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Hardware

Desktop Pentium M Motherboard Review 262

Posted by michael from the ssssshhhhhhhhhhh dept.
Babstar writes "Discussed numerous times on Slashdot, the quiet PC is the holy grail for many, and one step in the right direction could be using a Pentium M (designed for notebooks) in a desktop machine. Here's a review of a desktop Pentium M motherboard. Surprisingly it's also a great game machine."
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Desktop Pentium M Motherboard Review More

Desktop Pentium M Motherboard Review

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  • Fans die so quickly (Score:5, Interesting)

    by DaNasty ( 833075 ) on Saturday November 20, 2004 @11:06PM (#10878496) Homepage
    One thing I've noticed is the more fans your computer has the more often you end up needing to replace components. I've had 2 high-end video cards fry themselves due to the bearings in the fans wearing out.

    Now I run a box practically devoid of fans and it's been running great for 4 years & counting.

    • Let me guess: Nvidia FX cards?? Oh, that's right, you said high-end...
    • It's more of a matter of noticing when the buggers are starting to go out and replace them as needed. Also, every once and a while, open the case up and blow out the accumulated dust.

      Case fans are so cheap (both in price and quality), that I've comtemplated simply replacing them all after a set amount of time (say, 1 year) - rather than deal with them as they fail.

      I just wish that video card manufacturers would start making video cards with fans that are meant to be replaced (such as not gluing them on),

  • If you want a quiet machine (Score:5, Interesting)

    by nighty5 ( 615965 ) on Saturday November 20, 2004 @11:07PM (#10878500)
    Buy a shuttle.

    I have two, one which is a power workstation, AMD64, Radeon 9800 Pro, 2 gigs ram, sata disks and still is very quiet.

    They are both stacked on each other and are very sexy units.....uses liquid cooling mechanisms for cooling and are competitively priced.

    Google for the website to slowdown the slashdot tidelwave.
    • Where did you get a liquid cooling kit for your shuttle?
      • the shuttle website describes it as the following:

        "The Integrated Cooling Engine uses convection (liquid) cooling to transfer heat away from the processor and other critical system components. Copper tubing, coated in nickel and filled with distilled water provides the conduit through which heat is radiated out of the chassis."

        Its my understanding that all shuttles use ICE*

        Cheers.

        * I could be wrong....

        • Re:If you want a quiet machine (Score:5, Informative)

          by UnderScan ( 470605 ) <jjp6893@netscap e . n et> on Sunday November 21, 2004 @12:19AM (#10878812)
          You are correct in that Shuttle XPCs do use ICE. See silentpcreview.com's review of the Shuttle Zen XPC ST62K for pictures of the ICE [silentpcreview.com]. However as seen in the picture, ICE is a all contained liquid heat-pipe & not the traditional liquid cooling kit with pump that the GP thought it was.


          You are not correct in that they are quiet. It was only within the last year that Shuttle made some design changes to make them quiet. I have a 2 year old XPC that is not quiet & it was made before they switched to a different powersupply manufacturer. My PS has a 40mm fan that buzzes & the 80mm main fan even with variable speed temp control is simply too loud. If you are interested in the small form factor XPC line, then get a new one like the one in the review & not an older one which you might get dirt cheap.

          • If you have a Shuttle that is noisy, you can make it quiet:

            - Ditch the 80mm Sunon fan. A 32CFM Panaflo ($16 on Newegg) is a much better choice.

            - Get the PC40 "SilenX" power supply. Shuttle sells it for around $70. It's the same power supply they use on the new systems.
    • a bit huburistic for the poster to assume he'd start a tidalwave.

      Shuttle website here [shuttle.com]

    • No way...build a mini-itx machine. Don't buy that proprietary mobo-case combo crap.

      If you don't like VIA other companies are starting to build mini-itx form factor motherboards.

  • No meaningful comments yet, and the server is already loading slower than my old Pentium 133. And, of course, they subdivided the article into 16 pages. That way I can wait 5 minutes each... Ahh the joys of ASP.

