SPCR Turion 64 MT-ML power draw comparison.

Furen

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Oct 21, 2004
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I checked Silent PC Review (one of my favorite websites, though they don't update all that much) and found that they wrote an article about the Turion 64.

They compared the power consumption (the most "controversial" part of all the reviews I've seen) of the MT-34, MT-40, ML-40, ML-44 and a Dothan 2.13GHz. I tend to trust their ability to properly measure this because their website is completely devoted to power (thus, heat) management and not being able to gauge this would hardly make it possible.

I was actually quite pleased to see that both Turion series actually fit their power profiles quite well but it does seem like Dothan is slightly more power efficient (at least, the 2.13 version is). The differences, however, seem pretty negligible, especially when you look at the total system power draw (at the plug).
 

Markfw

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May 16, 2002
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Yes, I have said all along based on the reviews I have read, that the Dothan and the Turion 64 appear to be close in power, and the only factor for me (my son actually) was the price, $150-$300 less for the same features fro the Turion 64 and 64 bit (in case it helps in the future, added benefit)
 

carlosd

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Aug 3, 2004
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Yes, money and 64 bits are the main factors.
Performance: Equal except in FP
Power Draw: Similar of total system...that depends also of other laptop components...not directly from CPU.
64 Bits: Turion
Price: Turion
 

dexvx

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Feb 2, 2000
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Originally posted by: carlosd
Yes, money and 64 bits are the main factors.
Performance: Equal except in FP
Power Draw: Similar of total system...that depends also of other laptop components...not directly from CPU.
64 Bits: Turion
Price: Turion

Go look at most major OEM's and then report back on price. Inspirons are consistently cheaper than Turions of similar build/components. It may be cheaper to buy the CPU's individually, but in a total retail package, the difference is probably in the favor of the Pentium-M. Moreover, Turions are totally absent in the ultra-light weight division (< 3 lbs).
 

Ionizer86

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Jun 20, 2001
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In addition, used, old retired Dothans are much cheaper than any retail new Turion or Dothan. Hop on ebay and you shouldn't have much difficulty getting a Dothan P-M 1.4 to 1.6 for $70 to $100.
So it'd usually be cheaper for someone to get a Celeron M system and upgrade to Pentium M afterwards compared to getting a Sempron system and upgrading to a Turion.
 

Markfw

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May 16, 2002
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Originally posted by: dexvx
Originally posted by: carlosd
Yes, money and 64 bits are the main factors.
Performance: Equal except in FP
Power Draw: Similar of total system...that depends also of other laptop components...not directly from CPU.
64 Bits: Turion
Price: Turion

Go look at most major OEM's and then report back on price. Inspirons are consistently cheaper than Turions of similar build/components. It may be cheaper to buy the CPU's individually, but in a total retail package, the difference is probably in the favor of the Pentium-M. Moreover, Turions are totally absent in the ultra-light weight division (< 3 lbs).

Well, when I was looking, and even to this day, I could not find a Pentium-M under $1000 with even close to the same features or speed, and I got my Sons Compaq 2410US for $750 AR. The closest I could find at the time was $1000 AR for the Dothan equiv. To this day all I can find in that price range are celerons.
 

dexvx

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Feb 2, 2000
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Originally posted by: Markfw900
Well, when I was looking, and even to this day, I could not find a Pentium-M under $1000 with even close to the same features or speed, and I got my Sons Compaq 2410US for $750 AR. The closest I could find at the time was $1000 AR for the Dothan equiv. To this day all I can find in that price range are celerons.

I suggest you visit the Hot Deals Forum. It's not really on demand, but a good deals pop up consistently every few weeks.
 

Markfw

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May 16, 2002
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I neede one that day... My son wasn;t going to wait, and thats what I saw at that time. To this day I have yet to see a deal like than that on a Pentium-M laptop. They are allways over 1k.
 

Ionizer86

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Jun 20, 2001
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Dravic

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May 18, 2000
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Originally posted by: dexvx
Originally posted by: carlosd
Yes, money and 64 bits are the main factors.
Performance: Equal except in FP
Power Draw: Similar of total system...that depends also of other laptop components...not directly from CPU.
64 Bits: Turion
Price: Turion

Go look at most major OEM's and then report back on price. Inspirons are consistently cheaper than Turions of similar build/components. It may be cheaper to buy the CPU's individually, but in a total retail package, the difference is probably in the favor of the Pentium-M. Moreover, Turions are totally absent in the ultra-light weight division (< 3 lbs).



when i was shopping fo mine, i picked up this HP zv6000 for $650 AR new
 

carlosd

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Aug 3, 2004
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Originally posted by: dexvx

Go look at most major OEM's and then report back on price. Inspirons are consistently cheaper than Turions of similar build/components. It may be cheaper to buy the CPU's individually, but in a total retail package, the difference is probably in the favor of the Pentium-M. Moreover, Turions are totally absent in the ultra-light weight division (< 3 lbs).

