Topic: P4 v Centrino v AMD

[dave w]

So, I'm looking to get a laptop as a desktop replacement.  So will be used for word processing, internet, and audio.  I probalby won't use it for field recording, but will be transferring audio to it and using soundforge, wavelab etc.
  So, wondering what chip to get.  How does a 1.7  Pentium M Centrino compare to say a 3.2 or 3.3 Ghz Pentium 4 with HT, vs whatever is comparable from AMD for purposes of audio processing - resampling, dithering, tracking etc. 
   And how is battery power effected - presumably better on a Pentium M than a P4, but how much better?  I'm certainly happy to sacrifice some battery power for increased performance,but still would like decent battery life when I can't plug in.
Thanks for any input,
--Dave

 

[nic]

the centrino will give you the better battery life of the 3(centrino, p4, athlon), but will also give you the least performance.
also, some vendors(coughdellcough) lock the bios so you cant get the full performance from the centrino, even when powered via ac.

if performance is what matters most and you dont game, get the athlon

[pfife]

my experience w/ athlon is that they don't maintain a high level of performance over time - not as long as a P4. 

FWIW, I just purchased a lappy, and it's a P4 2.8.  Watch dell's refurb site!

[OFOTD]

The athlons severely lack in ALL multimedia processing.  I used to be a Intel hater until a bought a P4 and ran it against my AMD and it really just blew the AMD away.  Now I do not do any gaming on my PC so my results are skewed somewhat if you do game.  I have found that simple stuff like decoding/encoding flac files there is a noticable difference is speeds from the brands of processors.  We have quite a few laptops at my office that run the Centrinos and they are awesome.  Now the speed differences are big 1.4 compare to 3.0 but is your new laptop going to be a desktop replacement or a toy?

I say go with the Centrino.  The battery life you save is worth the difference especially if you are going to tape with it.

[nic]

The athlons severely lack in ALL multimedia processing.  I used to be a Intel hater until a bought a P4 and ran it against my AMD and it really just blew the AMD away.  Now I do not do any gaming on my PC so my results are skewed somewhat if you do game.  I have found that simple stuff like decoding/encoding flac files there is a noticable difference is speeds from the brands of processors.

yes and no. for conversions such as wav>mp3/shn/flac yes, the P4 will give you better times.
ever run DSP effects on a audio project in something like soundforge or Wavelab? the Athlon makes the P4 seem like a 500mhz celeron as it is very FPU(floating point) intensive. it basically boils down to if you need FPU performance or not. if you do, get the Athlon, if not, get the P4.

[nic]

my experience w/ athlon is that they don't maintain a high level of performance over time - not as long as a P4.

?? a cpu cant loose performance over time. now your system as-a-whole may tend to slow over time due to full hard drive or heavy fragmentation, but that has nothing to do with the cpu performance.

[keepongoin]

my experience w/ athlon is that they don't maintain a high level of performance over time - not as long as a P4.

?? a cpu cant loose performance over time. now your system as-a-whole may tend to slow over time due to full hard drive or heavy fragmentation, but that has nothing to do with the cpu performance.

to my knowledge, CPUs do lose some performance over time - it is not just the system as a whole.  the actual switches in the processor break down - when it starts happening, you get a shit-ton of problem and that chip is nearing its end.

[nic]

I have never heard of what you describe and my last job was at a component level repair facility with clean room environments. if a transistor or switch broke on the cpu, it was toast, it didnt slow down. if it did continue to work, it would cause massive application and os errors/kernel panics, but it still ran at normal speed.

[keepongoin]

i have had a few still work, and seem slow at what they did, and then give me the blue screen of death after a working for some time... probably what you are describing... they eventually died and did not load up at all.   

I have had 3 CPUs do this - an intel lasted the longest and the shortest (Pentium III = longest, Celeron = shortest), and AMD Athlon was right in the middle.  I have another AMD right now, and it is doing fine, and will be the longest lasting CPU, if you don't include my pentium II and 486, which were less used and were retired before they wore out.

