Intel's Pentium M on the Desktop - A Viable Alternative?
by Anand Lal Shimpi on February 7, 2005 4:00 PM EST- Posted in
- CPUs
3D Rendering
3dsmax 5.1
WorldBench includes two 3dsmax benchmarks using version 5.1 of the popular 3D rendering and animation package: a DirectX and an OpenGL benchmark.
The Pentium M is reasonably competitive here, but let's see what happens when we look at a slightly beefier workload...
3dsmax 6
For the next 3dsmax test, we used version 6 of the program and ran the SPECapc rendering tests to truly stress these CPUs. The composite score is what matters, but we've included the individual scores that make it up as well for reference.
Here, the Pentium M just can't keep up.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
77 Comments
View All Comments
CSMR - Monday, February 7, 2005 - link
The fact is it's an excellent processor for business use (speed, quietness, reliability) and multimedia use (quietness). Anandtech is full of gamers; but there is no denying that using a computer as a media centre is becoming a big thing, or that low-power, quiet operation is necessary. High motherboard prices are because the desktop PM motherboard market is very small. There was a comment in the review that the PM architecture doesn't scale well. I am sure that is so; but what processors do scale well? It's because they don't that everyone is about to go dual-core.bobsmith1492 - Monday, February 7, 2005 - link
Thanks #12 :PZebo - Monday, February 7, 2005 - link
I myself have been guilty of hyping dothan after seeing GAMEPCs "opimistic" review. This should quell that.:DZebo - Monday, February 7, 2005 - link
Anand best review I've read here, thanks a lot, nice to see you scribing again..:)Seems again, like the tech report review, with a comprehensive test suite such as this one dothan has some collosal performance flaws, and simply can't match up the A64 across board. It looses 30 out of 41 benches at same speed, some huge. 2.0 vs 2.0..
I posted in CPU forum how turion/lancaster will be 25W.. could this be the end of DOTHANS laptop dominace?
Brian23 - Monday, February 7, 2005 - link
I agree with #10.bobsmith1492 - Monday, February 7, 2005 - link
Sorry; first time commenting. I couldn't remember my login name before.Anyway, my laptop OCs better than that. Granted, it's a 1.7 to begin with, but the FSB will do 125 easily, with the same ram increase to boot - 420 MHz, with processor at 2.125. It will do a tad bit more, but that's enough for a laptop I'd say.
bobsmith1492 - Monday, February 7, 2005 - link
testKalessian - Monday, February 7, 2005 - link
#6, Oh yeah? Well, give a P4/A64 an SXGP(Super eXtremely Good Performance) setting and stay out of ITS way!Yawn, right now the P-M doesn't impress me at all. Let a CPU built for mobile systems stay in mobile systems until it gets rebuilt for desktops properly.
Great review, learned a ton :)
GnomeCop - Monday, February 7, 2005 - link
I have a 2.0ghz dothan system, I upgraded from an old 533mhz fsb p4.The speed for my work and games are just fine. I have a leadtek GF6800ultra in my system and its the only thing I have to worry about cooling.
CPU is passively cooled and the system is expremely quiet running on a 359watt psu. By the time I need to upgrade, I will be buying a whole new cpu/mobo/everything anyways.
ksherman - Monday, February 7, 2005 - link
seems like an a really good processor for buisness machines, given the L1 cahe speeds... and not much else (snas uber low power consumption)