The performance that this motherboard enables speaks for itself, I'd say. As a desktop processor, the Pentium M fares very well. The stock Pentium M 755 at 2GHz rivals the lower speed grades of the Athlon 64 and Pentium 4 fairly consistently. Overclocked to 2.4GHz on a 533MHz bus, though, the Pentium M gets downright scary, shadowing the performance of the Athlon 64 4000+ through many of our tests, including games. The Pentium 4, even in its most extreme editions, often can't keep up. Games and similar apps with lots of "branchy" code?and perhaps quite a bit of x87 floating-point math?apparently befuddle the Pentium 4. The Pentium M, on the other hand, slices through them with ease.
This processor's low power requirements and lesser heat production aren't insignificant, either. Not when it performs like this. Quiet computing is here to stay, small form factor systems are still growing in popularity, and home theater PCs are all the rage. Meanwhile, building a high-end enthusiast PC has become something more of a chore than in the past because of the need to attend very carefully to power and cooling requirements. The numbers and types of power connectors in a typical new system are growing, and the new BTX boxes weigh more than an English Mastiff. The 855GME-MGF's single, simple ATX power connector and tiny CPU cooler are rare, welcome relief from such trends.
Unfortunately, that relief doesn't come cheap. The 855GME-MGF is currently selling for about $239 at online merchants, which is an awful lot to ask for a microATX mobo with a modest set of mid-range components on it. Even worse, our Pentium M 755 cost us $435 when we bought it last month, and prices don't seem to have budged since then. By comparison, the Athlon 64 3500+ costs roughly $279 right now, and the Pentium 4 is running about the same. The Pentium M 755 only becomes a good deal if it will overclock to 2.4GHz and challenge the higher end desktop CPUs in performance, but overclocking is never a sure thing.
For the right application, though, a system based on this mobo and a Pentium M processor would certainly be appealing. Let's hope DFI enjoys enough success with this board that they put a new version, with PCI Express and dual-channel memory, on the fast track. I'd like to see a DFI LANParty board for the Pentium M with a full suite of overclocking options. And bring on the Pentium M small form factor boxes. Market segmentation be damned! The mobile desktop revolution has begun.
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