Largest OEM (which is dell) doesn't sell AMD. Looking for OEMs who do have both plataforms you always will find the turions being significantly cheaper. If Dell would sell AMD, their Turion laptops would be significamtly cheaper, but intel won't let that happen, you know, all the dirty competition stuff coming from intel.
 

Markfw

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May 16, 2002
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The links provided either didn;t work, or were not valid. The one IBM only had 256 meg memory, 40 gig and cd burner vs my 512/80 gig/DVD burner. And the one day Dell deal that I didn;t even pursue that was valid one day last december. Find me one today with comporable equip. I already tried and I didn;t find any. And it was still $200 more !!!!
 

Viditor

Diamond Member
Oct 25, 1999
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Originally posted by: Furen
I checked Silent PC Review (one of my favorite websites, though they don't update all that much) and found that they wrote an article about the Turion 64.

They compared the power consumption (the most "controversial" part of all the reviews I've seen) of the MT-34, MT-40, ML-40, ML-44 and a Dothan 2.13GHz. I tend to trust their ability to properly measure this because their website is completely devoted to power (thus, heat) management and not being able to gauge this would hardly make it possible.

I was actually quite pleased to see that both Turion series actually fit their power profiles quite well but it does seem like Dothan is slightly more power efficient (at least, the 2.13 version is). The differences, however, seem pretty negligible, especially when you look at the total system power draw (at the plug).

I didn't see the Dothan as being more efficient, once you added in the power for the northbridge (not included with Dothan, but it is for Turion). That may be one reason why the Turion was more efficient comparatively at the plug...
If you factor in all of it (IMHO) it's about as close as 2 processors can be for power draw. This was a bit surprising to me in that the Turion is running 64 bit...the reason it's surprising is that the 64 bit extensions are always on and drawing power.
 

Furen

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Oct 21, 2004
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Now, let's take see... is the northbridge part of Dothan? No. So you can't include it as part of the CPU's power draw because it's simply not there. Yes, I know that you NEED a northbridge in the system but it is not part of the CPU in Intel's design. I alsosaid that the difference diminishes when you look at total system power draw, which includes the northbridge for both, in addition to the other stuff needed for the systems to work.
 

dexvx

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Feb 2, 2000
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Originally posted by: Furen
Now, let's take see... is the northbridge part of Dothan? No. So you can't include it as part of the CPU's power draw because it's simply not there. Yes, I know that you NEED a northbridge in the system but it is not part of the CPU in Intel's design. I alsosaid that the difference diminishes when you look at total system power draw, which includes the northbridge for both, in addition to the other stuff needed for the systems to work.

Total system draw isn't accurate. Just look at the test system specs of the Turion system and the Dothan. For starters, the HDD in the dothan is the more power hungry IBM 7K100 over the Seagate Momentus. The Dothan has 1GB memory over 512MB on the Turion.
 

Viditor

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Oct 25, 1999
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Originally posted by: Furen
Now, let's take see... is the northbridge part of Dothan? No. So you can't include it as part of the CPU's power draw because it's simply not there. Yes, I know that you NEED a northbridge in the system but it is not part of the CPU in Intel's design. I alsosaid that the difference diminishes when you look at total system power draw, which includes the northbridge for both, in addition to the other stuff needed for the systems to work.

Exactly my point...so when you compare efficiencies, you must add the power draw of the Centrino Northbridge to the Dothan to compare apples to apples. I wasn't saying you were wrong, just clarifying...
 

Accord99

Platinum Member
Jul 2, 2001
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Originally posted by: Viditor
Exactly my point...so when you compare efficiencies, you must add the power draw of the Centrino Northbridge to the Dothan to compare apples to apples. I wasn't saying you were wrong, just clarifying...
Turion MBs still have a northbridge, it just doesn't have a memory controller.
 

Markfw

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May 16, 2002
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Originally posted by: Tangerines
Yes, but Intel's Core Duo consumes less power than Dothan, and performs far better.

And its a lot more exspensive !
 

coldpower27

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Jul 18, 2004
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Originally posted by: Viditor
Originally posted by: Furen
Now, let's take see... is the northbridge part of Dothan? No. So you can't include it as part of the CPU's power draw because it's simply not there. Yes, I know that you NEED a northbridge in the system but it is not part of the CPU in Intel's design. I alsosaid that the difference diminishes when you look at total system power draw, which includes the northbridge for both, in addition to the other stuff needed for the systems to work.

Exactly my point...so when you compare efficiencies, you must add the power draw of the Centrino Northbridge to the Dothan to compare apples to apples. I wasn't saying you were wrong, just clarifying...

I am going to have to agree with Furen on this one, regarding power consumption, you can't compare apples to apples with regard to CPU because Intel didn't include the NB in their design, so hence you don't add the NB into the CPU power draw, if you want "apples to apples", you might as well compare Turion and Centrino in a platform style, because while Dothan needs the memory controller to run, Turion still needs the chipset to be able to run in a system as wel. It also isn't relevant, to compare CPU to CPU anyway as they both need platforms to run on. It's only interesting from a theoretical standpoint.