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Centrino clock speeds

C

cyberslag5k

Limp Gawd
Joined
Jun 29, 2004
Messages
277
So I was looking into some laptops a friend is thinking about buying, and I am shocked to see the processors listed in the Intel Centrino computers are clocked between 1.5-1.8GHz. Has Intel managed to increase their clock potency ala AMD or are these computers just really poorly priced? Does anyone have any good resources for performance? I googled around a bit but didn't find much of substance.

Thanks!
 
Has Intel managed to increase their clock potency ala AMD
Click to expand...

Haha yes, and Intel makes chips that are compatible with AMD's x86 architecture too!

Seriously, Centrino is the name of the entire platform of the Pentium-M and its chipset. It's a chip developed specifically for mobile devices, and it is based on the trusty P6 architecture, known from the Pentium Pro, PII and PIII. AMD took quite a few pages out of the P6-book when they designed the Athlon, so indeed the IPC of both architectures is about right.
The Pentium-M actually has slightly higher IPC than AMD, since it has more cache, and some slightly more advanced technology such as micro-op fusion.
It also uses less power than AMD CPUs.
All this comes at a cost, so yes, they seem rather pricy for such a clockspeed. However, if you bother to look at some benchmarks, you'll see that you'll get excellent performance, and a high-end Centrino laptop can keep up quite well with high-end Athlon and P4 processors. Its main deficiency is SSE/SSE2 code... but that is arguably not such a big deal for notebooks.
 
Yeah, I noticed the 2MB cache and figured they must perform as a typical desktiop 3-3.4GHz P4 does. Sound about right? I'll advise my friend accordingly.

Thanks!
 
You must have really missed the last couple of years of Intel mobile chips. ;)

Current Centrinos run between 1.1GHz (ultra low voltage) and 2.13GHz. These are a lot different than the older P4 based Pentium 4-M CPUs. A 2GHz Pentium M can run faster than even a P4 3.2GHz in most benchmarks. The 533MHz FSB versions can even outrun Athlon 64 CPUs at the same clock speed.
 
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