Centrino vs. Pentium.

[dds14u]

Just curious, why do some centrino notebook systems half the speeds of their pentium counterparts cost almost twice as much??

 

[SrGuapo]

Centrino is just intels word for their mobile stuff. It uses the Pentium M proc.

P-Ms are so expensive because they do much more per clock than the Prescott Pentium 4s. They also have many special advancements such as cooler operation, a huge 2mb L2,asnd low (25W?) power consumption.

 

[CheesePoofs]

Centrino notebooks use the pentium m processor, which is a much more efficient processor than the pentium 4, so a centrino could in many cases out perform a p4 runing at double the clock speed. Im not sure on the cost thing, but my guess is that its because of all the space/energy saving features often present in a centrino notebook.

 

[mdaniel73]

Centrino Mhz > Pentium 4 Mhz

Actually, its the Pentium M chip you're talking about. Centrino is just the marketing name for a system containing the Pentium M chip and Intel's wifi.

Centrino systems are also optimized for lower power consumption. The cost has more to do with supply and demand and product positioning than anything.

 

[wisdomtooth]

Originally posted by: dds14u
Just curious, why do some centrino notebook systems half the speeds of their pentium counterparts cost almost twice as much??

Don't let their gHz figures fool you. Those Pentium-M CPUs do more per clock cycle than Pentium-4s, and have more L2 cache. The first generation P-M (Banias) has 1MB L2, Northwood P4 has 512K. The second generation P-M (Dothan) has 2MB L2, Presshot P4 has 1MB. This means the Pentium-M can hold its own against the P4 in most areas despite being clocked lower.

P4s are also notoriously battery-hungry-- You will be hard-pressed to find a P4 laptop that will give you 2 hours of battery power in real-life use. On the other hand, 2 hours on battery in real-life use for P-M laptops are comonplace.

P4s are also very difficult to cool and support (need big heatpipes/sinks), which means there is no such thing as a lightweight P4 notebook. P-Ms on the other hand run cool and thus are used in truly portable lightweight laptops like my Thinkpad T41, which weighs less than 5 lbs. with the power brick.

Add these all up, and you can see why Pentium-M laptops cost more than P4 laptops.

HTH.

 

[dds14u]

Thanks guys , that definitely clears things up.

 

[Jassi]

Pentium Ms are also more powerful, especially in games.