Pentium-M with Centrino -- Good enough for gaming?

[SunnyD]

That's the question - I'm looking for a laptop to do more web design, programming, and general usage than gaming. However, I do want to do some light-duty gaming on it, mostly the strategy kind of games. But my question is, would a Pentium-M be able to handle something like UT2k4 at low resolution at a playable framerate?

 

[Amused]

Yes. I just tested a 1.3 Pentium-M and it performed slightly better in games than a P4 2.0a. A 1.7 is even faster. Though, the difference between a 1.3 and 1.7 is barely noticable for some reason.

 

[SunnyD]

Originally posted by: Amused
Yes. I just tested a 1.3 Pentium-M and it performed slightly better in games than a P4 2.0a. A 1.7 is even faster. Though, the difference between a 1.3 and 1.7 is barely noticable for some reason.

What kind of video does your laptop have? What "games" are you running? What kind of framerates are you getting?

 

[Reliant]

Originally posted by: SunnyD

Originally posted by: Amused
Yes. I just tested a 1.3 Pentium-M and it performed slightly better in games than a P4 2.0a. A 1.7 is even faster. Though, the difference between a 1.3 and 1.7 is barely noticable for some reason.

What kind of video does your laptop have? What "games" are you running? What kind of framerates are you getting?

I've seen some laptops with Pentium-M chips and mobile 9600's. They'd perform very nicely.

 

[Amused]

Originally posted by: Reliant

Originally posted by: SunnyD

Originally posted by: Amused
Yes. I just tested a 1.3 Pentium-M and it performed slightly better in games than a P4 2.0a. A 1.7 is even faster. Though, the difference between a 1.3 and 1.7 is barely noticable for some reason.

What kind of video does your laptop have? What "games" are you running? What kind of framerates are you getting?

I've seen some laptops with Pentium-M chips and mobile 9600's. They'd perform very nicely.

Yeah, the Pentium-M is powerful enough that the video card is the limiting factor nine times out of ten.

I have a moble 7500 in one laptop, and a Fire GL in another. In both cases, the video card was the bottleneck. (I don't game on my laptop... check my sig to see my gaming rig) Get one with a 9600 0r 9700 and you'll be gaming like a fiend. Another thing that will be better in games: Go for a laptop with the faster PC333 memory rather than the ones with PC266.

 

[SunnyD]

Well I'm shopping as cheap as possible too, so I may not have that luxury.

 

[Frightcrawler]

The processor does not nearly matter as much as the GPU. A Pentium 4 with integrated graphics or a radeon 7000 will not perform as well as a pentium-III with a radeon 9700. (framerate-wise)

 

[Amused]

OK, I just did a 3DMark 2001SE test on my new R40. It's a PM 1.3GHz, 768MB of PC266 and a Radeon 7500. It scored 4280.

This is faster than my old PIII 1GHz with a GeForce 2 Pro. It scored in the high 2900s.

Obviously, the video card is the limiting factor in all this, since CPU benchmarks I've run have the 1.3 PM scoring higher than a P4 2.0c

Get a PM with a Radeon 9600 and you'll be fine in most, if not all current games.

If you want to know how they stack up, browse Furturemark's result browser. Punch in what proc and vid card you're looking at and it will tell you what people are scoring.

 

[pillage2001]

Originally posted by: Amused
OK, I just did a 3DMark 2001SE test on my new R40. It's a PM 1.3GHz, 768MB of PC266 and a Radeon 7500. It scored 4280.

This is faster than my old PIII 1GHz with a GeForce 2 Pro. It scored in the high 2900s.

Obviously, the video card is the limiting factor in all this, since CPU benchmarks I've run have the 1.3 PM scoring higher than a P4 2.0c

Get a PM with a Radeon 9600 and you'll be fine in most, if not all current games.

If you want to know how they stack up, browse Furturemark's result browser. Punch in what proc and vid card you're looking at and it will tell you what people are scoring.

I tested 3dmark 2001 on my PM 1.6Ghzan mobility 9000 and only got 4611. Weird....This is on the stock drivers that came with Dell though.

 

[Amused]

Originally posted by: pillage2001

Originally posted by: Amused
OK, I just did a 3DMark 2001SE test on my new R40. It's a PM 1.3GHz, 768MB of PC266 and a Radeon 7500. It scored 4280.

This is faster than my old PIII 1GHz with a GeForce 2 Pro. It scored in the high 2900s.