  • Cool 'n Quiet (Score:5, Informative)

    by niko9 ( 315647 ) on Saturday November 20, 2004 @11:12PM (#10878523)
    A bit too little, a bit too late for Intel.

    For much much cheaper, you could get an AMD motherbaord that supports Cool 'n Quiet: the CPU is underclocked to 800Mhz for things like web surfing and watching DVD's. There's also an option to have all the fan stop if the case is cool enough.

    For a list of supported motherbaords clickhere [amd.com]

    For the price of the Pentium M CPU alone, you could get a faster motherboard, a mid range AMD 64 bit COU and maybe some ram.

    • The difference being, that it appears that this CPU could be easily passively cooled at full load, full clock for an extended period of time, not just at 800MHz or whatever.

    • Re:Cool 'n Quiet (Score:4, Interesting)

      by evilviper ( 135110 ) on Sunday November 21, 2004 @04:26AM (#10879691) Journal
      CnQ is no doubt a good thing, but nothing revolutionary. CPUs still need to be compared by their MAXIMUM POWER RATINGS.

      Despite CnQ, the AMD64 processors are still going to use up 90+ watts of power when doing heavy processing. The Pentium-Ms OTOH, might be able to perform as well, with half the power consumption, when running full-tilt.

      Besides that, you don't need to get an AMD64, there is various software that will do the same thing as CnQ. I know of both a Windows program that supports specific models of various brands of (AMD) motherboards, as well as a Linux 2.6 cpu-freq kernel module that will do the same job on nForce motherboards.

      Although it won't actually underclock your CPU, RAM, or BUS, if you just run VCool/CoolOn (Windows) or fvcool (BSDs/Linux), you'll also see a huge reduction in power consumption when your AMD processor is idle.

      For all the complaints about the P4's high MAX power draw, at least they didn't do something as stupid as AMD (S2K bus disconnect), which basically requires their CPU to run at full power, even when completely idle. In many ways, with AMD64 and CnQ, AMD is just now catching up with every other processor manufacturer.

      If you'd like more details, my journal contains a pretty detailed entry about the AMD/S2K power issue.

  • Server getting hammered, here is a mirror (Score:5, Informative)

    by jkmiecik ( 242175 ) <slashdotdoesntne ... laddress DOT com> on Saturday November 20, 2004 @11:13PM (#10878531)
    Intel currently has two major consumer-level processor architectures on the market, "Prescott" and "Dothan". The Prescott processor core is the basis of Intel's Pentium 4, Xeon. and Celeron processors, replacing Intel's previous mainstream processor core known as "Northwood". Intel's Prescott architecture was truly designed with clock speed scaling in mind, as the chip will scale up to 3.8 GHz, which will no doubt make for some incredibly fast processors. Unfortunately, in order to make these CPU's clock so high, the efficiency of the chip had to be compromised. Intel's "Prescott" processor core runs hotter, consumes more power, and has the worst performance per clock cycle of any modern Intel processor core.
    These factors have made Intel's "Prescott" based Pentium 4, Xeon, and Celeron processors less attractive to the enthusiast market compared to previous Intel processor products. While the mass markets are largely unaffected by Intel's Prescott core shortcomings, a larger amount of the population is slowly coming around to the fact that the Pentium 4 is not on the right track lately. With Intel seemingly misfiring on their latest processor families, the enthusiast crowds are discovering new and better options, including AMD's Athlon64 processor lineup.

    Intel, however, does have an ace up their sleeve, that being their other major processor architecture, "Dothan". Dothan is an architecture which was designed from the ground up to consume as little power and produce as little heat as possible, and was originally designed strictly for the mobile markets. When Dothan processors started to hit the market, people quickly realized how efficient this core was in addition to the Pentium 4. In addition, performance of the chip was surprisingly good, considering the fairly low clock speeds at which Intel has presented this processor lineup with. Our tests in the past have shown that a top of the line Pentium-M processor can perform on par with the fastest Pentium 4 and Athlon64 processors in terms of raw CPU power, which is extremely exciting considering the limited feature set of the Dothan core architecture in comparison to today's desktop processors.

