Desktop, Laptop or Tablet

[lazyfiddler]

What's the difference betwee the P4-M and the Centrino?

 

[Nescafe]

The processor in Centrino is of lower clock speed (hence consume lower power, ie. longer bat life) but *somehow perform much faster than a P4-M (abt 25-30% faster.)

*it's architecture is an improved version of the P3 rather than P4 (strange rite? but it's true.) It's similar in concept with the AMD XP1800+ running at an actual clock rate of 1.5MHz, but performs better than a 1.8MHz P4. That's why after Intel came up with the centrino, AMD is now singing " Hadn't I told you so? "

But honestly, Centrino is about decent performance with much longer battery life. Really not meant to be ultimate desktop replacement. Its built-in wireless is quite hopeless IMHO.

 

[lazyfiddler]

Originally posted by Nescafe
The processor in Centrino is of lower clock speed (hence consume lower power, ie. longer bat life) but *somehow perform much faster than a P4-M (abt 25-30% faster.)

*it's architecture is an improved version of the P3 rather than P4 (strange rite? but it's true.) It's similar in concept with the AMD XP1800+ running at an actual clock rate of 1.5MHz, but performs better than a 1.8MHz P4. That's why after Intel came up with the centrino, AMD is now singing " Hadn't I told you so? "

But honestly, Centrino is about decent performance with much longer battery life. Really not meant to be ultimate desktop replacement. Its built-in wireless is quite hopeless IMHO.

I see.... in that case, then I guess it wouldn't be wise to pay a premium for the Centrino for normal everyday computer usage. Think I will stick to the normal P4 as the choice processor for my notebook purchase.

 

[zhoufang]

Originally posted by SNAG
Just to inform you guys, a 7,200 RPM laptop harddisk has been introduced by HGST (Hitachi, formerly by IBM)

Price and availability unknown.
If you are really hardcore, get SCSI.
Or you could just go get an Avid system. :devil:

www.hgst.com

But 2.5" and 3.5" still make a difference.
assuming the density of disks are the same it will still be about (3.5-2.5)/2.5X100%=40% of difference in linear data transfer rate.

not to mention that 3.5" IDE has a 10K RPM member now from western digital, if you are looking for the best...

 

[zhoufang]

Originally posted by erwinx
Interesting. 1.3G Centrino equivalent to 2Ghz P4. Do you have link to benchmarks? Sites like Tom's Hardware Guide give very different results.

it's more or less there.
The pentium M has a 12 stage pipeline with 32K L1 and 1M L2 cache.
The pentium 4(M) on the other hand has an extremely long 20 stage pipeline with only about 8K L1 and 512K L2 cache, so any mistake in branch predicting will cost a lot of CPU cycles

 

[Nescafe]

Originally posted by lazyfiddler
I see.... in that case, then I guess it wouldn't be wise to pay a premium for the Centrino for normal everyday computer usage. Think I will stick to the normal P4 as the choice processor for my notebook purchase.

Not really...

If you can stand the heat and the short battery life of P4 notebook (1.5hr?!), then no need for Centrino.

As for me, 6 hrs of battery life is indefinitely more important than the 2.4G clock of a P4. Also, clock speed is not everything. If I really need more speed down the road, I can always up the RAM to 2G (currently 512M only, but more than enough for photoshop)

 

[Ian]

Originally posted by dennislim
since young i have been playing around with computers including hardware ... and i can tell u that ...

no matter how good is a laptop, it still cannot match a desktop in terms of performance .... simply because ... the hard disk is having a rotation on 4200 rpm ... which is a bottle neck.

no matter how fast is the processor of the notebook or how big the memory space u got ... the hard disk will slow down everything ...

You'l find that most better notebooks have a 5200 rpm ATA 100 hard disk at present.

Rough (generic) specs for a typical 2.5" / 9.5mm FF HDD:

Ave seek time >12ms
Track to track latency approx 4ms.

Generic specs for a typical 3.5" HDD used in desktops: (5400 rpm), not the newer 7200 rpm.

Ave seek time 8.9ms
Latency: 5.1ms

Granted the Desktop is faster, but in REAL terms it adds up to perhaps 1 second difference when opening a largish file or maybe 2 seconds on a large application.

You are joking about the ibook aren't you. They are slugs compared to the latest Intel/AMD based notebooks ... not even in the same world, let alone performance bracket.

Nescafe
I don't know where you got the idea the Centrino Processor is based on the P-III from, a quick check on the Intel site shows your statement to be fallaceous as the processor was designed from the ground up as a whole new processor and infact is Intels first ever processor designed solely for mobile applications. (sources several).