[Nick in Edinboro]

How do you know it was the processor that "broke"....?  Sounds more like a hard drive crashing to me.  The processors itself really can't "slow down" in theory, they either work or don't....

[Nick in Edinboro]

The athlons severely lack in ALL multimedia processing.

Why do you think this is?  Video or audio or both?

I have found that simple stuff like decoding/encoding flac files there is a noticable difference is speeds from the brands of processors.

That's not a multimedia process, it's a mathmatical process.  Multimedia generally leads me to think about SIMD (Single Instruction Multiple Data) operations that occur with 3DNow or MMX.

If you are comparing on two different systems there are entirely too many variables asides from the processor alone to make any sort of decision like this.  Are they both using 7200RPM IDE Hard drives?  What's the FSB on both of them?  Etc..

If you are comparing the speed and graphics of games it has a lot to do with your video card and RAM and not just the processor...

[drewloo]

I have never heard of what you describe and my last job was at a component level repair facility with clean room environments. if a transistor or switch broke on the cpu, it was toast, it didnt slow down. if it did continue to work, it would cause massive application and os errors/kernel panics, but it still ran at normal speed.

I don't believe this is entirely correct as I think it depends on where the failure occurs.  An Athlon 64, for example, has over 68 million transistors, and some will fail over time.   A single failure in the L2 cache might not even be noticible, while a single failure in the logic core of the chip will probably result in serious/total cpu failure.  As far as what cpu to buy, if you're getting a laptop I'd suggest the centrino, too (and I'm typing this from inside an AMD-owned cleanroom).  The early results of the new AMD mobile chip Turion showed it to be a good performer but has only average power consumption/conservation.

[keepongoin]

How do you know it was the processor that "broke"....?  Sounds more like a hard drive crashing to me.  The processors itself really can't "slow down" in theory, they either work or don't....

replaced all components but the processor, including the motherboard - same problems.  HDD still works and is in my current box as a data archive disc - in fact, most of my old HDDs are in a tower somewhere holding data and still running.

[BJ]

How do you know it was the processor that "broke"....?  Sounds more like a hard drive crashing to me.  The processors itself really can't "slow down" in theory, they either work or don't....

replaced all components but the processor, including the motherboard - same problems.  HDD still works and is in my current box as a data archive disc - in fact, most of my old HDDs are in a tower somewhere holding data and still running.

why would you replace EVERYTHING in the computer except the processor?  j/w...b/c a processor is on par as far as cost wiht the other components...if you were replacing and got a mobo/ram that would support your old processor...you could have rebuilt your system to a much higher spec without much more monetary investment overall??  was this a piece by piece upgrade?  I dont know for sure...and I dont want to come off like I do know...but I have a hard time thinking a processor would slowly die...I have been building repairing comps for a long time...and only seen working/non-working processors...I find(almost all the time) that when a computer has severly slowed down, that it is usually bad ram, or the HD is failing....and most of the time its the ram, b/c the hd starts making some real interesting noises...that being said...I still have pieces of comptuers laying around that are 10+ years old that I know still work, including proc, ram, mobo, ram...I think it is just luck to see if your pieces will last...

as for the original quesiton...a laptop..I would go centrino also...good performance and good battery life...Im typing on a centrino now...its nice!
as for AMD/p4 with multimedia....I remember reading on Tom's hardware about the pentium being better(quite easily if i remember) in this area(it was encooding/decoding video, music, etc)...but that was about it....amd was the clear winner in every other category....If i have time..ill go try to find some of those archived results of testing...

good luck on your purchase!!

[Nick in Edinboro]

IMHO, if your looking for a desktop replacement, don't concern yourself with battery life.

I have one bad ass desktop killer laptop, a Dell Precision M60...  With a Nvidia Quadro FX Go700 integrated video processor it makes for awesome experience when gaming, erra I mean running CAD software like Inventor 10.  2 gigs of ram, Pentium M processor, etc.

However, it only last about 3 hours off AC power, but I almost never have it off the desk and if I use it from the couch my extra power supply works just fine.