    Until now though, the Pentium-M platform has been hindered by its attachment to the notebook sector. Since the Pentium-M runs on an alternate processor socket (Socket-479m) which is electrically incompatible with every Intel desktop motherboard on the market, we have not been able to see what the Pentium-M processor is truly capable of in a workstation or gaming configuration. While there always has been some demand for Pentium-M motherboards for the desktop, there was not enough of an urge to turn this demand into more than niche appeal.

    Today though, we finally get to see how the Pentium-M platform can compete with the big boys, thanks to AOpen's new Pentium-M desktop motherboard. The AOpen i855GMEm-LFS is the first of its kind to bring the Socket-479 mobile socket to a desktop environment, an extremely exciting product for those looking for a high-performance, low noise system. Let's get to it.

    Pros and Cons of the Pentium-M
    The Pentium-M processor has several key factors which are very attractive and others which will be unappealing to some. Before we get stated on looking at the actual hardware which will power our Pentium-M desktop setup, let's look at the pros and cons of this architecture.

    Pro - Efficient Architecture - Intel's "Dothan" architecture is one of the most efficient designs on the market today, allowing for exceptional performance with fairly low clock speeds. Even at a peak clock speed of 2.0 GHz (2.1 GHz models have been announced, but aren't shipping yet), the Dothan processor can match raw performance levels of Pentium 4/Athlon64 chips at much higher clock rates. The surprising fact here is that the Dothan architecture is rumored to be based on a derivative of Intel's Pentium III processor architecture, although that fact has never been confirmed by anyone at Intel to our knowledge.
    The Dothan processor pipe
    • I didn't think that was just a rumor--I thought the story was that some Israeli branch of Intel developed the Pentium-M based on the Pentium III architecture (which was much more efficient clock-per-clock than the P4, which was designed more for marketing-driven clock speed), and now Intel is seeing the error of its ways and giving up on the super-clocked, super-long-pipeline approach and ditching the P4 architecture and adopting AMDs non-GHz-based numbering schemes as well as, umm, their 64-bit instruction

  • GamePC (Score:5, Informative)

    by BrookHarty ( 9119 ) on Saturday November 20, 2004 @11:13PM (#10878532) Journal
    GamePC has a rather good collection of benchmarks, shame they got slashdotted already.

    My favorite was the Xeon vs Opteron gameing benchmarks. Now if someone just had a dual SLI PCI-Express and Dual Opteron board, life would be good.

    • Re:GamePC (Score:5, Interesting)

      by bersl2 ( 689221 ) on Saturday November 20, 2004 @11:24PM (#10878584) Journal
      As you were saying... [iwill.net]
      • The amusing part is the difference between their AMD option and the Intel option. AMD Opteron*2 gets you 2 16x and 3 64 bit PCI slots, 4x sata, 2x gige, 8 dimms. Intel Xeon*2 gets you 2 16x and 3 32 bit PCI slots, 2x sata, 4 dimms and lots of USB and a firewire port.

        Is it just me, or are we reaching some kind of upper limit on features? It appears you just can't get it all on one motherboard anymore.
        • The more interesting thing is that the page I linked to has been up for at least two months. I didn't realize it at the time, but it foretold the recent deal between NVIDIA and Intel.
          • In what way? IWill doesn't have any Intel/nVidia stuff.
            • Forgot to look at the chipset for the Intel board. Looked at the chipset to the Intel board. Saw that it was not nForce. Decided not to submit comment. Got distracted. For a while. Noticed the completed comment. Submitted comment. Oops.

              I think you can obviously tell which one I've been interested in all this time anyway...