Obviously, the video card is the limiting factor in all this, since CPU benchmarks I've run have the 1.3 PM scoring higher than a P4 2.0c

Get a PM with a Radeon 9600 and you'll be fine in most, if not all current games.

If you want to know how they stack up, browse Furturemark's result browser. Punch in what proc and vid card you're looking at and it will tell you what people are scoring.

I tested 3dmark 2001 on my PM 1.6Ghzan mobility 9000 and only got 4611. Weird....This is on the stock drivers that came with Dell though.

This is on a clean install. I can't stand factory installs. They're sluggush as hell.

BTW, if you do a clean install, spring for an IBM 7200 RPM HDD. Good GAWD it makes a laptop feel MUCH snappier.

 

[pillage2001]

Originally posted by: Amused

Originally posted by: pillage2001

Originally posted by: Amused
OK, I just did a 3DMark 2001SE test on my new R40. It's a PM 1.3GHz, 768MB of PC266 and a Radeon 7500. It scored 4280.

This is faster than my old PIII 1GHz with a GeForce 2 Pro. It scored in the high 2900s.

Obviously, the video card is the limiting factor in all this, since CPU benchmarks I've run have the 1.3 PM scoring higher than a P4 2.0c

Get a PM with a Radeon 9600 and you'll be fine in most, if not all current games.

If you want to know how they stack up, browse Furturemark's result browser. Punch in what proc and vid card you're looking at and it will tell you what people are scoring.

I tested 3dmark 2001 on my PM 1.6Ghzan mobility 9000 and only got 4611. Weird....This is on the stock drivers that came with Dell though.

This is on a clean install. I can't stand factory installs. They're sluggush as hell.

BTW, if you do a clean install, spring for an IBM 7200 RPM HDD. Good GAWD it makes a laptop feel MUCH snappier.

I thought of doing that but not sure if I should. I want to partition the hdd to two partitions though. Naw, won't want the 7200Rpm hdd. The 5400rpm Seagate I'm on is fast enough for mobile computing I guess. I can't afford more toys anyway.

Can I use regular CAtalyst on my laptop or there are special drivers needed? I see that there's this feature called Powernow and it's not available on normal catalyst??

 

[Amused]

Originally posted by: pillage2001

Originally posted by: Amused

Originally posted by: pillage2001

Originally posted by: Amused
OK, I just did a 3DMark 2001SE test on my new R40. It's a PM 1.3GHz, 768MB of PC266 and a Radeon 7500. It scored 4280.

This is faster than my old PIII 1GHz with a GeForce 2 Pro. It scored in the high 2900s.

Obviously, the video card is the limiting factor in all this, since CPU benchmarks I've run have the 1.3 PM scoring higher than a P4 2.0c

Get a PM with a Radeon 9600 and you'll be fine in most, if not all current games.

If you want to know how they stack up, browse Furturemark's result browser. Punch in what proc and vid card you're looking at and it will tell you what people are scoring.

I tested 3dmark 2001 on my PM 1.6Ghzan mobility 9000 and only got 4611. Weird....This is on the stock drivers that came with Dell though.

This is on a clean install. I can't stand factory installs. They're sluggush as hell.

BTW, if you do a clean install, spring for an IBM 7200 RPM HDD. Good GAWD it makes a laptop feel MUCH snappier.

I thought of doing that but not sure if I should. I want to partition the hdd to two partitions though. Naw, won't want the 7200Rpm hdd. The 5400rpm Seagate I'm on is fast enough for mobile computing I guess. I can't afford more toys anyway.

Can I use regular CAtalyst on my laptop or there are special drivers needed? I see that there's this feature called Powernow and it's not available on normal catalyst??

I dunno. I used IBM's drivers. IBM updates their drivers quite often.

Trust me on the 7200RPM HDD. The difference is simply amazing. But just a clean install of the OS will do wonders.

 

[pillage2001]

Originally posted by: Amused

Originally posted by: pillage2001

Originally posted by: Amused

Originally posted by: pillage2001

Originally posted by: Amused
OK, I just did a 3DMark 2001SE test on my new R40. It's a PM 1.3GHz, 768MB of PC266 and a Radeon 7500. It scored 4280.

This is faster than my old PIII 1GHz with a GeForce 2 Pro. It scored in the high 2900s.

Obviously, the video card is the limiting factor in all this, since CPU benchmarks I've run have the 1.3 PM scoring higher than a P4 2.0c

Get a PM with a Radeon 9600 and you'll be fine in most, if not all current games.

