KVR Audio

DevonB · Post by **DevonB** » Fri Sep 03, 2004 11:04 pm

m|7o wrote:I suppose he's looking for a laptop/dektop replacement...otherwise there's no Dothan for desktops AFAIK

Then what's this?

http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDe ... 159&depa=0

Devon

DevonB · Post by **DevonB** » Fri Sep 03, 2004 11:07 pm

Oops, sorry, here's the motherboard for the Dothan as well for desktops.

http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=15976

Devon

griels · Post by **griels** » Fri Sep 03, 2004 11:10 pm

Well, I just looked through all 6 pages of SmEx threads and no sign of the one in question... I think it predated the server upgrade. The 1.7GhZ Pentium M was roughly comparable to a 2.8GhZ P4 if I recall correctly in this benchmark though. Strange that the 2GhZ with twice the cache shouldn't perform so well, maybe something to do with the slower RAM in the machine.

Great to see the Mobile AMD chips beat the Pentium 4s though! The old 32 bit AMD notebooks always seemed to fall behind in benchmarks for unknown reasons.

DevonB · Post by **DevonB** » Fri Sep 03, 2004 11:16 pm

It's also nice to know that you can have a fairly powerful laptop these days too.

Devon

ObsoleteAcc99 · Post by **ObsoleteAcc99** » Fri Sep 03, 2004 11:34 pm

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discretemachine · Post by **discretemachine** » Fri Sep 03, 2004 11:41 pm

Wow ! Detailed stuff !

Interestingly, the only Benchmark test the Dothan 2.0 ghz wins is audio related (Mp3 encoding)

for those of you who can't be bothered to read the whole gallop:

This brings us to the Intel’s Pentium-M (Dothan) processors, which in our opinion continue to be the best overall mobile chips on the market. While the Athlon64 and Pentium 4 models for the most part can beat the high-end Pentium-M 755 in benchmarks, the difference is surprisingly small considering the huge architectural differences between these notebooks. With a fairly slow FSB and an aging memory controller, the Pentium-M’s are still able to hold their own and give performance when it’s needed. The huge 2MB cache of the chips makes applications and games quite smooth, and the fact that these notebooks create such little heat and consume so little power makes it a very attractive package. We’re willing to take a small performance hit in order to get the low-power and long-battery life benefits of the Centrino architecture. Judging by the response we’ve seen thus far to the new Pentium-M processors, a lot of our readers feel similar to us in this regard. In any case, while consumers are getting increasingly disinterested in new desktop processor innovations, the mobile market is getting quite exciting with every new architecture we look at.

Anybody know when or if the P-M processors will get a 800 MHz FSB ??

j

ObsoleteAcc99 · Post by **ObsoleteAcc99** » Fri Sep 03, 2004 11:45 pm

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caganer · Post by **caganer** » Sat Sep 04, 2004 12:34 am

DevonB wrote:Oops, sorry, here's the motherboard for the Dothan as well for desktops.

http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=15976

Devon

That works...if you live in Japan though

Here's a review of the 2.0GHz Pentium M:
http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/sh ... spx?i=2129

If you're using your notebook for office applications and even for content creation applications, there's no beating the new Pentium M. Even developers will find short compile times, competitive with that of a similarly clocked Athlon 64, possible with the Pentium M at lower power usage as well.

What the Pentium M isn't, however, is as strong of a media encoding or workstation processor as either the Athlon 64 or Pentium 4. Partially constrained by its 400MHz FSB and single channel memory interface, the Pentium M is not the successor to the Pentium 4 that many will make it out to be. In many ways, the Pentium M is much like Intel's version of the Athlon 64, sans memory controller. The short pipelined design and accurate branch predictor give the Pentium M a nice and high IPC, similar to the Athlon 64, which give it strength in areas like business applications and are also responsible for its high performance in our compile tests.

discretemachine · Post by **discretemachine** » Sat Sep 04, 2004 2:25 am

Good thread this...even tho I'm getting more confused\idecisive by the minute..

Is there anyone who have seen a strictly music related test of a Dothan machine ? How many instances of ambience (it seems to be the plug to use for these tests)...how many tracks in Cubase\Sonar..etc...

cobalt · Post by **cobalt** » Mon Sep 06, 2004 2:00 pm

I recently chose a Pentium M 2.0 GHz laptop over Pentium 4, primarily due to weight, battery life, etc. I am very pleased with the audio performance so far. Using informal NI Reaktor comparisons (CPU usage for various ensembles), it is up to 90% more powerful than my desktop (an Athlon XP 2200+ 1.8 GHz....both have 1GB of RAM, low latency). This is what I would expect based on the rough idea that the Pentium M processors compare with Pentium 4 processors at a factor of 2 times the processor speed which I've read about.