  • pentium M laptop + docking station = heaven (Score:5, Interesting)

    by mikey573 ( 137933 ) on Saturday November 20, 2004 @11:15PM (#10878542) Homepage
    I've been using a pentium M laptop with a docking station at home for months now. Its been silent heaven. You do take a speed hit with keeping the chip in "battery performance mode" in order to keep the fans off 99.9% of the time, but to avoid the high pitch noise of my desktop, its sooooo worth it.

    What is striking about such a setup is you can actually forget your computer is even there when watching a movie on TV or reading a book in the same room.

    As far as I care, the ultimate sound test is turning off a monitor and seeing if you can tell a computer is on.

    Silence is golden.

    • Re:pentium M laptop + docking station = heaven (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Brandybuck ( 704397 ) on Saturday November 20, 2004 @11:46PM (#10878672) Homepage Journal
      I built my current system around the Antec Sonata case. It was designed to be quiet. Large (low RPM) fan, sensible airflow, rubber grommets to mount drives, special power supply. My brother just came by and commented that he thought the system was off because he couldn't hear anything.
    • yep, i have to agree with you about keeping the cpu clock down.

      I have a dell latitude something for work. 2.4 gig p4, clocked at 1.2 gig. I hardly hear the fan and you know what? its better that way.

      My other machine is a dell insp 8100. 1.0 gig p3 in dynamic mode. When watching tv eps (i don't do funny stuff like that on my work machine) its at 1 gig. sure the fan comes on somewhat. but when im not using it, and it is running at 0.7 gig, mostly silent.

      Its one thing most people don't understand ab
    • Couldn't agree more. I've been using a Dell Latitude D600 as my primary machine for a couple of months now. Quiet, fast, portable when neccessary, and nice screen. I'm normally an AMD guy (Barton 2500 desktop in the other room) but I am very impressed with the Pentium-M in this laptop.
    • Ditto. I've been running a Dell 600m with the Pentium M (1.8GHz) with a docking station and it is great. I don't play FPS games, but it handles my scientific computing needs quite handily.

      The only two complaints I have are: The Dell feels a little flimsy compared to the IBM Thinkpad and Windows XP seems to get doggy if I don't reboot it after severals days of use. I don't know if the latter is due to dock and undocking, power management, or just ornery Windows XP.

    • Do you know of anyone who's compared the noise from Pentium M laptops and Apple laptops?

      I've done side-by-side comparisons with my PowerBook (1.5 Ghz) and IBM Thinkpads running the older generation of Pentium M chips (1.2 - 1.4 Ghz), and I can't perceive a difference in noise, even in a silent room. Two other friends gave differing opinions, one saying he thought the PowerBook was quieter and the other arguing for a Thinkpad; I think the difference in noise is a wash. This makes me doubly curious about what

  • From the article: While most Pentium-M boards will ship with a small aluminum cooling unit, modern Pentium-M chips can actually run passively in many cases, with no fan installed at all.

    If this is accurate. VIA's may have trouble with their Epia series of motherboards. I've got an M10000 and I'm looking to upgrade soon.

    That is, only if the prices drop on both motherboard and CPU.

  • Change (Score:5, Interesting)

    by FiReaNGeL ( 312636 ) <fireang3l.hotmail@com> on Saturday November 20, 2004 @11:27PM (#10878600) Homepage
    It seems that the industry focus is about to change from increasing Mhz (essentially useless for most non-gamers non-content producing desktop users) to decreasing noise / power consumption. I think its a sound strategy, as its the only way I can see my parents upgrading from their (noisy as hell) 1 Ghz AMD Thunderbird.

    Anyone got a clue why Pentium M are far more costly than P4s? Something to do with (sold units) volume?

    • Anyone got a clue why Pentium M are far more costly than P4s? Something to do with (sold units) volume?

      People will pay more for them, and they provide better performance for a given speed?

    • Anyone got a clue why Pentium M are far more costly than P4s? Something to do with (sold units) volume?

      I suppose supply would be a possibility, but I'd expect it's due to demand. Take a look at nice 'thin and light' notebooks on the market today; almost all are Pentium M. I don't know why

      I'd take a 1ghz Athlon64 with 128 cache for $200 less than a 2ghz Centrino.

