p4's.

Pentium M mhz are directly comperable to athlon XP mhz. The Pentium M is a distant relative of the P3 and the athlon and p3 were comperable in performance. P4 and whatever P4 for notebooks that are current and all celerons from the p4, are not comperable to the Pentium M.

Centrino is not a processor, it is a certification.

Centrino is Pentium M processor + 855 chipset + Intel Wifi mini-PCI adaptor. Centrino isn't a processor. Centrino is a certification like THX audio.

^^^^yes saw that part, the actual processor is the Bariana (sp?)

found a good read of it on anantech


and that clock for clock it is faster then a p4.

Where can I buy THX audio? Also, I heard that the processors used in the centrino systems do more operations per clock cycle than any processor out atm.

OOOPS Its a Banias cored Pentium M simple like that It can only be labeled a centrino if the notebook includes a certain set of hardware otherwise its a Pentium M laptop/notebook.

very detailed read about the new chip

http://www.anandtech.com/mobile/showdoc.html?i=1800

bulk88 said:

Pentium M mhz are directly comperable to athlon XP mhz. The Pentium M is a distant relative of the P3 and the athlon and p3 were comperable in performance. P4 and whatever P4 for notebooks that are current and all celerons from the p4, are not comperable to the Pentium M.

Centrino is not a processor, it is a certification.

Centrino is Pentium M processor + 855 chipset + Intel Wifi mini-PCI adaptor. Centrino isn't a processor. Centrino is a certification like THX audio.

Click to expand...

You are correct in everything except the Pentium M is as fast as an Athlon clock per clock. The Pentium M is faster than an Athlon XP clock per clock. A 1.6 M is as fast as a 2.5P4 in most things. A 2500+ is 1.83ghz and thats with like 300mhz amd pr bs thrown in. Imho, if I were buying a laptop I would spend the extra dough on a Pentium M.

So

ALL pentium M's are based on the Banias core?

right now ALL Pentium M's are based on the Banias core. Later this year or next the Dothan core version will show up.

lol, i didn't know centrino is a certification. So can AMD athlon M becomes Centrino?!? Since all other audio manufactures can have THX certification...

Claw13Angel said:

lol, i didn't know centrino is a certification. So can AMD athlon M becomes Centrino?!? Since all other audio manufactures can have THX certification...

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No...Centrino is a certification given by Intel, and It would be a cold day in hell before something like that happened. Not to mention that Centrino means it has to be Pentium M.

Uhhh, I'm trying to help someone get a lappy too, does the centrino certification or whatever the heck it is guarantee a megabyte of cache or not?

RoadWarrior said:

Uhhh, I'm trying to help someone get a lappy too, does the centrino certification or whatever the heck it is guarantee a megabyte of cache or not?

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All the Pentium M procs have 1mb L2 cache.

-Bobby

yep they all have 1mb cache... the new dothan cores coming out at the end of the year will have 2 mb i think.....

i think the centrino cert just garuntees, the pent-m, chipset, and the 802.11b wireless lan.....

the only thing bad about centrino branding is that it sometimes makes non-centrino pentium-m based laptops not as good to the average joe, once a OEM decides to upgrade something like the wireless lan to incorporate 'g' also.. (i.e. the top pentium-m IBM thinkpad)

^^^

that is why i was confused - some laptop are

"intel centrino" while other were just Pentium M

Well i believe all Pentium M lappys are centrino. They are fast. I just got one a few weeks ago. I sat in a library using wireless internet for over an hour constant plus other apps running and i only uses 20% of the battery. I get seti times from 2hrs - 2.7 or so. Have not done very many WU though. I would get a centrino over any other lappy.

Edit: And I am a AMD lover and i still got this. My first ever Intel.

heezer7 said:

Well i believe all Pentium M lappys are centrino.

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Nope. Centrino is a certification package. You need, among other things, the Pentium M, 855 chipset and wireless B (Intel chipset version) to qualify as a "Centrino" laptop.

-Bobby

Yuriman said:

Also, I heard that the processors used in the centrino systems do more operations per clock cycle than any processor out atm.

Click to expand...

I don't think so... I doubt the pentium M could compare clock to clock with an opteron or Itanium 2.

i've searched all over but can't seem to find an IPC rating for the Banias (Pentium M), however just from my limited experience and the tech docs I've read, it is a very impressive chip. I know that those of us who love AMD are often inclined to knock any Intel product we see (and considering their recent track of abominations, who can blame us?) But Intel finally made a GOOD decision and scrapped the P4 core and went back to the Pentium 3 core, upped the Cache, FSB and added SSE2 along with some other refinements, shrunk down the manufacturing process and bam, we have a real winner! In addition to this you have the centrino certification which guarantees you a system capable of some awesome power saving features and wireless net connection. I dont' remember all the details but if you go Centrino, you're computer will be shutting down more than just the hard drive and slowing the processor, it will actually shut off parts of the mobo, etc. to save power.
Even though I think Intel is the devil, I have to give them props on the Pentium M and centrino. If you've got the cash, a Centrino notebook will certainly not disappoint. Now, the next questions are can Mobile A64 give us an equally impressive experience and can Intel continue to scale the aging P3 core?