Is Centrino worth it?

[Crellion101]

I'm planning buying a laptop for college, and wonder if this is worth it? Or should I go for that eMachine with Athlon 64? I was waiting for Dothan to come out, but Intel is lagging behind as slow as turtle when it comes to second generation Centrino. But even with 2nd Gen Centrino, is it worth the cost to buy it? I'm looking at a 3 hour battery life and awesome video-editing/gaming performance but that basically it.

 

[jschuk]

It depends on your priorities. Centrino has good performance and good battery life (depending on the rest of the unit's configuration). Generally the centrinos are smaller units and their fans don't run as often, especially compared to a laptop with a desktop CPU in it.

 

[Tommouse]

If you want portability and battery life go with a centrino. I myself am looking for a Laptop to return to college with come September I'm waiting for the Dothan with the 2mb cache, and the mobile 9700 combo. That would be a nice machine with little compromises when it comes to speed and portability, well as far as I'm concerned anyways.

You want power. One word "Sager." Sager's are the sh*t for desktop replacements. hit up "www.pctorque.com" to see what they have to offer. I know if you hit their forums "www.notebookforums.com" they released today (!!!!) a new notebook that rivals the power of most modern desktops. Check it out there worth a look, even if they are not your deal the forums will give you a good place to find good laptop info.

 

[alexruiz]

Originally posted by: Tommouse
If you want portability and battery life go with a centrino. I myself am looking for a Laptop to return to college with come September I'm waiting for the Dothan with the 2mb cache, and the mobile 9700 combo. That would be a nice machine with little compromises when it comes to speed and portability, well as far as I'm concerned anyways.

You want power. One word "Sager." Sager's are the sh*t for desktop replacements. hit up "www.pctorque.com" to see what they have to offer. I know if you hit their forums "www.notebookforums.com" they released today (!!!!) a new notebook that rivals the power of most modern desktops. Check it out there worth a look, even if they are not your deal the forums will give you a good place to find good laptop info.

You obviously have not read any benchmarks for the M6805/7...... some guys are already breaking the 12000 barrier in 3dmark2k1..... in addition, show me a sager that can match these 2 numbers:

Business winstone 2004: 21.2
Content creation winstone 2004: 26.8

Portability? 3 hours on battery for the most powerful CPU available seems like a good deal. Remember, the P4 is VERY dependant on good memory (low latency) to perform at its best, and the current DDR400 sodimms are not there yet.

By the way, the Athlon-64 in the emachines is the mobile version, rated at 62 W max, 40 W typical at full speed and only 13 W at the mimimum operating state...... the battery life is even more impressive if you keep in mind that the machine has a widescreen and the battery is a humble 8 cells 4400 mAH at 14.8 V.......

 

[Pandaren]

http://www.emachines.com/products/products.html?prod=eMachines_M6807

Travel weight of 8.65 lbs is not "portability". Crellion, if you are going to be moving this machine around a lot, I would strongly advise against the M6807. If you need something lightweight but moderately powerful, go with a Pentium M/Centrino machine.

On the other hand, if you just plan to leave the machine in your room and maybe take it home with you occassionaly, the M6807 is a perfectly fine choice. I have no doubt that as a desktop replacement machine, the M6807 is one of the fastest machines you can buy.

I would avoid Pentium 4 notebooks. They are the gas guzzling SUVs of the notebook world.

Originally posted by: alexruizPortability? 3 hours on battery for the most powerful CPU available seems like a good deal. Remember, the P4 is VERY dependant on good memory (low latency) to perform at its best, and the current DDR400 sodimms are not there yet.

By the way, the Athlon-64 in the emachines is the mobile version, rated at 62 W max, 40 W typical at full speed and only 13 W at the mimimum operating state...... the battery life is even more impressive if you keep in mind that the machine has a widescreen and the battery is a humble 8 cells 4400 mAH at 14.8 V.......

 

[Sahakiel]

Centrino chips are derivatives of P6 cores, not Pentium 4.

 

[KevinH]

Originally posted by: alexruiz

Originally posted by: Tommouse
If you want portability and battery life go with a centrino. I myself am looking for a Laptop to return to college with come September I'm waiting for the Dothan with the 2mb cache, and the mobile 9700 combo. That would be a nice machine with little compromises when it comes to speed and portability, well as far as I'm concerned anyways.

You want power. One word "Sager." Sager's are the sh*t for desktop replacements. hit up "www.pctorque.com" to see what they have to offer. I know if you hit their forums "www.notebookforums.com" they released today (!!!!) a new notebook that rivals the power of most modern desktops. Check it out there worth a look, even if they are not your deal the forums will give you a good place to find good laptop info.