      • "I'd take a 1ghz Athlon64 with 128 cache for $200 less than a 2ghz Centrino."

        I guess you haven't used a Pentium-M notebook, have you? I've got an IBM X31 1.6GHz P-M (Banias, older core) that weighs about three pounds, is *way* quicker than my desktop (Athlon XP 2000+) in everything but load time (4200 RPM HD on notebook vs 7200 RPM on desktop), operates without sound, runs extremely cool and has about 5 hours of battery life. Paid $1400 CAD this summer for it.

        I *love* AMD for desktops, but after using

    • Re:Change (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Amorpheus_MMS ( 653095 )
      I think that's mostly because they don't want their Pentium IV flagship killed by the reanimated Pentium III yet.
    • GHz are useless for EVERYBODY. The only thing GHz could be used for is warming your tea or popping popcorn. What is useful is throughput, and P4 never had any. AMD spanked Intel for more than 2 years, and now they're beginning to realize that they made a very very bad bet when they put the farm on P4.

  • Slashdotted (Score:5, Informative)

    by TCM ( 130219 ) on Saturday November 20, 2004 @11:36PM (#10878634)
    Printer-friendly (1-page) and coralized link [nyud.net].

    Good thing to mention: they addressed their inline images relatively so they get fetched through the cache.

  • Intelligent design goes a long way. (Score:5, Informative)

    by tinrobot ( 314936 ) on Saturday November 20, 2004 @11:41PM (#10878654)
    I just got a super-quet machine. It's an HP 8200 workstation. Dual Xeons, tons of power and it's so quiet I literally have to look at the light to see if it's actually on.

    The surprising thing is that it's conventionally cooled. The side panels seem to be a bit thicker and they invested a little bit extra for higher quality fans, but nothing too exotic. This thing really proves you can have a quiet machine and not have to go to alternative processors or liquid cooling. I wish more vendors took a hint from this design.

    • That's nifty to know, although IIRC, the xw8200 uses Prescott cores, meaning they still consume a lot of electrical power even at no load.

      I have a predecessor model, Compaq's Evo w8000 and I think it's a pretty nifty machine. I can still hear it but it is very quiet considering it has 2x 15000 RPM drives in it. The down side is that it appears to consume 200W at idle, and it only has one CPU in it. It does have a 9600 Radeon and a power-sucking deinterlacing board, and all other slots filled too, so I'm

      • That's nifty to know, although IIRC, the xw8200 uses Prescott cores, meaning they still consume a lot of electrical power even at no load.

        This is, IMHO, what really sets the Dual G5s apart from anything I've seen in the PC world - a dual CPU box really made for the desktop. I haven't seen a multi-cpu PC box that supports hibernation, or even speed-sensitive CPUs (that I've noticed).

        No, I don't have dual G5 (my main computer is this IBM T40), but I'm laying plans to build an extremely powerful workstati

  • First hand experience (Score:5, Informative)

    by chrisconnolly ( 833129 ) on Saturday November 20, 2004 @11:48PM (#10878686)
    Hey everyone. Since you guys are crushing our servers and not everyone may get the chance to check out the article, I thought I would chime in for those who are curious. I'm the one who wrote the article (about two weeks ago, in fact). If anyone has any questions about the Pentium-M or the article, feel free to ask.

    I'm running on one of these setups now. I just liked the hardware so much that I threw down the cash and took it home with me.

    - Chris / GamePC

    • Yeah, I wanted to know if you're running your servers on these machines. :)
    • How's the FPS gaming performance? Get a chance to throw down in HL2 with it yet?
    • I'm looking forward to read your article (as soon as the slashdot effect eases a bit), but from the sound of it, this is exactly what I need.

