I dont want to a annoy gaming dothan boys but please tell me why ?? - Page 3

Wow, deja vu on this thread, nothing here is new, go see http://notebookforums.com/showthread.php?t=51338

Am I mistake or was there a 64 bit Longhorn beta Version out there or even in the works?

There's a Windows XP Pro 64-bit in beta, but it's not really worth it.

Yes, it's been out for almost a year now. Windows Longhorn x64 6.0.4083 is the newest build.

I don't agree, it's absolutely worth it and except for few available drivers it's better than 32-bit Windows XP Pro in my opinion. I suggest you take a look at these reviews:
http://www.gamepc.com/labs/view_cont...p641218&page=1
http://www.pcstats.com/articleview.cfm?articleID=1665

Yeah, I like having my drivers. Though I must say, the last build I tried was quite awhile ago, so maybe some things have changed. Either way, I already formatted my XP 64 partition into /home for my Gentoo setup. Won't bother with it again unless they offer the same goody educational discount on 64-bit here at purdue when it comes out.

In reply to #1 :
Because im not always gameing.I do travel, and size/weight vs performance is an issue. Any non pentiumM notebook I could find that had the same performance was at least 2 lbs more and a larger size than what I have now.

exactly, having the best gaming laptop is nice but it's also great to have a portable machine when you need one and a 2.0 ghz dothan with a mobility radeon 9700 or better is still gonna be a great gaming machine. If framerates and benchmarks were all that mattered you'd be using a desktop.

Just a follow up to my first post:

-If portability is NOT an issue, then why buy a laptop that is twice the price for half to computer compared to a desktop. I never have understood this.

-I think people are misinterpretting the overall point of those dothan/AMD reviews. I don't believe they are trying to say that Dothan is better/faster/more powerful, but rather that this *supposed* old technology, with older bus speeds and the like can hold it's own against these "newer" processors with their extensive list of performance features. The fact that this mobile dothan chip with it's slower clock speed can perform within 0-15% of desktop chips is amazing. Dothan isn't *supposed* to be in the same ballpark, but it is. That--to me--is amazing, but I think people here are seriously overanalyzing.

you will only notice a 5% performance difference in benchmarks anyways.

Yes it's hot due to poor cooling, you could get even get a Via C3 system pretty toasty with poor enough cooling. The A64 and P4 are consuming 3-4x the power of a P-M, and that has a fairly direct impact on how much heat is generated. There is more to it, but that is one of the biggest factors, especially when the power draw is such a dramatic difference.

For reference.
http://www.gamepc.com/labs/view_cont...188BD7EA4BCD1B

This has the Pentium M 2.0 much cooler than either the Athlon 64 or P4, and their stock coolers are both are much more powerful than the dinky low rpm cooler bundled with the Aopen board and used in that testing. It's really not a good comparison, they could have used the Zalman 7000 for all three cpu's and shown an even larger difference.

The Pentium M's have some clear advantages and disadvantages, running cool is definately on the advantage side compared to anything else from AMD or Intel right now.

although I do agree with you that the p-m is a cool running processor. I find it hard to believe the resuts that gamepc has of the thermal power of the respective procs. They used the onboard temp probe of each motherboard, which as many know is NOT an accurate representation of cpu temperature and is known to be buggy. Although these boards probably report temperature within 5C of the actual temperature, gamepc should have taken steps to test more accurately.

You're comparing apples to pears here. The thermals of Pentium M 755 (2.0GHz) on the desktop compared to the Athlon 64 FX-55 (2.6GHz) isn't very representative since the latter isn't even a mobile processor (because it draws too much power). Only the Athlon 64 DTR can be directly compared to the desktop Athlon 64 (not FX!) with regards to power consumption and temperatures, just have a look at this:
http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu...64-90nm_5.html
http://www6.tomshardware.com/cpu/200...m4_570-20.html
http://www.bleedinedge.com/reviews/p...4/ap64_04.html

The current low-power Mobile Athlon 64 90nm "Oakville" has an even lower power consumption and temperatures than the desktop Athlon 64 90nm "Winchester" for your information.

Well, I guess I'd expect people to say "it can be run with really crappy cooling because it can handle high temps and doesn't get there as fast as its competitors!" instead of "it runs cool" Same thing, but a bit less misleading.

This is true. However, many laptops still use desktop cpus, while only 3 that I know of use the low voltage version of AMD64, so the comparison is fair enough. I was also asking for comparisons between Dothan and *any* other cpus so the answer served its purpose. There has been no link to a Dothan vs low voltage AMD64 comparison yet, but maybe nobody has done one.

If your question is which processor is better or would suit your needs better, then the answer will not be found in the technology behind each processor. The processors were built with different criteria.

Pentium-M is a chip with a primary focus on low heat and low power consumption. It was designed from the ground-up as a laptop processor.

Athlon64 and Pentium4 chips have a primary focus on pure performance. They were designedfrom the ground-up as desktop processors, where heat and power consumption are not issues.

To ask "Which processor makes a better laptop?" depends entirely on your viewpoint. The same question will have different answers, depending on what is important to you in a laptop.

If you value performance over portability, go with a PEntium4 or Athlon64.
If you value portability over performance, go with a Pentium-M.


You answered your own question in your post:
- If you don't travel (so portability isn't an issue), and the laptop is always plugged in (so battery life isn't an issue), then why are you going with a Pentium-M?
The answer is "there is no reason, except to have a cool toy."

Notice that most people that like Pentium-M's say "I travel for work, so I like the portability and battery life". Most people that like Pentium4's or Athlon64s say "My performance / benchmarks are better than a Centrino's".

So... find out what criteria are important to you in a laptop, and that will dictate which processor best suits your needs. There is no one laptop that is perfect for everybody (otherwise, we'd all own Asus M6BNEs)

dothan is the best of both worlds, simple as that.

You have a weird idea of a flamewar. Never been to unmoderated newsgroups?

The majority of AMD64 laptops use Athlon 64 DTR (81.5W TDP) or Mobile Athlon 64 (62W TDP). However, none that I know of use the Athlon 64 FX-55.

Performance wise the low-power Mobile Athlon 64 perform exactly like its desktop counterpart with the same XXXX+ rating, but it would be interesting to compare the heat production and power consumption with the Pentium M anyway. I guess the reason we haven't seen this yet is because desktop AMD64 boards dosen't support the low voltages that the low-power Mobile Athlon 64 requires.

No, the Pentium M was only designed for low power consumption and not low heat since it can tackle higher temperatures than any other mobile CPU out there (up to 100 degrees Celcius). There's an important difference there you know.

I have to disagree with you there, just take a look at the low-power Mobile Athlon 64. With the upcoming "Lancaster" the Dothan will not be best on battery life either...

Just because laptops don't use the FX-55 doesn't mean it doesn't provide good comparison material. That test didn't have enough of cpus, but what it did have was interesting.