Intels blurb on the Centrino background

Also the battery life of the conventional P4 moblie 2.4 gig units varies from about 1 hour to nearly 3 hours depending on manufacturer, power saving settings etc. The same applies to the Centrino ..

General Centrino Information

Simple to understand Centrino Info


Desktop Replacement Notebook reviews

2.4 Gig notebooks and a Toshiba M15 Centrino notebook benchmarks taken from the above article.


AMD Athlon (low voltage) Vs Intel Centrino AMD aren't close in performance it would seem (23% or so down) but they are a lot cheaper.

Yeah a couple of the links are repeats of the ones above .. I know that already!

happy reading :devil:

Oh a final few points .. unlike most I've actually tested a Centrino (Toshiba Tecra S1) and a 2.4 gig notebook (Toshiba P-6100) side by side with my standard test of Photoshop 7 and some 47Mb TIF files. Over a CD worth of files the centrino just edged out the P-6100. However compared to a well setup 2.4 gig Desktop the notebook came in well behind.

All up the Centrino is an ideal platform for field processing of professional small format DSLR images and can quite nicely handle MF Digital images, while being more than capable of dealing with the much smaller prosumer/consumer level image files.

After much soul searching, research and bean counting I opted for the Toshiba M15-S405 as my new field notebook. Speed and battery life need I value more than weight, need I say more

 

[Nescafe]

Originally posted by Ian
[Nescafe
I don't know where you got the idea the Centrino Processor is based on the P-III from, a quick check on the Intel site shows your statement to be fallaceous as the processor was designed from the ground up as a whole new processor and infact is Intels first ever processor designed solely for mobile applications. [/B]

"In tests, Centrino—which is actually based on a modified Pentium III core and Pentium 4-like bus—outperformed the higher-frequency, power-hogging Pentium 4 devices hands down......" -- eWEEK: "Intel scores with Centrino"

(http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,3959,924693,00.asp)

 

[Ian]

Originally posted by Nescafe
"In tests, Centrino—which is actually based on a modified Pentium III core and Pentium 4-like bus—outperformed the higher-frequency, power-hogging Pentium 4 devices hands down......" -- eWEEK: "Intel scores with Centrino"

(http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,3959,924693,00.asp)

I'd that that comment with a very large grain of salt to be honest as it's akin to comparing the original Internal Combustion engine of Lenior with the current Keith Black Top Fuel Dragster Engines.

A couple of hours spent comparing the processor data sheets tonight leads me to believe that what the author above was referring to is actually the 'core logic' rather than the physical core as the electrical specifications and indeed the clock control are completely different in the Centrino.

What is beyond doubt though is that Intel have produced a system in the Centrino that will have major rammifications in the wider computer world in the long term.

 

[Nescafe]

Hi Ian,

I wouldn't say your comments is "fallaceous" but would read them with a few grains of salt too:bsmilie:

 

[Ian]

Originally posted by Nescafe
Hi Ian,

I wouldn't say your comments is "fallaceous" but would read them with a few grains of salt too:bsmilie:

Feel free to read and compare the processor spec sheets (all 90 odd pages on each processor and the design guidelines (a bit longer) .. and reach your own conclusion. :rbounce: All are available on the Intel website.

 

[munfai]

if you're purely doing graphics and video editing with high priority on portability , my vote is for an Apple PowerBook G4. almost nothing beats Apple displays.

 

[longman]

Originally posted by munfai
if you're purely doing graphics and video editing with high priority on portability , my vote is for an Apple PowerBook G4. almost nothing beats Apple displays.

:thumbsup: :thumbsup: :thumbsup:

 

[the_tick]

Most of this is repeating what others have previously said. Although, it's probably too late,

1) Yes, a laptop is now more than capable for graphics and video editing.

2) However, desktops are still cheaper and more powerful.

3) Avoid the tablet, it's not powerful enough.

Some things to look out for. If you get a laptop make sure it uses a newer graphics card such as the ati radeon or the geforce go (or whatever it's called). Make sure the graphics card has at least 32 megs of ram, 64 megs is better.

If you plan to do any video editing, then at least 512 megs of ram are required for any decent performance.
1 gig is even better.

As for the harddrive it's not a problem. Most serious video editors buy a laptop with a firewire port and purchase a 7200 rpm external harddrive.

When more thing is the screen. The 16" sony vaios or the 17" powerbook will do wonders for you. The 16" toshibas aren't as nice.