      I'd like to know about prices and where to buy, if you're not in the glorious US of A, i.e. an affordable and dependable webshop.
      • Prices for Pentium-M chips aren't that bad now. While they are "slow" in terms of clock cycle, their performance in comparison to the P4 / A64 matches fairly well with their price ranges. Pentium-M motherboards are far, far too expensive now, since there is only one (soon to be two) motherboards on the market. They are running about 3x price premium over a comparatively spec'd P4 / A64 board.
        • Well, then I might just get me a good Athlon andunderclock it... quite a bit. And under-voltage it. That way I will have a silent system, and still have a good reserve of performance in the sack, for those long gaming nights....

          • Re:First hand experience (Score:4, Informative)

            by chrisconnolly ( 833129 ) on Sunday November 21, 2004 @04:02AM (#10879622)
            An Athlon64 processor with Cool and Quiet really is a terrific way to go for gamers too. Underclocked and undervolted when the system isn't busy, but the chip can clock itself back up to full speed when applications / games are launched. I've got a few Athlon64 systems in my house, and Cool and Quiet is a godsend, especially for servers and media boxes.

    • Recommendations for a fileserver mobo with the Pentium M? Running linux, of course, headless systems, but have to be linux stable and (maybe?) SATA compatible.

      I need to put a couple fileserver boxes in here and the noise from the existing ones is causing the SO to complain :( Space isn't a problem, noise is. Doesn't seem to matter how I isolate them :)

      cheers & tia
      SB
      • The Pentium-M would make for a fine file serving CPU. Low power, low heat, low noise plenty of actual processing power to get the job done. For a dedicated file server, I would wait for DFI's upcoming Pentium-M board. This board will use Intel's 6300ESB Southbridge to bring PCI-X to the desktop Pentium-M platform. This is certainly a necessity for any kind of high-speed RAID connectivity. With the AOpen platform we reviewed on our site, you are limited to 32-bit PCI, which can't handle anything besides

  • Low-tech way for almost totally silent PC ... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by xmas2003 ( 739875 ) * on Saturday November 20, 2004 @11:49PM (#10878692) Homepage
    I got some long video cables, PS-2 connectors, and USB cables ... and my PC sites in the crawl space behind my closet. In the middle of the night, the noisiest thing I can hear is the 'fridge downstairs.

    Yea, low-tech ... but pretty darn effective ... and I rarely need access to the CD/DVD drive and/or box itself, so it works for me.

    Having said that, I look forward to the Pentium-M's ... 100+ Watts of power for the 3+ GHz Intel CPU's is semi-ridiculous ... and I gotta believe that if the thermal load from that can be removed, it will create savings in other areas. BTW, if you DO want your PC to be a space heater in the coming winter months, fire up Google Compute. [powder2glass.com]

    • Long cables are great, but before anyone thinks of rushing out to look for 100-ft cables, USB lengths max out at around 15 feet; similarly, I've found that video signals seem to degrade when using anything longer than a 15 foot cable, much like using a cheap KVM switch, or a KVM with over-long cables.

      Depending on where/how you live, an alternative to crawlspaces is making use of the adjoining room. Putting an electrical-socket-sized hole in the wall works well for running the necessary cables through to t
    • How do you turn it on?

      I ask this because I have a similar setup, with my PC in a closet next to my computer desk and long USB, firewire, and video cables running from the closet to my desktop. The only problem that I have is that modern ATX motherboards will not turn on just because the power is turned on. So when I flip my surge protector on, the computer doesn't come on. I have to open the closet and manually press the computer's power button. Although there is one way around this. I never let the o
      • Any hints for making turning on a computer in such a situation more hassle-free?

        I do the same thing too. My motherboard has an option on the BIOS that allows me to tweak it's power on behavior - I can set it to always turn on, never turn on, or to turn on only if there was a power outage. So I just set the system to the right setting, and go. Something you could do though would be to extend the powerswitch to your desk. It's just two wires and a simple switch, and would only take minutes for a quick-a

  • A quiet personal computer? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by jim_v2000 ( 818799 ) on Saturday November 20, 2004 @11:58PM (#10878726)
    Does that make the iMac the holy grail?

