Athlon 64 Mobile vs Centrino

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txxxx

Golden Member
Feb 13, 2003
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Hey,

Im after a new laptop very soon, but my choice boils' down to an Athlon 64 Mobile 3000 from Evesham computers, or a custom DELL system based on the Centrino 1.5ghz.

Speed isnt everything, although im stuck between the 2. The laptop will be used on my lap, which makes me think that the Athlon 64 WITH power plugged in could burn me (81 watts of heat!) and runs at a fixed 0.8gigs which im not sure is enough for some of my hi definition Divx's.

The Centrino on the other hand, vary's on demand. Heat isnt an issue as much, but the performance gap is noticeable even with the same specification (15.4inch TFT, Radeon 9600 Pro, the items im after).

Im swaying towards the DELL Centrino at the moment, but just wondering that would be useful to know, that may help make my decision. It will be used for coding (c# .net and such), a bit of gaming, documents, but will be used whilst travelling and at university.

I personally DONT want to line the inside's of Intel's pockets, but admittedly the Centrino is in a class of its own.

Thanks, txxxx
 
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johnjkr1

Platinum Member
Jan 10, 2003
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That is what i figured, but that sure doesnt sound right...the mobile athlon 64 runs at 800MHZ?

also, yes, centrino's go up and down by demand, when they are on the battery...if you run it plugged it you can easily run at full speed all the time....


I'm not sure how big the price difference is, but I think I would personally go for the Dell. The Centrino's have amazing battery life, great performance (despite their clock speed)....and are probably cheaper. I also like having a real company warranty on my laptops, they tend to break alot
 
Jeff7181

Jeff7181

Lifer
Aug 21, 2002
18,368
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That's totally not how the mobile athlon-64 works. It does not create 81 watts of heat at 800 Mhz... it's maximum thermal design is 81 watts... meaning, when it's running balls to the wall.

Also, it's not an 800 Mhz CPU... it throttles down to 800 Mhz when you're not doing anything CPU intensive... it runs at 2.0 Ghz if you want it to, or if you do something that needs more CPU power.
 
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dexvx

Diamond Member
Feb 2, 2000
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Centrino has better power management.

It can go on SpeedStep (600Mhz steady) or it can do a totally dynamic clock. If I leave Windows XP on, the clock speed goes down to as little as 10 Mhz. It scales according to how much CPU is needed. Usually under Windows doing office-work, it goes between 100-300 Mhz.
 
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JBT

Lifer
Nov 28, 2001
12,094
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Originally posted by: dexvx
Centrino has better power management.

It can go on SpeedStep (600Mhz steady) or it can do a totally dynamic clock. If I leave Windows XP on, the clock speed goes down to as little as 10 Mhz. It scales according to how much CPU is needed. Usually under Windows doing office-work, it goes between 100-300 Mhz.
Click to expand...

and how exactly does it do that? mine NEVER goes below 597mhz
 
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dexvx

Diamond Member
Feb 2, 2000
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Originally posted by: JBT
Originally posted by: dexvx
Centrino has better power management.

It can go on SpeedStep (600Mhz steady) or it can do a totally dynamic clock. If I leave Windows XP on, the clock speed goes down to as little as 10 Mhz. It scales according to how much CPU is needed. Usually under Windows doing office-work, it goes between 100-300 Mhz.
Click to expand...

and how exactly does it do that? mine NEVER goes below 597mhz
Click to expand...

I have no clue, mine came stock like that. Mine's a Inspiron 8600, 1.3Ghz Centrino.

I fired up CPU-Z to see what the speed was, and it ranged from 10 Mhz - 1.3Ghz. Pretty neat.
 
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mikecel79

Platinum Member
Jan 15, 2002
2,858
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If battery life is a big concern get the Centrino laptop. They have awesome battery life and the power management in them is very well done.

We just started purchasing some Dell Latitude D600 and D400s to replace our old Latitude LS and L400 models. The D series has the Centrino package and it runs so cool even under a heavy load. The older Dell models on the other hand couldn't really be used as a "laptop" cause you'd burn your legs!
 
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JBT

Lifer
Nov 28, 2001
12,094
1
81
Originally posted by: dexvx
Originally posted by: JBT
Originally posted by: dexvx
Centrino has better power management.

It can go on SpeedStep (600Mhz steady) or it can do a totally dynamic clock. If I leave Windows XP on, the clock speed goes down to as little as 10 Mhz. It scales according to how much CPU is needed. Usually under Windows doing office-work, it goes between 100-300 Mhz.
Click to expand...

and how exactly does it do that? mine NEVER goes below 597mhz
Click to expand...

I have no clue, mine came stock like that. Mine's a Inspiron 8600, 1.3Ghz Centrino.

I fired up CPU-Z to see what the speed was, and it ranged from 10 Mhz - 1.3Ghz. Pretty neat.
Click to expand...

hmmm weird mine is a 1.3 also. What are your power managment settings? When I set it as a laptop on AC and/or battery i will go down to 597mhz with CPU-Z and thats it. Must be some setting to change somewhere maybe its mother board specific or something?
 
