Is the Pentium M the same as the Centrino?

[nikko]

I'm a newb to the world of laptops. Which is better? I heard the Centrino sucks up much less battery power. Same true for the Pentium M? Or are they the same kind of cpu?

 

[coolred]

Well first off centrino is not a CPU, it is a name for when you have a mobile pentium, a certain intel chipset(I forget which one) and the intel wireless solution all together.

So if your laptop just has a pentium M chip with no wireless, or with non intel wireless then you do nto have a centrino laptop. To the best of my knowledge the CPU's used in centrino and non centrino notebooks are pretty much the exact same. Meaning pentium M's, obviously if your laptop uses a desktop chip, then that is not the same as mobile.

 

[nikko]

Oh. Well, crap, so does that mean a Pentium M is part of the Centrino "solution"? How do I know? The options page lists a Pentium M Processor 745 or 755 as some of my options, but then also lists a Pentium M Processor 1.6 GHz as an option. Are these all the same chips but with different clock speeds?

 

[Frightcrawler]

Yes, the pentium-m is apart of the centrino solution. If it has the chipset, wireless card, and the processor, then it is a centrino system.
The 7xx pentium-m processors are the new Dothan pentium-m processors. The pentium-m processors with a 1.x ghz rating is the previous, Banias pentium-m processor. In short, Dothan is faster than the Banias processors, but more expensive.

 

[Garuda]

Centrino is just a marketing ploy.

Focus on features you want like processor type, networking, etc. And not whether it has the "Centrino" badge of approval or not.

 

[biostud]

I think that most pentium M's are placed in the centrino platform, but it doesn't really matter that much just be sure it's a pentium M and the laptop has the features you're looking for.

 

[tommigsr]

it is a marketing ploy, but i consider pretty much the computer as a centrino. the only difference that would set these centrinos apart would be the wireless solution. intel put centrino just to get people to buy into their wireless mini pci cards

 

[Mellman]

yes, but dont get confused like many do with the Pentium 4-m, because its totally different from the new Pentium M chipsets (banias and dothans) THe dothans have 2MB L2 Cache, whereas the banias have 1MB L2 Cache. as others have said, the Centrino is strictly the name for the combined wireless chipset and banias/dothan chipset. The wireless chipset is the Intel Pro Wireless 2100 or 2200, depending on when you got it (a/b or b/g).

 

[Conroy9]

Actually, centrino consists of 3 components, the Pentium M processor, a power optimized chipset (currently 855PM and 855GM, later alviso), and the intel wireless..

 

[Mellman]

Originally posted by: Conroy9
Actually, centrino consists of 3 components, the Pentium M processor, a power optimized chipset (currently 855PM and 855GM, later alviso), and the intel wireless..

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