  • Athlon64 Mobile (Score:2, Interesting)

    by martinde ( 137088 )
    There are multiple versions of the Athlon 64 mobile, so you have to be very careful to pick the right one, but... There is a 2800+ part, 1.2V part, that has a total power dissipation (TPD) of 35W. With AMD's ratings, that means that fully utilized (saying running something compute-bound like SETI @home), this part has a power consumption of 35W. (I believe Intel publishes average numbers, not max, although this is something I've read and not researched myself.) Will "Cool and Quiet" turned on the power c

    • Re:Athlon64 Mobile (Score:4, Informative)

      by martinde ( 137088 ) on Sunday November 21, 2004 @12:10AM (#10878774) Homepage
      Here's how that was supposed to read:
      There are multiple versions of the Athlon 64 mobile, so you have to be very careful to pick the right one, but... There is a 2800+ 1.2V part, that has a total power dissipation (TPD) of 35W. With AMD's ratings, that means that fully utilized (saying running something compute-bound like SETI @home), this part has a power consumption of 35W. (I believe Intel publishes average numbers, not max, although this is something I've read and not researched myself.) Will "Cool and Quiet" turned on the power consumption at low speed is supposedly 15W. And there is supposedly a Sempron mobile coming out with a TPD of 25W.

      Having said all of that, finding any retailers that carry the low power parts has been difficult. (Finding the higher power DTR parts has not - newegg carries those, for example.) Have they been pulled from the market, or are they not for the retail channel, or what? Anyone know what gives?
    • If you figure out the correct OPN [fab51.com] for exactly the part you want, searching for that can sometimes yield results.
      • > If you figure out the correct OPN for exactly the part you want, searching for that can sometimes yield results.

        The OPN is AMD2800BQX4AX. Froogle only lists one place that still shows it for sale:
        http://www.hoct.com/amd2800bqx4ax.html

        It's a terrible price compared to what newegg used to list it for. (Last time I searched by OPN newegg's listing was still in google's cache - it was around $140.) That's why I was wondering if it had been pulled from the market or what the story was...
    • You can undervolt the DTR-class Athlon 64 CPUs down to Low-Voltage-class levels... most of the time. My old C0 stepping DTR 3200+ can. Full speed at 1.3V, 1.8GHz at 1.2V (same as the LV 2800+, only with twice the L2 cache), 1.4GHz at 1V, 1GHz at 0.85V (ridiculously low power consumption). Use ClockGen [cpuid.com].

      Anyone know of an equivalent to ClockGen for 64-bit Linux?

      The new 90nm mobile A64's are 35W max... and outside of the 3000+ in the Acer Ferarri 3400, not out yet. Dunno what AMD is waiting for, desktop 9

  • Case fans (Score:5, Funny)

    by whiteranger99x ( 235024 ) on Sunday November 21, 2004 @12:12AM (#10878783) Journal
    Given the trend and push for low consumption, hence quieter PCs, I'm optimistic that problems like this [reallifecomics.com] will be a thing of the past
  • I never understood the people who strive for this computer silence. I have a few fans in my system (including a dual-fan thingy that goes into a CDROM slot and evacuates air - I had a huge discount on one so it was hard not to get it) and I don't hear my system, ever.

    Then I realized that the people who can hear their fans turning must have never lived in the city, and never had a roomate. Having gone through 4 years of college and being able to fall asleep with another human being living in a small room wi
  • Am I the only person that thinks the hum of the hard drives and fans comforting?

    I like the sound of my tower in my room at night. A completely silent room is just eerie. Maybe it's just because I've had the computer on for so long.

    My Centrino laptop makes the most horrible high pitched squeeling noise when it's not on AC power... I'd much rather have fans :)
    • I agree with this. After having a computer system less than two feet away from my bed since I was 14 (eight years), I find that I just can't fall asleep without the gentle white noise of my humming fans.

