1.6 GHz Intel Pentium M 730 Performance?

ibex333

Diamond Member
Mar 26, 2005
4,086
119
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Hey ATers!

Just trying to find out which more modern CPU the 1.6 GHz Intel Centrino Pentium M 730 is compatible in performance to. I did some google searching, and I am having trouble pinpointing something that's similar.

I tried looking at something like an Atom N270, but the Centrino does seem faster than that.

Please land a hand.

PS: If you are wondering why the heck do I even care, it's because I have an old Dell Inspiron 6000
https://www.cnet.com/products/dell-inspiron-6000-for-business/specs/

Mine is slightly upgraded with 1.2GB RAM

Just curious how it's performance compares to some of the more recent junk, such as those older netbooks with low end Atoms and Celerons.

Thanks!
 

LTC8K6

Lifer
Mar 10, 2004
28,520
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Atom N270 has 2 threads and newer SSE instructions and is 3 years newer. It's probably faster.
 

Insert_Nickname

Diamond Member
May 6, 2012
4,971
1,691
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Just trying to find out which more modern CPU the 1.6 GHz Intel Centrino Pentium M 730 is compatible in performance to. I did some google searching, and I am having trouble pinpointing something that's similar.

Directly comparable? Difficult, as anything you can buy today will be considerably faster. Even Apollo Lake Pentium/Celerons as going to wipe the floor with a Pentium M.

I'd go for something Celeron N3350 powered. Preferably a quad core Pentium though.

Desktop, I doubt you'd need anything more then a Celeron w/UHD6xx graphics.

Atom N270 has 2 threads and newer SSE instructions and is 3 years newer. It's probably faster.

No. Just no. You don't want to touch anything with an N270 with a ten foot pole.
 
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LTC8K6

Lifer
Mar 10, 2004
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I don't want to touch either of them with a 10 foot pole. I couldn't find much in the way of comparisons though.
 

NTMBK

Lifer
Nov 14, 2011
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Apparently that laptop can be upgraded to a Pentium M780, which is clocked 40% faster- could be a nice little upgrade. You can get the processor on eBay for about £10!
 

ibex333

Diamond Member
Mar 26, 2005
4,086
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Apparently that laptop can be upgraded to a Pentium M780, which is clocked 40% faster- could be a nice little upgrade. You can get the processor on eBay for about £10!

Thank you, but this is just for fun. I don't care about this laptop. What I do care about is simply how it performs in relation to some of the low end newer single core chips from 2008-2012
 

ibex333

Diamond Member
Mar 26, 2005
4,086
119
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Wasn't Pentium M, close to just better than Pentium III?

Thank you, but this is just for fun. I don't care about this laptop. What I do care about is simply how it performs in relation to some of the low end newer single core chips from 2008-2012

Well, it shouldn't be THAT slow. It's performance seems closer to a Pentium 4. Just not sure which one specifically.
 

Shmee

Memory & Storage, Graphics Cards Mod Elite Member
Super Moderator
Sep 13, 2008
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IMO they are all junk that should not be considered. With that said, the newer junk will at least use less power, will likely support more RAM, even if not upgrade able, and the laptop may be better suited for a cheap ssd.
 

dark zero

Platinum Member
Jun 2, 2015
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Pentium M is Core tech with lower clocks. Is the absolute bare minimun.

The only worthy Atoms to see are the Apollo Lake ones onwards
 

ibex333

Diamond Member
Mar 26, 2005
4,086
119
106
I think this old laptop will do nicely as an emulation station. Much more power than a Raspberry Pi and keyboard/monitor already "included". ; )
 

SPBHM

Diamond Member
Sep 12, 2012
5,056
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I think this old laptop will do nicely as an emulation station. Much more power than a Raspberry Pi and keyboard/monitor already "included". ; )

if it's running GMA 950 that might be a pain with emulators,
I know I tried using a t7200 laptop for emulation but often I had compatibility issues with the IGP
 

IntelUser2000

Elite Member
Oct 14, 2003
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Wasn't Pentium M, close to just better than Pentium III?