If you want to know how they stack up, browse Furturemark's result browser. Punch in what proc and vid card you're looking at and it will tell you what people are scoring.

I tested 3dmark 2001 on my PM 1.6Ghzan mobility 9000 and only got 4611. Weird....This is on the stock drivers that came with Dell though.

This is on a clean install. I can't stand factory installs. They're sluggush as hell.

BTW, if you do a clean install, spring for an IBM 7200 RPM HDD. Good GAWD it makes a laptop feel MUCH snappier.

I thought of doing that but not sure if I should. I want to partition the hdd to two partitions though. Naw, won't want the 7200Rpm hdd. The 5400rpm Seagate I'm on is fast enough for mobile computing I guess. I can't afford more toys anyway.

Can I use regular CAtalyst on my laptop or there are special drivers needed? I see that there's this feature called Powernow and it's not available on normal catalyst??

I dunno. I used IBM's drivers. IBM updates their drivers quite often.

Trust me on the 7200RPM HDD. The difference is simply amazing. But just a clean install of the OS will do wonders.

A fresh install is on my mind. I'll prolly use win2k instead of Xp home though. About the 7200rpm hdd, I'll switch later I guess. Just not in a good financial state to switch yet.

I just updated my CAtalyst to the 4.1 and did not get any improvements on the 3dmark score. I wonder if makinga clean install will do anything more.

 

[Amused]

Originally posted by: pillage2001

Originally posted by: Amused

Originally posted by: pillage2001

Originally posted by: Amused

Originally posted by: pillage2001

Originally posted by: Amused
OK, I just did a 3DMark 2001SE test on my new R40. It's a PM 1.3GHz, 768MB of PC266 and a Radeon 7500. It scored 4280.

This is faster than my old PIII 1GHz with a GeForce 2 Pro. It scored in the high 2900s.

Obviously, the video card is the limiting factor in all this, since CPU benchmarks I've run have the 1.3 PM scoring higher than a P4 2.0c

Get a PM with a Radeon 9600 and you'll be fine in most, if not all current games.

If you want to know how they stack up, browse Furturemark's result browser. Punch in what proc and vid card you're looking at and it will tell you what people are scoring.

I tested 3dmark 2001 on my PM 1.6Ghzan mobility 9000 and only got 4611. Weird....This is on the stock drivers that came with Dell though.

This is on a clean install. I can't stand factory installs. They're sluggush as hell.

BTW, if you do a clean install, spring for an IBM 7200 RPM HDD. Good GAWD it makes a laptop feel MUCH snappier.

I thought of doing that but not sure if I should. I want to partition the hdd to two partitions though. Naw, won't want the 7200Rpm hdd. The 5400rpm Seagate I'm on is fast enough for mobile computing I guess. I can't afford more toys anyway.

Can I use regular CAtalyst on my laptop or there are special drivers needed? I see that there's this feature called Powernow and it's not available on normal catalyst??

I dunno. I used IBM's drivers. IBM updates their drivers quite often.

Trust me on the 7200RPM HDD. The difference is simply amazing. But just a clean install of the OS will do wonders.

A fresh install is on my mind. I'll prolly use win2k instead of Xp home though. About the 7200rpm hdd, I'll switch later I guess. Just not in a good financial state to switch yet.

I just updated my CAtalyst to the 4.1 and did not get any improvements on the 3dmark score. I wonder if makinga clean install will do anything more.

Try turning off the ATI power management. Also, in the video properties, turn all sliders to max performance. The diff in video quality in 3d is hardly noticable, but the increase in performance is great.

I'd go XP and just turn off all the fades, shadows, animations and slides in system properties/advanced/performance. That alone makes XP feel just as snappy as 2K.

XP's zero config wireless utility alone is reason enough to covet it as an OS for a lappy.

 

[pillage2001]

Turned the sliders to performance and got 4910 which isin't all that bad. I totally forgotten about the sliders as I had always set them to max on my desktop.

Amused, when you run your CPU and GPU at full speed, how long does your battery last??

 

[Amused]

Originally posted by: pillage2001
Turned the sliders to performance and got 4910 which isin't all that bad. I totally forgotten about the sliders as I had always set them to max on my desktop.

Amused, when you run your CPU and GPU at full speed, how long does your battery last??

Dunno, I haven't tried it. I use SpeedSwitchXP's dynamic switching, low display light, low video card power and silent CD speed and get about 5 hours or so with moderate use. I have yet to watch a movie on it but I'm hoping it will last at least one movie. The DVD drive sucks power.