  • Quiet doesn't need an M (Score:4, Informative)

    by Kris_J ( 10111 ) * on Sunday November 21, 2004 @01:31AM (#10879108) Homepage Journal
    I've got a normal AMD Athlon 2200+ with a Zalman 6000-series noise reduction heatsink and an Antec Phantom fanless power supply. On top of that, I use only passively cooled video cards (there's a 5200-or-something in there). I have one large fan moving very slowing and three newish hard drives that spin pretty quietly. I recently removed a 20Gig drive that, as it turns out, was making most of the remaining noise after I replaced the video card.

    CPU is the least of my worries.

    • CPU is the least of my worries.

      Actually, the CPU is the single hottest component in your system, so it's not the least of your worries.

      I'm sure we are quite happy for you, but that doesn't mean the same thing will work perfectly for the rest of us. Try a few weeks in the desert, and you'll find that most quiet fans will not cool a system adequately.

      Personally, I'm more interested in heat output and power usage than just noise.
  • My Slashdot comment from almost a week ago [slashdot.org]

    I'm glad someone picked the link up, if a zillion Slashdotters stomp into their hardware store demanding P3-M boards, it might change the future of computing (if it isn't already being changed)

    I discarded the Prescott unseen, because it consumes more power than my air conditioning unit and from the figures, it would beat it in a one-on-one shootout.

  • Objective??? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by sloth jr ( 88200 ) on Sunday November 21, 2004 @02:56AM (#10879431)
    Wait a minute - this is a review posted on a MANUFACTURER'S site. GamePC sells PCs, including, surprise, a Pentium M gaming system.
  • It's no surprise that a desktop Pentium-M machine makes an excellent gaming machine. Past benchmarks in laptops have shown that the Dothan Pentium M can compete with high-end Pentium 4s and Athlon 64s and hold it's own when it comes to gaming. And by hold it's own I mean outperform.

    For example, back in June Anandtech did some gaming benchmarks (http://anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?i= 2 129&p=10) that showed the Pentium M 755 (Dothan at 2GHz) outperforming a P4 3.2, which if I recall correctly
  • Pentium 4 has been crap since it was born. Not as bad as Itanium, but still crap. If it weren't for their excellent glue and video chips, Intel would deserve to be laughed off the market. Finally, with the M series, they're recovering some of the lost glory of the P3 days when they could lead the market in performance and features.

  • Or not (Score:3, Informative)

    by CAIMLAS ( 41445 ) on Sunday November 21, 2004 @03:38AM (#10879557)
    Or not so surprisingly. Pentium M CPUs have a much larger bus (IIRC) than comparable CPUs, and thus can perform many more instructions per second per clock cycle than a similarly clocked Pentium 4 or Athlon XP (and I believe even the A64, with 32 bit code).

    There's really nothing in the x86 implimentation right now which compares with the P-M, IMO. Price might be a little high, but performance per clock, power consumption, size, noise, and overall performance is pretty much tops.

    I'd say the only thing preventing Intel from switching to P-M based chips at this point is a reluctance to ditch the research investment for their P4 and other chips (and likely the warehouses full of chips, I'd wager). As soon as the profit isn't worth the wait, we'll see a Pentium-M derived desktop model, I'd imagine - quickly followed by a laptop model that has even better power consumption, etc. than the current P-M.
  • Just recently I had a quite old desktop (3 years or so) with barely any salvagable parts for an upgrade. I was faced with either building a new machine or buying a laptop. I also, being a big Linux/FreeBSD/Unix user and fan, was actually considering getting either an Apple desktop or laptop. I did my homework and searched around and weighed all of my options and settled on a Dell Inspiron 8600 w/1.7Ghz Dothan with 802.11 b/g and ATI 9600 graphics.

    I had a bit of buyer's remorse waiting for it to get here

  • I was shopping for computer crap with a friend of mine in Japan, where they've got lots and lots of Transmeta based subnotebooks. So I started comparing. The Pentium Ms were okay. They ran pretty cool, but you could still feel the heat. The Transmeta machines, if you turned off the monitor, you probably wouldn't even know they were on.

    Transmeta is cool.

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