A question on Pentium M's

[Lac3y]

Are Pentium M's calculated diiferently to Pentium 4's?

I had a laptop that is a year old that cost around £900 and it was Pentium 4 2.6Ghz.

Howvever, Now all I can find are Pentium M's and they seem to be lower speeds but higher prices (example 1.86GHz Pentium M 750 for £1000).

Sorry if this sounds stupid but a computer guy I ain't.

 

[UK31337]

Pentium M has a different architecture to the Pentium 4. It runs cooler, and can do more calculations per cycle, and is more efficient as a result.

They reckon that if you multiply the speed of a Pentium M by about 1.25 (I think), you get the equivalent P4 speed, but that's not always the case if the P4 has Hyperthreading built in.

I'd pick the Pentium M over the Pentium 4 (and I have both).

 

[alvino]

The Pentium M is based on the Pentium III, but it has a more efficient architecture and produces less heat. The highest Pentium M is the 770 (running at 2.16ghz) and it's pretty good (although EXPENSIVE).

 

[Lac3y]

Thanks for the info

So will Pentium M 750 have better performance than a Pentium 4 2.6Ghz even though it has a lower CPU speed?

 

[acphenom]

In most cases, yes. That is one of the biggest criticisms of the Pentium 4's; at the same clock speeds as chips based on the Pentium 3 P6 architecture, they are slower. Therefore, they need to run at much faster clock speeds to compete.

Pentium M will definitely beat a Pentium 4 in gaming.

 

[alvino]

Yes, it will. It follows the concept that AMD has been following; more processes per clock cycle. The Pentium 4's run at a high speed because the architecture doesn't allow it to do much per clock cycle, therefore requiring the higher clock speed to speed it up.

 

[ownage]

the Netburst architecture and the 31+ pipelines the P4 has allows it to have an extreme clock speed.

 

[acphenom]

Yes, but that makes the architecture inefficient.

As I've said before; no one should be buying any of the current Pentium 4's. In fact, I'll also throw in the Pentium D, Pentium Extreme Editions, and Celerons (except Celeron M).

So if you are looking to buy a laptop, then Pentium M with DDR2 memory is the way to go, unless you can find a VIA C7-M laptop anywhere.

 

[alvino]

I think the Pentium M also has the NetBurst architecture...at least the Dothan cores do...I think.

 

[ownage]

They do, but there are less pipelines and they are shorter due to the fact of the modified PIII architecture. acphenom, the Northwood P4's are good to buy, also, Prescotts are very due to the fact of overclockability.