Pentium M is 30% better per clock than Pentium III.

The original Atom(used in the N270 for example) needed 1.6GHz to perform like a 900MHz Pentium M. Silvermont is 50% faster per clock, and Goldmont in Apollo Lake is a further 30-40% faster. So Apollo Lake is probably close in single thread, ahead maybe by 10%.
 

Insert_Nickname

Diamond Member
May 6, 2012
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Pentium M is 30% better per clock than Pentium III.

The original Atom(used in the N270 for example) needed 1.6GHz to perform like a 900MHz Pentium M. Silvermont is 50% faster per clock, and Goldmont in Apollo Lake is a further 30-40% faster. So Apollo Lake is probably close in single thread, ahead maybe by 10%.

That sounds about right. Apollo Lake IPC is somewhere around original-gen Conroe C2D performance. The newer Gemini Lake is rougly similar to Penryn.

The real advantage is AL/GL has four cores. So it's roughly comparable with the Q6600. With lower frequency.
 

IntelUser2000

Elite Member
Oct 14, 2003
8,686
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That sounds about right. Apollo Lake IPC is somewhere around original-gen Conroe C2D performance. The newer Gemini Lake is rougly similar to Penryn.

No. Gemini Lake is 30-40% faster than Apollo Lake per clock. Penryn is maybe 5% faster compared to Conroe. Apollo Lake is in Pentium M territory.
 

ninaholic37

Golden Member
Apr 13, 2012
1,883
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I used a Pentium M 750 laptop as my main machine until this year, when it was brutally hot outside and I had no air conditioning, so I then bought a fanless Cherry Trail Atom x5-z8350 tablet/laptop thing. In general the Pentium M was a lot faster, I put Puppy Linux on it, and it seems to me that even my Atom N270 is faster than this x5-8350 thing, the only good thing speed-wise about this x5-z8350 cpu is the IGPU is better at playing video smoothly. It is fanless so I'm ok with having this 2TDP "Z" thing though, I think they stopped making them after Cherry Trail so manufacturers of 10.1" 2-in-1s still seem to keep using the Cherry Trail CPU. I guess the main point of my post is that there are still CPUs slower than the Pentium M being sold in machines today. :laughing:
 

IntelUser2000

Elite Member
Oct 14, 2003
8,686
3,785
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In general the Pentium M was a lot faster, I put Puppy Linux on it, and it seems to me that even my Atom N270 is faster than this x5-8350 thing, the only good thing speed-wise about this x5-z8350 cpu is the IGPU is better at playing video smoothly.

Atom X5 is dated now, but it should still be way faster than N270. The architecture in X5 is 50% faster per clock compared to the one in N270.

I had a Bay Trail Windows 8.1 Tablet it was very usable. X5 is a 14nm process shrink version of Bay Trail. The Clover Trail Tablet I gifted to my mother was quite sluggish even in web browsing. Clover Trail is basically a die shrinked, dual core version of the N270.
 

NTMBK

Lifer
Nov 14, 2011
10,208
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I used a Pentium M 750 laptop as my main machine until this year, when it was brutally hot outside and I had no air conditioning, so I then bought a fanless Cherry Trail Atom x5-z8350 tablet/laptop thing. In general the Pentium M was a lot faster, I put Puppy Linux on it, and it seems to me that even my Atom N270 is faster than this x5-8350 thing, the only good thing speed-wise about this x5-z8350 cpu is the IGPU is better at playing video smoothly. It is fanless so I'm ok with having this 2TDP "Z" thing though, I think they stopped making them after Cherry Trail so manufacturers of 10.1" 2-in-1s still seem to keep using the Cherry Trail CPU. I guess the main point of my post is that there are still CPUs slower than the Pentium M being sold in machines today. :laughing:

The cheapo Atom tablet probably had awful eMMC storage. If the N270 or Pentium M was paired with a decent hard drive, it might have felt better in some situations. But the Cherry Trail CPU is way, way faster than that old N270- something else was causing your performance problems. Don't know if it was the storage, or crap drivers, or what.