That said, I don't see that kind of performance from the laptop across the board. The "2 times clock speed number" guideline for the Pentium M processors is probably primarily for business applications or software that runs particularly well on the Pentium M (like Reaktor). Project5, for instance, gives me strange CPU usage comparisons depending on the project file. So, for instance, the overall CPU usage for one particular song is equal on both my laptop and desktop, despite containing multiple instances of Reaktor, which in standalone mode shows a clear performance advantage for the laptop (as already mentioned). I attribute this to the fact that Project5 is a something of a CPU hog and is, despite being a very fun and useful program, still buggy. I'm not sure what about Reaktor makes it run so well on the Pentium M processors. That would be an interesting aspect of this discussion.

I have not stressed the laptop's audio recording capability, and I haven't spent a lot of time running Cubase on it yet.

My suggestion for anyone who is thinking about choosing between Pentium M and Pentium 4 laptops (or an Athlon 64 laptop for that matter), would be to think about what capabilities you need to have that are truly portable. If you need any significant battery life, go with the Pentium M. If you need to do some high performance multi-track recording and/or playback in a location that has power, etc., the Pentium 4 (or Athlon64) will give higher consistent performance at the cost of weight and battery life. If you need to do simple one or two track field recording, the Pentium M is a better choice. Also, because the Pentium M processor runs cooler due to better power management, the fan is on less often and the laptop is much quieter in operation.

A fully spec'ed Pentium4 or Athlon64 music laptop DAW with a second built in 7200RPM hard drive will certainly outperform a Pentium M 2.0 GHz laptop with an external HD, I would imagine, but it will be twice the weight or more, will run much hotter and probably louder (unless it's been designed for quiet operation), and the battery life will probably be less than 90 minutes, compared to up to 5 hours on the Pentium M (depending on battery, etc.).

I've been thinking about how to upgrade the performance for a DAW constructed around a laptop. Consider the following:
1. external HDs (firewire preferably)
2. high end audio interface (RME, MOTU et al.)
3. firewire audio interface/controller, e.g., Tascam FW1884, or Yamaha 01x
4. external DSP unit, e.g., Powercore Firewire or maybe the new Muse Research Receptor
5. second computer with FX Teleport or System Link

All of these pieces of equipment are in principle transportable but reduce the mobility of your system, by increasing mass and adding the need for an external power supply. Other than the external HD, they all reduce the performance/cost difference between different laptop processors. The reason I think this is important is that if you're going to maximize the power of your laptop DAW with additional equipment, the main issue in choosing a processor seems to be what you're able to and willing to carry around with you, and why. So, for instance, if you need a laptop to set up a recording studio in a hotel room to record a small group for two weeks (not that I've ever done this), you're going to be carrying around a laptop with maybe a 1U rack unit or two, mics, cables, etc. In this case, you might as well have the Pentium4 or Athlon64 laptop. Or if you want identical high end performance between a work and home studio (i.e., two definite locations), it also makes sense to go with a non-Pentium M laptop. On the other hand, if you're going to take your laptop to construct drum loops or samples on the road, play around on soft synths in lots of different places, build reaktor ensembles (how many people really do that?) or synth patches, or write demos on a soft synth workstation like Reason or Project5, a Pentium M 2.0 GHz laptop will provide plenty of power and will function more like an actual laptop (lighter, quieter, cooler, longer battery life by a factor of 2 to 4 or so, built in wireless, etc.).

A recent Future Music (issue 152 out now) ran tests on a Millennium Centrino, which has a 1.5 GHz Pentium M processor with 512 MB RAM, 7200 RPM HD, optimized for audio, with a Tascam US-122 USB audio interface. They got 7 instances of Ambience, while an unspecified 2.8GHz Pentium desktop got 4 instances. I'm not sure if I've seen a review of a 2.0 GHz Pentium M laptop DAW yet. The laptop tested did not have a Dothan processor (which is I think 1.7 GHz and above), which should obviously run better. I started an Ambience test on my laptop, but I got sidetracked after 5 instances of Ambience in Cubase. (I have a short attention span.) If anyone is interested, let me know and I'll run the test and post the results.