You obviously have not read any benchmarks for the M6805/7...... some guys are already breaking the 12000 barrier in 3dmark2k1..... in addition, show me a sager that can match these 2 numbers:

Business winstone 2004: 21.2
Content creation winstone 2004: 26.8

Portability? 3 hours on battery for the most powerful CPU available seems like a good deal. Remember, the P4 is VERY dependant on good memory (low latency) to perform at its best, and the current DDR400 sodimms are not there yet.

By the way, the Athlon-64 in the emachines is the mobile version, rated at 62 W max, 40 W typical at full speed and only 13 W at the mimimum operating state...... the battery life is even more impressive if you keep in mind that the machine has a widescreen and the battery is a humble 8 cells 4400 mAH at 14.8 V.......

You're right about all that Alex as I would love an AMD64 book as well. But that said...let's be real and realize that the 9600 in the M6805/7 books that are pulling 12000 are heavily overclocked and by that token I can tell you that my Dell is doing the same (as well as a Sager). Once again...same chip...not like the ECS books have some miracle iteration of the 9600 in it. It doesn't. I'm never going to pretend my 9600 that comes in my Dell 8600 pulls off some miracle numbers because they got a special batch...um...no it doesnt...neither does the ECS...


That said, I agree with you that as a CPU...again CPU, the AMD is the BEST balance of power and energy consumption. HOwever...let's get off the 3dmark2001 numbers as somehow people throw these numbers as if it's the gospel.

If you're taljking desktop replacement...it's not science. Performance is the sum of it's parts. Anything else you're going to pay for its warranty, "build quality", name brand, paint job etc. Add it up.

Sorry to hijack the original post. To answer is a Centrino "worth" it. This isn't hte answer u want but ask yourself this. Do you honest to God see yourself away from an AC outlet often enough to sacrifice the raw cpu performance? In day to day usage...that's most games, word, excel, IE...then yes the centrino is more than sufficient as the 9600 is going to bottlenecke before the centrino. However, if u're going to do some heavy CPU intensive stuff then shoot...grab that AMD64. If you NEVER see yourself going to be away from an AC adapter...then the answer is obvious...screw battery life. Personally, I went from a P4-M to a Centrino. I have NEVER been away from an outlet for more than an hour. I do a lot of face to face meetings with clients...sometimes at Starbucks etc. The most I've had my book open to show them anything has been less than an hour. Looking back...I would've gotten an AMD64 as well. Hope that helps.

 

[Frightcrawler]

Originally posted by: Sahakiel
Centrino chips are derivatives of P6 cores, not Pentium 4.

I didnt know that the P6 exists, yet a P5 has not even been created yet.
Edit: Oh...and to clarify, the Pentium-M (part of the centrino) is neither derived from the P4 nor the P3. It was built from the ground up, and it has characteristics of both the P3 and the P4.

 

[Sahakiel]

Originally posted by: Frightcrawler

Originally posted by: Sahakiel
Centrino chips are derivatives of P6 cores, not Pentium 4.

I didnt know that the P6 exists, yet a P5 has not even been created yet.
Edit: Oh...and to clarify, the Pentium-M (part of the centrino) is neither derived from the P4 nor the P3. It was built from the ground up, and it has characteristics of both the P3 and the P4.

P5 was manufactured back in the early 90's. It's so old it only uses Socket 4.

Pentium M is not built from the ground up, otherwise it would be a generation 8 chip. It shares so much with generation 6 that it is rightfully termed a "derivative." If Pentium M is a new generation, then Pentium MMX chips could also be called new generation. Besides some relatively minor architectural differences from the P6 core, the Pentium M adds the QDR bus, micro ops fusion, and a new branch prediction unit. Execution units are the same, the front end minus the branch is tweaked at best, and the back end is similar. The pipeline structure shouldn't be too much longer. The addition of new functionality it shouldn't lengthen it to anywhere near the Pentum 4 even without its x86 decoding logic.

 

[Corporate Thug]

i was looking at an asus laptop (centrino) that had this cpu throtelling technology that would give close to 8 hours. personally, i have days that i do 6+ hours of class in a row so its worth it for me but if you only need 3 hours, an A64 is a good choice too

 

[alexruiz]

Originally posted by: KevinH

Originally posted by: alexruiz

Originally posted by: Tommouse
If you want portability and battery life go with a centrino. I myself am looking for a Laptop to return to college with come September I'm waiting for the Dothan with the 2mb cache, and the mobile 9700 combo. That would be a nice machine with little compromises when it comes to speed and portability, well as far as I'm concerned anyways.

