Pentium-M 1.4 Ghz vs. Celeron 2.6 Ghz & Graphic Question

Hey guys,

I just recently bought Dell Latitude D600. According to my research, the P-M 1.4 GHz CPU is slower then my old laptop, Celeron 2.6 Ghz. Now I noticed that PM has only 1 MB cache and the Celeron is only 128 KB cache. Which is the faster and efficient?

Also, the D600 has only 32 MB of graphic memory but I seen FAR better graphics then my 1150 (Intel's 64 MB). Why is that? Is that because the D600 has deciated gpu, ATI Mobility Radeon 9000?

TIA

JC

 

The Pentium M should be more efficient. In terms of power i dont know. I think it would be faster since celerons are just budget procesors but pentium M's were the cream of the crop a few years ago.

In terms of graphics, the video memory is no indication of power. The ATI graphics card will be stronger then intel's graphics chip for sure.

Intel makes integrated GPU's for basic tasks. Both ATI and Nvidia make integrated and external graphics chips. When in comes to internal GPU's anything from ATI or Nvidia will be better than intels offerings.

BTW why did you buy such an old laptop????

 

Thanks for answering.

Simple, it was cheap ($300), very light, and small. I am very happy w/ it.

JC

 

LMAO! Great answer!

That laptop you have right now will do most if not more than some of the new ones. I was working on a few of the budget units, and some don't even game like the D600 you have right now. Someone is selling a Pentium M 2.0 chip on one of the laptop forums, get it and be happy. Make sure it's the 400fsb version with 2m of L2 cache for your laptop (dothan). I have a D810 that runs windows vista ultimate like there's no tomorrow.

Having had a D600, I can very well attest to how good it is. Mine had a 1.8 dothan, alot more powerful than your 1.4 bania.

 

Well y'see, your 2.6GHz Celeron is a Northwood based chip and subsequently, largely a piece of crap. The 1.4GHz Pentium M is offers somewhat higher performance and is FAR more efficient. The Banias architecture in the Pentium-M ultimately leads us to Conroe while the NetBurst architecture in the Celeron leads us... nowhere.

The ATI Mobility Radeon 9000 pwns whatever IGP Intel had at the time. Period. Intel IGPs still aren't great, but they've only been worse in the past XD

I think the D600 only shipped with Dothan cores, but I could be wrong. Also, Google reports that there are D600s working with 533MHz FSB Dothans (and I think the guy selling the 2.0GHz Pentium-M is selling a 533MHz FSB Dothan).

But I have a 1.4GHz Banias in my 500m, and it's by all means a decent chip. Honestly I've had this thing for five years now and there still isn't any basic day-to-day task it can't do.

 

I was just going on my unreliable memory Commander LOL!

But I know there were a few D600's that had the banias and dothan, but didn't know they came with the senoma (533fsb). I tried one time upgrading my 1.8 dothan with a 2.1 senoma, and it only read as 1.6

I'm going to google the information you posted, it should make for an interesting read. But I'm with ya brotha, there are still older model laptops that get the job done, some faster than others.

 

You can pin mod your 1.4Ghz Pentium M to about 1.8Ghz, it is fairly simple to do all you need to do is remove the processor and insert a wire into the socket.

You should research this, here are a few sites you should look at:
http://www.notebookforums.com/showthread.php?t=114523&highlight=pinmod
http://www.notebookforums.com/showthread.php?t=80879&highlight=pinmod
http://www.ocforums.com/showthread.php?t=452126

K-TRON

 

I'm being such a newbie and thought the pin mod only worked with dothan core chips (2mL2cache)? Plus...wouldn't he have to have a motherboard that runs at 533 fsb in order to perform the pin mod? I know I couldn't pin mod anything on my D600 :cry:

 

The Pentium M is still a better chip the comparison in performance should be similar with a slight advantage to the Celeron. Because the Celeron is based on the Mobile Pentium 4 it architecture is inefficient by comparison to the Pentium M. Also the PM is better suited to running on a mobile platform because of it's lower power consumption and processor throttling.

As for pinmodding, you need a chipset that can run both 400 and 533FSB in order to do the pinmod. Pentium M's are cheap now so if you wanted to you could just upgrade.

I upgraded from a Celeron M1.4 to a Pentium M 1.6 pin modded it to 2.13 and software overclocked it to 2.4Ghz. Even if you can't pinmod you can get pretty far with just a software overclock ~if desired. And since it's a Dell it might work with the fan utility I8Kfangui to keep the temps in check. I also recommend RMclock for undervolting to increase battery life and reduce temps.

Anyway, sounds like a good buy to me. Enjoy!

 

The Pentium M will be faster. The Ghz. dont really matter when it comes down to the two architecture (Celeron and P-M)
The VRAM doesnt matter that much, an ATI will be better than almost any intergrated

 

The Celeron's lack of cache puts it at a distinct disadvantage due to the fact that its Pentium 4 architecture has very long instruction pipelines. In the case of a cache miss, it's very likely that pipeline stalls will occur, really slowing it down. Also, at that point Intel was using Celeron/P4 desktop processors (the 2.4-3.0GHZ models, different than the P4 Mobile which came in 1.6-2.4GHz) sometimes with a bit lower voltages, as their notebook processors. IMO, most notebooks using those CPUs are little more than desktop replacements, due to some heat issues and poor battery life.

The Pentium Ms were a great improvement, with a far more efficient architecture both in power saving and performance; that PM-1.4 would show similar performance to a P4M-1.8 (note, P4 mobile, not Celeron, which would have been slower). If your Celeron is faster, it would only be due to the brute clock-speed advantage; architecturally, the Pentium M is a better CPU.

Dothan-core P-M is a better design than the earlier Banias-core; Intel discovered the Pentium-M benefitted greatly from increased cache. If you like to tinker, it'd be worth your while to do a little research to see if your D600 could support a Dothan upgrade, such CPUs go for very reasonable prices on Ebay. A 1.8-2GHz Dothan would provide quite the speed boost, assuming you already have enough RAM and a reasonably-performing hard disk.

As graphics go for that era, ATI mobile graphics trumps all. Intel's onboard video doesn't come close, and nVidia's Geforce4 Go were really just mobile Geforce2 MX processors with some minor enhancements. ATI had the best DVD playback of the day, and was more power-optimized than nVidia's solution.

 

Thank you all. Looks like I have made a great purchase.

JC

 

Hey guys, you are right, despiting lower speed (Pentium M 1.4 GHz), my D600 is faster then my 1150 (Celeron 2.6 Ghz). I did a simple but effective test, video encoding. I did a 3 mins video encoding, and here is the result.

D600 - 3 mins 55 sec
1150 - 5 mins

Also, the WiFi of the D600 (Dell's 1300) is better then 1150's WiFi (Dell's 1350)

Pretty good, I must say. More reason to love my baby, D600.

JC