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johnjkr1

Platinum Member
Jan 10, 2003
2,124
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You should be able to change some of those settings in the bios...


here is where the 800mhz debate came from:

"Cool'n'Quiet is a mobile CPU technology that is now also available in the Athlon 64. Cool 'n' Quiet provides three different modes of operation (Normal, Intermediate, and Minimum). The chip normally runs at 1.5V with a maximum TDP specified as 89W and a clockspeed of 2.2 GHz. Shifting into intermediate mode, the clockspeed drops to 2.0 GHz, while the voltage drops to 1.4V. At the lowest level, the minimum state drops the clockspeed down to 800 MHz and the voltage to 1.3V. The maximum TDPs are 70W and 35W for intermediate and minimum, respectively. "
 
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Mingon

Diamond Member
Apr 2, 2000
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If you look at amd's website they report TDP as 61watts for the Mobile CPU. The 89 watts is for the desktop.
 
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txxxx

Golden Member
Feb 13, 2003
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Originally posted by: Mingon
If you look at amd's website they report TDP as 61watts for the Mobile CPU. The 89 watts is for the desktop.
Click to expand...

Oh ok thanks :) I'll look later
 
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justly

Banned
Jul 25, 2003
493
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"here is where the 800mhz debate came from:" That looks like very much like what I just read over at aceshardware :)
While Cool & Quiet is basically the desktop version of PowerNow your information on speed states is a little off for the Mobile Athlon 64 3000+. As long as I am reading the AMD white pages correctly the 3000+ runs at 1800MHz at its max P-State with a TDP of 81.5W, Intermediate P-State is 1600MHz at 57W TDP, and a Min P-State of 800MHz at 19W TDP.

AMD white papers check page 14 of 16

PowerNow has the ability to switch between speed states on the fly , AFAIK since PowerNows inception (beginning with the K-6) it has been able to do this. I don't know if Intels Speedstep is "more dynamic" than AMDs PowerNow but I dont think you need to be worried that you will be stuck at 800MHz with AMDs solution.

Will the Centrino run cooler "definitely", will it have better battery life "probably". The thing is battery life depends on a lot more than the processor, but if all else is the same (battery size, screen size, hard drive speed, ect.) then yes the Centrino will last longer. As for the heat, how much heat is acceptable, and how big a difference will it actually be? I can't answer that for you. You might find out that the Centrino has to speed up more often than the Athlon 64 for your intended use, but I can't ansewer that either.

While I do agree that the "Centrino is in a class of its own" it really is up to you to decide if that class fits your needs.

Mingon, the white paper I linked to shows 61W TDP for the 3200+ version when running at 1800MHz (intermediate P-State, the same speed as the of the Athlon 64 3000+ at full speed), and on page 15 it shows a Athlon 64 3000+ Max P-State (also 1800MHz) having a 62W TDP, but since it is listed in red type I assume that core revision has not been released yet but I could be wrong. If I am wrong please show me (for next time), thanks.
 
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txxxx

Golden Member
Feb 13, 2003
1,700
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I think im going to have to see a Athlon 64 mobile laptop myself and test to be sure.

And we have lots of new members posting decent stuff lately :)

Thanks all, keep replying :)
 
alexruiz

alexruiz

Platinum Member
Sep 21, 2001
2,836
556
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The 81 watts figure was for the "mobile" Athlon 64 intended for DTR laptops... However, that was the max figure. The just released Athlon 64-M peaks at 62 watts (max power consumption). An average of 40 watts is a good estimate. That puts it in close sight of the XP-M.... the 800 Mhz is the minimum allowed by cool and quiet. PowerNow should allow for more steps.

I agree that the P-M is a great laptop CPU, but the Athlon 64 will beat it quite handily in almost everything except battery life and SETI..... For me, Athlon 64. In fact, I just got an eMachines M6805.... if battery life was a concern of me, my laptop would be a transmeta crusoe...... Heck, I have never depleted the battery of my -now old- and trusty presario 2100z (XP-M 2000+) in my trips..... flight time is over 4 hrs, but I don't use the machine all the time (even if i wanted, the restrictions at landing and taking off would allow me to do so.... plus lunch on dinner should not be skipped ;) ) The presario gave me in average a little over 3 hours in battery (58 watts-hour LiOn, 8 cells)

Regarding size, well, the only machine that will be confortable in an airplane is a PDA..... ;)
 
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Pandaren

Golden Member
Sep 13, 2003
1,029
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Speed isnt everything, although im stuck between the 2. The laptop will be used on my lap
Click to expand...

Assuming you will be travelling with this machine a lot, I would buy a Pentium M based system (ThinkPad T4x series or HP nc6000).

A64 systems will probably be faster, but depending on the type of work you are doing, you may not notice the difference.

The main advantage to Pentium M systems is weight - you can get a nice, slim, 5-6 pound (2-2.5 kg) or so package. The most recent eMachine A64 notebook weighs about 8 lbs from what other posters have reported.

I don't know why someone recommended the Transmetta Crusoe for battery life - The Crusoe does not offer any advantage in this area over the Pentium M, and its performance is much worse than a Pentium III-M.

Pentium M for notebook, Athlon 64 for workstation.

If you really like slim form factors, a PowerBook G4 or iBook G4 might fit the bill as well, if you like MacOS X and don't need to run Windows-only software.
 
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