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is there a pentium M processor <$150?

S

Soymilk

[H]ard|Gawd
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Jul 5, 2005
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im looking at building a new rig soon, and its mostly for gaming, so i was going to just go w/ a athlon64 3000+ (~$120). generally, a64's are better than the p4 at the same price point, so i just left it at that. but then i remembered about pentium M processors. are there any pentium M processors in this price range, and if there is, how do they compare with the a64? the only one i see on newegg is over $200, a 1.66ghz dothan i think, but thats way over my price range. plus, im not too sure how the pentium M and the a64's line up performance- and price- wise.
 
Nope. The only sub $150 Dothans are Celeron M's which should OC fairly well in a desktop platform. A pentium M gaming system will cost a lot more due to the lack of choice, but it will in the end perform the best for sure.
 
I just picked up a Pentium M 730 (1.6Ghz/533FSB) off of ebay for $90, pulled from a laptop. You might try some secondhand places.

But the Celeron M is a pretty decent alternative, The newer C0 steppings (specifically "J" models like the 350J) should overclock pretty well and perform pretty close to the Pentium M clock/clock.
 
I've got a Pentium M based system. One of the things you should know about the Pentium M desktop platform is that motherboards are very expensive. Expect to pay, at minimum, $150 for a basic board. The CPUs are only one of the big hurdles you will encounter.
 
I would look at ebay as a source of cheaper P-M's. I got my 1.3Ghz Banias for $29 on ebay mis-listed as a Celeron-M. It does often pay to check the S-specs the seller is listing. Otherwise I would echo what everyone else has been saying that the motherboard might be your biggest hurdle. I think the Aopen 915M board is the only P-M board out with PCIe at the moment and its still hovering around $300
 
Scar1.8T said:
I think the Aopen 915M board is the only P-M board out with PCIe at the moment and its still hovering around $300
Click to expand...

And it sucks ass for overclocking... look into ASUS motherboards with the CT-479 adapter... a good chipset makes a world of difference.
 
hmm, the motherboard might b an issue... but then, the current matx nf4 motherboard doesnt oc either. not sure what i'm going to get. ill see if i can get a good deal on a p-m on ebay though.

as for the celeron m's, i've always shied away from the label "celeron", have they improved a lot while my back's been turned?
 
Soymilk said:
hmm, the motherboard might b an issue... but then, the current matx nf4 motherboard doesnt oc either. not sure what i'm going to get. ill see if i can get a good deal on a p-m on ebay though.

as for the celeron m's, i've always shied away from the label "celeron", have they improved a lot while my back's been turned?
Click to expand...
The Celeron-M is a Dothan core processor with 1MB of L2 cache and without SpeedStep. Essentially it performs about the same as the previous generation P-M processor.
 
hmm... that makes things a bit more interesting. the previous generatio and current generation of p-m's dont have that much of a difference, do they? (not including ones that are clocked higher)

also, how do the motherboards for the celeron-m's look? i'm looking for something w/ pci-e, and hopefully oc'able.
 
Also, if I'm not mistaken, all Celeron Ms have a 400 MHz system bus frequency, while some Pentium Ms sport the 533 MHz bus frequency.
 
Yes, all celeron-M's do have a 400Mhz bus, but most if not all will easily OC to a 533Mhz bus. The dothan core C-M's are almost all certain to do at least 533 FSB making them better than Banias P-M's
 
what sockets are the c-m's? and where can i purchase them? newegg doesnt have any :(

also, where would i be able to find a motherboard for a c-m, and which ones r the best? and are the motherboards matx form factor or smaller? cuz im planning on making a comp w/ the x-qpack, so if it was a full atx mobo, that wouldnt really work.
 
Socket 479 is the socket all Celeron and Pentium Ms use. This includes first-generation (Banias) and second-generation (Dothan) processors.

NewEgg currently stocks three compatible motherboards:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813136150
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813137057
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813137061

Additionally, Asus makes an adapter, the CT-479, which extends compatibility to the following motherboards:

Asus P4P800 SE
Asus P4P800-VM

There are also a few Mini-ITX boards which support Pentium and Celeron Ms. If you're interested, I can suggest a few when I get back from work.
 
Pentium-M 1.5GHz, Banias for $99
Still, a Dothan Cel-M would be just as good.

I'd also recommend an Asus board with adapter, and that's in spite of my hatred of Asus. In fact, my dad just bought a P4P800-VM and adapter to build his media center, in an Aria case. It'll be running a GF6200, coupled with my old Cel-M 1.5.

Performance-wise, Tom's (gasp) wrote an article about the relative performance of Dothan, K8, and NetBurst a while ago. It should give you an idea of how they stack up. The results are favorable for P-M.
THG said:
Even without an integrated memory controller, the Pentium III's heir is as fast as an Athlon 64 on a clock-for-clock basis - and eats the in-house competition for lunch.
Click to expand...
 
hmm.. could someone tell me what stock speed for a p-m or a c-m would b equivalent to a stock a64 3000+? in that review linked to ^^^, it says that they perform the same clock for clock. i dont think i'm interpreting it correctly, cuz the way i'm thinking, that would mean it'd take a 1.8ghz p-m processor to match a 3000+, and the price distance is huge.

also, where does that 1.5 banias stand? is it faster than an a64 3000+?
 
In STOCK cost-effectiveness, the 3000+ will smoke any P-M. That's because the 3000+ is under $150, while the slowest Dothan (1.6GHz, IIRC) with 2MB is still over $200. A 1.6GHz Dothan probably won't keep up with a 3000+ too easily, although it'll overclock very nicely in the right motherboard.

Edit:
Then again, that $100 Banias should still overclock pretty nicely- I think that almost any P-M will hit at least a 533 bus without any difficulty, which still puts the 1.5 up to 2GHz.
 
hmm... i guess i'm going to stick w/ the 3000+ then, cuz i dont want to be spending that much money. thanks for the info ppl.
 
Depressing that they dont have proper motherboards out that dont cost arm & a leg... Ive looked at this solution for a few months and If I could find a proper PCIE mainboard for $200ish Id be all over it, but then so would every other tweaker....
 
Way to resurrent..

See if you can find a P4GD1 on eBay or something. The adapter works with it, and it uses the 915 chipset IIRC. Alternatively, wait for a sale/rebate on an Aopen or DFI 915PM/GM board. (When is DFI releasing theirs, anyway?)
 
i got the pentium m 735 on ebay for 109 shipped. the seller had only a 9 feedback, but i figured i could risk it with my CC. i got it, it works and is overclocked 33% in my notebook right now.
 
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