Intel's Pentium M on the Desktop - A Viable Alternative?
by Anand Lal Shimpi on February 7, 2005 4:00 PM EST- Posted in
- CPUs
Audio/Video Encoding
MusicMatch Jukebox 7.10
DivX 5.2.1 with AutoGK
Armed with DivX 5.2.1 and the AutoGK front end for Gordian Knot, we took all of the processors to task at encoding a chapter out of Pirates of the Caribbean. We set AutoGK to give us 75% quality of the original DVD rip and did not encode audio.
Video encoding is very memory bandwidth and FP intensive and does not benefit much from a low latency or large cache, thus we see that all of the Pentium M's weaknesses are exploited and its performance suffers accordingly.
XviD 5 with AutoGK
Another very popular codec is the XviD codec, and so, we measured encoding performance using it instead of DivX for this next test. The rest of the variables remained the same as the DivX test.
The same results are echoed in the XviD test.
Windows Media Encoder 9
To finish up our look at Video Encoding performance, we have two tests both involving Windows Media Encoder 9. The first test is WorldBench 5's WMV9 encoding test.
Next, we have our own home-brewed HD encoding test:
To summarize - the Pentium M doesn't have what it takes when it comes to media encoding.
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CSMR - Monday, February 7, 2005 - link
The fact is it's an excellent processor for business use (speed, quietness, reliability) and multimedia use (quietness). Anandtech is full of gamers; but there is no denying that using a computer as a media centre is becoming a big thing, or that low-power, quiet operation is necessary. High motherboard prices are because the desktop PM motherboard market is very small. There was a comment in the review that the PM architecture doesn't scale well. I am sure that is so; but what processors do scale well? It's because they don't that everyone is about to go dual-core.bobsmith1492 - Monday, February 7, 2005 - link
Thanks #12 :PZebo - Monday, February 7, 2005 - link
I myself have been guilty of hyping dothan after seeing GAMEPCs "opimistic" review. This should quell that.:DZebo - Monday, February 7, 2005 - link
Anand best review I've read here, thanks a lot, nice to see you scribing again..:)Seems again, like the tech report review, with a comprehensive test suite such as this one dothan has some collosal performance flaws, and simply can't match up the A64 across board. It looses 30 out of 41 benches at same speed, some huge. 2.0 vs 2.0..
I posted in CPU forum how turion/lancaster will be 25W.. could this be the end of DOTHANS laptop dominace?
Brian23 - Monday, February 7, 2005 - link
I agree with #10.bobsmith1492 - Monday, February 7, 2005 - link
Sorry; first time commenting. I couldn't remember my login name before.Anyway, my laptop OCs better than that. Granted, it's a 1.7 to begin with, but the FSB will do 125 easily, with the same ram increase to boot - 420 MHz, with processor at 2.125. It will do a tad bit more, but that's enough for a laptop I'd say.
bobsmith1492 - Monday, February 7, 2005 - link
testKalessian - Monday, February 7, 2005 - link
#6, Oh yeah? Well, give a P4/A64 an SXGP(Super eXtremely Good Performance) setting and stay out of ITS way!Yawn, right now the P-M doesn't impress me at all. Let a CPU built for mobile systems stay in mobile systems until it gets rebuilt for desktops properly.
Great review, learned a ton :)
GnomeCop - Monday, February 7, 2005 - link
I have a 2.0ghz dothan system, I upgraded from an old 533mhz fsb p4.The speed for my work and games are just fine. I have a leadtek GF6800ultra in my system and its the only thing I have to worry about cooling.
CPU is passively cooled and the system is expremely quiet running on a 359watt psu. By the time I need to upgrade, I will be buying a whole new cpu/mobo/everything anyways.
ksherman - Monday, February 7, 2005 - link
seems like an a really good processor for buisness machines, given the L1 cahe speeds... and not much else (snas uber low power consumption)