Centrino processors

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So what's the story with these then? Just found a Samsung laptop going for £750 ish, p4 2.8ghz, decent spec, then there's pretty much the same Samsung laptop with a 1.5ghz Centrino processor for £1199 ...

So I take it that even though the Centrino processor is slower, it's better performance? Or have I got that wrong? Is it maybe better battery life or something?

Can anyone advise if these are a good idea for a music laptop, or would a p4 or Athlon (do you get them in laptops?) be better?

Ta
"my gosh it's a friggin hardware"

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yeah they run cooler use less power
and apparently run faster
ive used a few i always have laptops
but im not sure wether its in the head of the beholder if you know what i mean
when a centrino is sat on your lap it doesnt tend to burn your knees off :-o
my p4 laptop does so maybe the centrino just seems faster to me im not sure :D
but other people i know seem to think they are faster machines and the clock rating isnt relevant
like i said im still not sure

but i will give em one thing they run forever on the battery compared to my p4s 2 hours
cheers
I aint famous enough to be handin out signatures

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I think ModuLR recently got a 1.5ghz Centrino. He would be a good person to ask since he's also a Tracktioneer.
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Good call. Where are you Mod?
"my gosh it's a friggin hardware"

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1.7Ghz Sony Z1WA... what do I think about it? I LOVE IT! It is the best laptop I have ever owned. I definately can run on par with the old 2.66 P4. The advantage being, when you run the cpu in a concervative setting, you can get close to 4 hours on the battery... and it doesn't get hot at all.

Would I do it again? you bet. Centrinos rocks. I haven't had any denormal issues either.
ModuLR / Radio

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Centrinos ROCK! :o

I have a Dell Inspiron 8600 2.0Ghz Centrino, and it craps all over my friends 3.06Ghz P4. It also does not have denormalisation issues; but the P4M is really bad with denorms.

Try running:
- 11 instances of Plugsound
- 5 instances of Ultra Focus
- 1 instance of Atmosphere
- 4 instances of sfz with 600MB of .SF2s

All in inside 1 Tracktion song.

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You just reminded me of something. Theres this site that has benchmarks of different computers using the same Cubase edit. It uses all the built in Cubase plug-ins and a couple of audio files and is pretty CPU intensive. Then people post their CPU loads and that way you can compare how different setups perform with Tracktion. Maybe TracktionFaction or Mackie can do something like this. I dont know how much work it would be to put together tho so maybe not. :D

Heres the Cube one.
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A little off topic but... if interest in the Centrino is due to power consumtpion/heat for a silent (desktop) pc setup, you should also check out the AMD mobile processors. They are currently popular right now with overclockers since they aren't locked, but that also means you can underclock (the 35 watt chip doesnt really need underclocking).

With good airflow, heatsink and power supply with a large underbelly fan you can get by without any case fans. Whisper quiet.

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Koorby wrote:Centrinos ROCK! :o

I have a Dell Inspiron 8600 2.0Ghz Centrino, and it craps all over my friends 3.06Ghz P4. It also does not have denormalisation issues; but the P4M is really bad with denorms.
What?

If it's got a badge on it that says centrino, it's got a P4M in it. How can it not have denormal issues but also be really bad?

Some confusion here I think.

edit:- Pentium-m as opposed to P4-m. I guess.

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nuffink wrote:
Koorby wrote:Centrinos ROCK! :o

I have a Dell Inspiron 8600 2.0Ghz Centrino, and it craps all over my friends 3.06Ghz P4. It also does not have denormalisation issues; but the P4M is really bad with denorms.
What?

If it's got a badge on it that says centrino, it's got a P4M in it. How can it not have denormal issues but also be really bad?

Some confusion here I think.

edit:- Pentium-m as opposed to P4-m. I guess.
The Pentium-M is completely different than the Pentium 4M supposedly.
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"Centrino" is a trademark for a system using a Pentium-M processor as well as a new graphics and wireless networking chips. To be a "Centrino" system, you need to use all these chips, not just the Pentium-M processor.

A Pentium-4M is an older low voltage version of a regular Pentium-4 chip. A P4M should benchmark like a regular P4 chip. A Pentium-M gives a lot better performance than a P4 or P4M chip per clock cycle.

By the way, there is a new Centrino-2 specification with a new version of the Pentium-M chip which should be even quicker! The new version of the Pentium-M chip (Centrino-2) also supports hyperthreading, is supposed to be even more efficient per clock cycle, and doubles the on-chip cache memory to two megabytes.

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lkingston wrote:
By the way, there is a new Centrino-2 specification with a new version of the Pentium-M chip which should be even quicker! The new version of the Pentium-M chip (Centrino-2) also supports hyperthreading, is supposed to be even more efficient per clock cycle, and doubles the on-chip cache memory to two megabytes.
Whoa. When is that comming out?
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Thats cool. I heard some bad experiences with HT and music apps anyways. Dothan looks awsome. I need some cash fast. :-o
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Got myself a hp nc4000 with Centrino1 tehnology (no HT), Pentium M on 1.5Mhz and 512MbRAM DDR 266. Soundcard is USB 1.0 ESI U24 at ASIO 44.1/16, latency 5,8ms.

First impresions:

Translated the song in Tracktion from my home PC - Pentium 4 at 2.8 with 533Mhz BUS, 512Mb RAM DDR333, Terratec EWX24/96 at 5,8ms latency.

Structure: 8 channels, TrackPlug on each, Native Reverb on two, Phatmatik Pro on three channels, Ozone on Output.

On the home PC there were several peaks with cracking noise. Fluctuation of CPU usage drifted around 60-70%.

On Centrino laptop, same latency, got the same peaks, but then switched with SpeedswitchXP to max performance and fluctuations got tamer. The average CPU usage was the same as my P4 2.8 with 533Mhz bus!

Not to forget, some processing power and speed is lost due to USB device handling (1.0 type).

Both machines WinXPs are tweaked smoother for music editing...

I'll do some more testing...


Cheers

mj

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