You want power. One word "Sager." Sager's are the sh*t for desktop replacements. hit up "www.pctorque.com" to see what they have to offer. I know if you hit their forums "www.notebookforums.com" they released today (!!!!) a new notebook that rivals the power of most modern desktops. Check it out there worth a look, even if they are not your deal the forums will give you a good place to find good laptop info.

You obviously have not read any benchmarks for the M6805/7...... some guys are already breaking the 12000 barrier in 3dmark2k1..... in addition, show me a sager that can match these 2 numbers:

Business winstone 2004: 21.2
Content creation winstone 2004: 26.8

Portability? 3 hours on battery for the most powerful CPU available seems like a good deal. Remember, the P4 is VERY dependant on good memory (low latency) to perform at its best, and the current DDR400 sodimms are not there yet.

By the way, the Athlon-64 in the emachines is the mobile version, rated at 62 W max, 40 W typical at full speed and only 13 W at the mimimum operating state...... the battery life is even more impressive if you keep in mind that the machine has a widescreen and the battery is a humble 8 cells 4400 mAH at 14.8 V.......

You're right about all that Alex as I would love an AMD64 book as well. But that said...let's be real and realize that the 9600 in the M6805/7 books that are pulling 12000 are heavily overclocked and by that token I can tell you that my Dell is doing the same (as well as a Sager). Once again...same chip...not like the ECS books have some miracle iteration of the 9600 in it. It doesn't. I'm never going to pretend my 9600 that comes in my Dell 8600 pulls off some miracle numbers because they got a special batch...um...no it doesnt...neither does the ECS...


That said, I agree with you that as a CPU...again CPU, the AMD is the BEST balance of power and energy consumption. HOwever...let's get off the 3dmark2001 numbers as somehow people throw these numbers as if it's the gospel.

If you're taljking desktop replacement...it's not science. Performance is the sum of it's parts. Anything else you're going to pay for its warranty, "build quality", name brand, paint job etc. Add it up.

Sorry to hijack the original post. To answer is a Centrino "worth" it. This isn't hte answer u want but ask yourself this. Do you honest to God see yourself away from an AC outlet often enough to sacrifice the raw cpu performance? In day to day usage...that's most games, word, excel, IE...then yes the centrino is more than sufficient as the 9600 is going to bottlenecke before the centrino. However, if u're going to do some heavy CPU intensive stuff then shoot...grab that AMD64. If you NEVER see yourself going to be away from an AC adapter...then the answer is obvious...screw battery life. Personally, I went from a P4-M to a Centrino. I have NEVER been away from an outlet for more than an hour. I do a lot of face to face meetings with clients...sometimes at Starbucks etc. The most I've had my book open to show them anything has been less than an hour. Looking back...I would've gotten an AMD64 as well. Hope that helps.

As usual you post a very good and coherent essay :light:

Guys, Kevin is adressing the main question. How important is battery life for you? If you need to be away from the outlet for extended periods of time and need good performance, a P-M LAPTOP is worth it. If you need the longest battery life, but don't need a lot of performance, a transmeta crusoe will be good choice (I know, I know, a P-M is more powerful, but then we come back to the original assumption as the K8 mobile is more powerful tna the P-M)

Need to stay on battery for several hours, with minimal weight and the most demanding thing you will do are some spreadsheet calculations? A sharp laptop with a crusoe is in your future
Need battery for over 4 hours, a lot of features, don't like to carry a lot and sometimes need to play a game or run something more intensive? A P-M is in your future.
Are 3 hours of battery power enough for you, don't mind some weight, need to run intensive applications and want to have the most powerful CPU available for notebooks? An Athlon 64 is for you
You want the BEST features, don't mind batery life and weight is no concern at all? A P4 DTR is for you
Tight budget, wouldn't mind 4 hrs of battery life and some horsepower is welcome? An Athlon XP-M is for you


Alex

PS. NEVER in all my trips to the USA I left the battery of my 2100Z below 35%. Flight time is aprox 4 hrs, plus the wait, but keep in mind that you cannot use electronic devices at take off and landing (spans of aprox 20 mins each). In addition, you have to eat (at least I always do) so those are other 20 minutes. In fact, my M6805 battery covers perfectly the air time, and I even get some 20 minutes of internet at the airports..... good enough!
I am assuming most of you that fly will have shorter flight times, so 3 hours are OK.

 

[alexruiz]

By the way, I don't mind the weight at all ...... but I attended college having to take public transportation, and carrying your heavy backpack along with your toolbox in a very crowded "microbus" is no fun...... In fact, now sometimes I feel lazy just bringing aprox 5 kgs of laptop with me (notebook, carrier and additaments). But that is me, and the background made me that way.

Alex