Notebook woes

[WildMonkey]

I'm looking to buy a notebook.
What is the difference between Intel's M series and a regular Pentium 4 in notebooks.

I ask because Pentium M processors are between 1.7 and 2.3 GHz or so, and Pentium 4's in notebooks go up to 3.4 Ghz or so, and they are cheaper than a top 2.2-2.3Ghz M series.

Why? And which is better?

 

[jmh547]

i dont know much about the intel but i think the m series will underclock to save your battery which i think the pentium 4 will also do now

 

[Scott9027]

Get Pentium M. It's better for battery life, and equal or better performance.

 

[AZNBoiOnFIYA]

pentium m uses less power, but i dont think its on par with some of the p4's. if you want a notebook then get it w/ the pentium m. my friend has a p4 in his and it only gets about an hour of batterylife.

 

[demortey]

p4s are hogs on batterylife. get pentium M, they are the mobile edition of p4 chips. they underclock, run at a lower voltage, etc. Ms are way better on battery life. unless you want the laptop for extreme performance (gaming, etc) then just get the M.

 

[K15]

I'm looking to buy a notebook.
What is the difference between Intel's M series and a regular Pentium 4 in notebooks.

I ask because Pentium M processors are between 1.7 and 2.3 GHz or so, and Pentium 4's in notebooks go up to 3.4 Ghz or so, and they are cheaper than a top 2.2-2.3Ghz M series.

Why? And which is better?

A full Pentium 4 really doesn't belong in a notebook (I know from experience).
The M should work fine. Most people don't do major CPU intensive stuff on a notebook anyway.

 

[ckj]

Pentium 4-m does more work per clock, and eat less power so they're definately better than a pentium 4 laptop.

 

[demortey]

oh...one thing i forgot to mention is heat. if you plan on having it on your lap, definately dont get p4. i had an amd mobile 1.2ghz and i couldnt leave it on my lap for extended periods of time( 15 min max). my powerbook is like taht too (passive cooling sucks). my dads pentium M dell runs really cool...it never gets hot..only warm

 

[Scott9027]

The performance is still very good. A 2.26GHz P-M is a very capable CPU for gaming, just look at some benchmarks.

Keep in mind the P4-M is not the same as the P-M.

 

[techun]

yeah, if u dont get a mobile chip in a laptop, you'll regret it

 

[infinitevalence]

A pentium M is as powerfull as a similarly clocked AMD so if 2.2ghz PM = 2.2ghz A64 and = 3200+ then more or less 2.2ghz PM = 3.2ghz Pentium 4. Its not exactly like this but its close enough. I love my pentium M i get 9hrs of battery life, but i can still sit in class and edit video's author DVD's, do photoshop graphics. The pentium m is also very good for gaming, even with out a decent video card i can play some 3d games on my laptop

 

[Tebore]

The Pentium M (Dothan, Banias) has nothing in common with the Pentium 4. Well maybe the memory interface and the prefetch but even that has been reworked for low power consumption, i should use the word inspired.

The Pentium M shares a lot of it's design from the P3. Think of it as a P3 using state of the art manufacturing process and a P4 Memory interface and prefetch.

The Pentium M actually can do more IPCs than a A64. Short pipeline = lower mhz and higher efficiency. Lower Mhz = low power consumption. The P-M has one or so less FPU than a A64 tho. So they are about equal.

For any laptop that isn't going to be a Desktop replacement get only the Pentium and the low power Turions. P4s and A64 will suck your battery dry in 1-2 hours max.

As for the comments on extreme gaming. No P4 can compete with a P-M or A64. The pentium M is a stout processor that will beat a P4 in Gaming. Only reason why you rarely find it in highend gaming laptops is because P-Ms are mobile chips and you won't find a good video card matched to it (The XPS an exception). Intel purposefuly keeps the Mhz low because at around 2.2ghz because the chip is at it's most efficient Mhz to watt ratio at 2.4ghz I think it leaks 50% more power which is a lot for a 200mhz increase.

To get a approximation to a P4 for a Dothan take the P-M's Mhz and multiply it by 1.7.

 

[infinitevalence]

Short pipeline = lower mhz and higher efficiency.

Not trying to jump on you but this is not always the case, if it were the ARM and other RISC cpus would be whipping their asses with the P4, PM and A64. Shorter pipelines WITH higher IPC creates lower mhz and higher efficency in most cases. There is a lot that goes into designing a superscaler deep pipelined processor. Other than that your right on the $$ as far as i can tell

 

[Tebore]

I guess I shouldn't have generalized like that. Because it's true if you have a simple processor say with 3 stages that only does 1 Instruction and it's only 1 type instruction you can't say it's world's most efficient.

I'm studying Processor architecture at university right now and let me tell you it's not that easy to come up with something from scratch. Making 10 Swtiches do something like add numbers isn't easy. Try doing what Intel is doing. It's easy to critizes what they should have done with the P4 and Itanium but unless you're the one doing it you can't really say much.

I'm not a fan of the P4 Netburst as much as I am of AMD's "Quantispeed" but it's sure an interesting design change compared to the P3s when you look at it under a microscope.