I would also look at the speed of the memory. I don't understand the intracacies, but I've noticed a lot of variability in the speed of the memory that's offered with Pentium M notebooks. My own laptop is the Data Blaze 755 from xtreme notebooks (xnbs.com), which sports PC3200/400 DDR RAM (and a 64MB integrated graphics card, which is also important). I like the laptop itself, but had to update the BIOS to fix a problem with the power management (not a problem now). I've read some confusing stuff about what type/speed memory runs best with the Pentium M processors and wouldn't mind some clarification on this.

Just my 2 cents worth (didn't the "cents" key used to be shift-2?)

ObsoleteAcc99 · Post by **ObsoleteAcc99** » Mon Sep 06, 2004 3:40 pm

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cobalt · Post by **cobalt** » Wed Sep 08, 2004 5:59 am

ttoz wrote:
cobalt wrote: My suggestion for anyone who is thinking about choosing between Pentium M and Pentium 4 laptops (or an Athlon 64 laptop for that matter), would be to think about what capabilities you need to have that are truly portable....
actually you talked about consistent performance. this could explain the Project5 anomally too. the pentium m needs speedswitch to get constant maximum performance, otherwise it stays in a "dynamic switching" mode, even plugged into power.

I was getting inconsistent performance from Project5, on my notebook compared to desktop, in that different projects would give me different numbers. So, one project would show significantly less CPU usage for the laptop in most cases, but on one project, the CPU usage was equal. The notebook is set to run at full processor speed.

ttoz wrote:
cobalt wrote:A fully spec'ed Pentium4 or Athlon64 music laptop DAW with a second built in 7200RPM hard drive will certainly outperform a Pentium M 2.0 GHz laptop with an external HD, I would imagine
but why do you actually say that? i'm not reading anything that suggests so so far.

I'm just assuming, really. I figure a 3.4GHz Pentium 4 EE desktop replacement notebook will do pretty well compared to a Pentium M. I wish I were in a position to compare them directly.

ttoz wrote:
cobalt wrote:I'm not sure if I've seen a review of a 2.0 GHz Pentium M laptop DAW yet. The laptop tested did not have a Dothan processor (which is I think 1.7 GHz and above), which should obviously run better. I started an Ambience test on my laptop, but I got sidetracked after 5 instances of Ambience in Cubase. (I have a short attention span.) If anyone is interested, let me know and I'll run the test and post the results.
of course, we're interested in seeing an ambience test, and i'd like to see if the dothan does better than the banias. and yes, the future music one was definitely not a dothan.

Okay, I ran the Ambience test according to the method used in the Future Music review I was talking about. I ended up using up all my insert slots with eight instances of Ambience, using 88 to 90% CPU according to the Windows Task Manager, spiking to 92%. I couldn't really judge the quality of the audio processing, because after about 5 instances the original audio becomes extremely harsh and unrecognizable, as you would imagine.

Specs as follows:
Pentium M 2.0 GHz
1024 MB PC3200/400 DDR RAM
Windows XP Pro
Cubase SX 2.0
M Audio Firewire 410 (at 384 samples, about 11 ms latency)
I did some basic optimizations, but didn't mess with the registry or anything.

ttoz wrote:
cobalt wrote:I would also look at the speed of the memory. I don't understand the intracacies, but I've noticed a lot of variability in the speed of the memory that's offered with Pentium M notebooks. My own laptop is the Data Blaze 755 from xtreme notebooks (xnbs.com), which sports PC3200/400 DDR RAM (and a 64MB integrated graphics card, which is also important). I like the laptop itself, but had to update the BIOS to fix a problem with the power management (not a problem now). I've read some confusing stuff about what type/speed memory runs best with the Pentium M processors and wouldn't mind some clarification on this.
right now as i understand it, a pentium m would not benefit from pc3200 at all, i think to be in same speed as the bus and memory the thing to use is pc2100, but i have to check to be sure.

I've read a couple conflicting things about memory and the Pentium M processors, which I don't really understand. Something about how if you spec the RAM as if for a Pentium 4 or Athlon processor, that you'll end up with RAM that runs twice as fast as the processor can use.

Anyone?

zai · Post by **zai** » Mon Sep 13, 2004 1:34 pm

Just to further the confusion...intel will release "dual core" techonology in Q1 of 2005 (if they don't push the release date back). Something for all to look forward to...I'm saving for one. Anybody else? :p

Hm...or maybe Apple will have a PowerBook G5 out by then...dual G5 PowerBook? Am I dreaming? Or would that be possible...their new iMac certainly shows that the G5 processor can be hidden quite nicely in a tight case.

Thanks for this great thread...learned a lot and some good pointers here as well!

Zai

pentium 4 or donathan