Legit Reviews

Since I haven't worked much with laptops until I got 1 a few weeks ago, I'm a bit behind in laptop technology. The sticker on my Dell Latitude C640 says Pentium 4 with a small black triangle and an "M" inside right above it. I know that Centrino technology doesn't use Pentium 4, but rather Pentium M. What I didn't know until a few days ago is that Pentium M is actually based on Pentium III instead of Pentium 4. So I installed Sandra on my laptop to figure out which one is it (Pentium 4 or Pentium M) after finding out that the two aren't similar. Sandra calls the model "Mobile Pentium 4 - M CPU 1.70 GHz" and the name line says "P4P-M (Northwood-M) Pentium 4-M 90nm 1.4GHz+ 1.2-1.3V". Since Pentium M is based on Pentium III, there should be no mention about Pentium 4, which leads me to believe my CPU is a Pentium 4 (plus Pentium M should use 479-pin socket and not 478 if I'm not mistaken, and Sandra says it's 478), but Pentium 4 also shouldn't have SpeedStep technology while my CPU definately does (Sandra reports so, and I've seen it jump through several frequencies between 837 MHz and 1.7 GHz myself while using it). So which one is it? I'm speculating that it's a modified Pentium 4, but why then many other laptops that don't use Centrino technology and use Pentium 4 instead haven't adopted this "M" part (my more powerful laptop drains its battery in less than 2 hours, while this one can function for almost 5)?

Its a Pentium 4, but its the version that is designed for lower voltages and operating frequencies, hense the M designation for mobile. This is part of why intel came up with the Centrino name, because people were very confused by the Pentium 4, Pentium 4 M, and Pentium M. They all have the name pentium but they all come with different clockspeeds and at different prices... talk about a marketing nightmare.

Pentium 4: 1.4 - 3.8 ghz
Pentium 4 M: 1.4 - 3.4ghz
Pentium M: 800 - 2.26ghz

Thanks for clearing that up. Also, while we're on this subject, I've found this article (while trying to find out more about real Pentium M) that I think you guys will be interested in: http://www.tomshardware.com/2005/05/25/ ... _netburst/ . Apparently Pentium M is a lot more powerful than Intel thought (check out page 11 to see 2.5GHz overclocked Dothan smoke 3.4GHz Gallatin in all videogame benchmarks, even Athlons lag behind).

o trust me we knew :O

http://forums.legitreviews.com/viewtopic.php?t=1525

As things go Toms is not the most trust worthy site (i mean look we have legit in our name ) but Intel knew exaclty how powerfull the Pentium M was, their primary goal with it was not power though in the sence of MHZ but rather power consumption. They took the highly efficent exicution archetecture of the Pentium 3 and then stuck it into the pentium 4 more or less.

But if Intel knew of Pentium M's power from the start, why did they base their first generation of dual core CPU's on Pentium 4? I mean if you got something that runs more efficiently and has 1/5 power consumption of Pentium 4, it's kinda dumb putting two Pentium 4s on that chip (knowing that they will generate twice as much heat) when you can put two Pentium M's there, which work better anyway. Intel definately knew that Pentium M is more efficient power consumption wise (that's why they made it), but I doubt they knew that Pentium M outperforms both Pentium 4 and Athlons in benchmarks.

because they already had the dualcore P4 in the works. When they invested all that time and money in developing it, they are going to use it... Also becaues they did not design the Pentium M to be a high performance CPU rahter its a high power to watt CPU. Until the revise its design to be more highperformance its really only for laptops.

THG was one of the reasons behind why I came up with LR... hehe

Live Yves said you have the P4M!

Apoptosis wrote:THG was one of the reasons behind why I came up with LR... hehe

Live Yves said you have the P4M!

why? what's wrong with tom's hardware guide? can someone enlighten me? just curious.

It's true, people do say that THG is biased, but they're a good source of information nonentheless.

sbohdan wrote:

Apoptosis wrote:THG was one of the reasons behind why I came up with LR... hehe

Live Yves said you have the P4M!

why? what's wrong with tom's hardware guide? can someone enlighten me? just curious.

THG was one of the first hardware sites...they are also one of the biggest....but if your read their results when it comes to certain hardware you'll see their results "sometimes" differ from others.....
I personally find them usefull for some stuff....

THG is biased towards Intel for sure. I preferr Intel but I know who had the fastest CPU(AMD) I also know Intel takes back the desktop crown in 2006.

Speaking of bias reviews you have to admit AT has gotten pretty bad .

If you think I am wrong lets have a contest . Go read there Intel and ATI reviews .

I will show there bias with those products.
Than Lets look At there AMD NV reviews. The Gpu reviews are the eassiest to show there bias as they recently changed how they review the GPU parts. Before XF and X1800Xt it was all about high res. and eyecandy that has changed now.

Zinn2b wrote:I also know Intel takes back the desktop crown in 2006.

I too am very much looking forward to Conroe! If all the hype surrounding this architechture comes true, the that might have be my first intel based rig

Zinn2b wrote:THG is biased towards Intel for sure. I preferr Intel but I know who had the fastest CPU(AMD) I also know Intel takes back the desktop crown in 2006.

Speaking of bias reviews you have to admit AT has gotten pretty bad .

If you think I am wrong lets have a contest . Go read there Intel and ATI reviews .

I will show there bias with those products.
Than Lets look At there AMD NV reviews. The Gpu reviews are the eassiest to show there bias as they recently changed how they review the GPU parts. Before XF and X1800Xt it was all about high res. and eyecandy that has changed now.

I know, AT used to show some kinda professionalism...they are loosing thier good rep, and fast....That's why I read between the lines and read alot more than just 1 review....