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Intel's Pentium M Desktop Part II: ASUS' Pentium M to Pentium 4 Socket Adapter

 by Anand Lal Shimpi on March 24, 2005 1:31 PM EST
48 Comments | Add A Comment
48 Comments

Business/General Use Performance

Business Winstone 2004

Business Winstone 2004 tests the following applications in various usage scenarios:
  • Microsoft Access 2002
  • Microsoft Excel 2002
  • Microsoft FrontPage 2002
  • Microsoft Outlook 2002
  • Microsoft PowerPoint 2002
  • Microsoft Project 2002
  • Microsoft Word 2002
  • Norton AntiVirus Professional Edition 2003
  • WinZip 8.1

Business Winstone 2004

Thanks to its extremely low latency L2 cache, the Pentium M has always done well in office applications. When paired with the ASUS CT-479 adapter and the i865 chipset, the performance barely improves over what we saw on the 855GME motherboards. The results aren't too surprising, since the Pentium M already did so very well and because office applications aren't generally memory bandwidth limited to begin with.


Office Productivity SYSMark 2004

SYSMark's Office Productivity suite consists of three tests, the first of which is the Communication test. The Communication test consists of the following:
"The user receives an email in Outlook 2002 that contains a collection of documents in a zip file. The user reviews his email and updates his calendar while VirusScan 7.0 scans the system. The corporate web site is viewed in Internet Explorer 6.0. Finally, Internet Explorer is used to look at samples of the web pages and documents created during the scenario."

Communication SYSMark 2004

The Pentium M barely gets a boost in SYSMark's communication tests thanks to the new platform.

The next test is Document Creation performance:
"The user edits the document using Word 2002. He transcribes an audio file into a document using Dragon NaturallySpeaking 6. Once the document has all the necessary pieces in place, the user changes it into a portable format for easy and secure distribution using Acrobat 5.0.5. The user creates a marketing presentation in PowerPoint 2002 and adds elements to a slide show template."

Document Creation SYSMark 2004

The ASUS/Pentium M combo does far more respectably in the document creation tests, basically offering performance equal to the Pentium M 650 and 580, as well as outperforming the Athlon 64 4000+.

The final test in our Office Productivity suite is Data Analysis, which BAPCo describes as:
"The user opens a database using Access 2002 and runs some queries. A collection of documents are archived using WinZip 8.1. The queries' results are imported into a spreadsheet using Excel 2002 and are used to generate graphical charts."

Data Analysis SYSMark 2004

But once again, performance returns to dismal in the final office productivity SYSMark test.


Mozilla 1.4

Quite possibly the most frequently used application on any desktop is the one that we pay the least amount of attention when it comes to performance. While a bit older than the core that is now used in Firefox, performance in Mozilla is worth looking at as many users are switching from IE to a much more capable browser on the PC - Firefox.

Mozilla 1.4

The Pentium M was quite strong in WorldBench's Mozilla test when we first looked at the CPU on the desktop. Armed with more memory bandwidth and a slightly higher clock speed, the Pentium M gets a slight performance boost putting it on the heels of the Athlon 64 4000+ and FX-55.


ACD Systems ACDSee PowerPack 5.0

ACDSee is a popular image editing tool that is great for basic image editing options such as batch resizing, rotating, cropping and other such features that are too elementary to justify purchasing something as powerful as Photoshop. There are no extremely complex filters here, just pure batch image processing.

ACD Systems ACDSee PowerPack 5.0

The ASUS solution makes all the difference in the world as the chip is now more competitive with faster desktop offerings, yet still far from leading the pack in performance.

Winzip

WinZip Computing WinZip 8.1

The Pentium M performed strongly here originally and the ASUS solution extended the lead, but not by a huge margin.

Let's look at how its peak theoretical performance is under WinRAR's built in benchmark:

WinRAR 3.40

Pulling the hard disk out of the equation, we can get a much better idea of which processors are truly best suited for file compression.

WinRAR 3.40 Archiving Performance

The WinRAR test is particularly memory bandwidth intensive, so the move to a platform that can feed the Pentium M adequately increases performance tremendously. However, even with the boost, the best that the Pentium M can do is match the performance of Intel desktop CPUs. It still can't touch the Athlon 64s.

ASUS CT-479: Socket-478 to Socket-479 Adapter Multitasking Content Creation
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  • merkmal - Thursday, March 24, 2005 - link

    I don't understand why there wasn't a direct comparison here between the i855 and the i865. It seems very un-anandtech like to go on and on about how this is such an improvment over the i855 setups and then not even show 2 of the same clocked processors in both setups to show if that really is the case. Testing a "faster" setup with a processor that is already known to be faster simply by the fact that it is clocked at stock speeds faster isn't a very good comparison or argument for better performance either.

    I understand the fact that lots of readers are interested in using a Pentium-M on the desktop and would like to know how it compares to other desktop processors, but I thought that was clear from the previous article on exactly that. This article should have been only Pentium-Ms in a variety of setups. It's easy to check back at the old article and see relatively how the new setup compares to the other desktop only processors.

    I'm just very dissapointed in this article. I appauled you on the reviewing of the adapter, but think the comparisons drawn were just shoddy and un-thought out.

  • VIAN - Thursday, March 24, 2005 - link

    Can't wait for Intel to do away with the P4 and step in with a suped-up PM.

    Or at least do away with the EE, market the PM as a multimedia chip and the P4 as a workstation chip.

  • kmmatney - Thursday, March 24, 2005 - link

    NewEgg doesn't sell the 770 cpu, and it would be incredibly expensive if they did. Can you test the cheapest P-M, and see how it overclocks?

  • PandaBear - Thursday, March 24, 2005 - link

    Yeah PM is the way to go in the future. P4 architecture is getting way too inefficient and burn way too much power that it is not going to grow from where we are now. I am sure Intel is fully aware of this but keep it under the cover to avoid tanking the P4 sales. What would the customer think the PC they spend big bucks for is slower and hotter than a laptop CPU hacked from last generation technology, that would be a slap on the face.

    Anyhow, I still think A64 has better architecture for long term growth. Now if they come up with integrated North Bridge that has 20 PCIe lane in replacement of the HT port....

  • RockHydra11 - Thursday, March 24, 2005 - link

    I don't understand the "desktop killer" thing...It never was intended for the desktop.It was centered to compete with anything else that was on the notebook platform, so Intel was not generating it to perform well against desktop processors, let alonre FLAGSHIP desktop processors. It is what it is, and that's that. Yonah is going to be the one centered toward real desktop performance.

  • Mingon - Thursday, March 24, 2005 - link

    Would have been nice to have run in both single and dual channel configs so as to see if the chip is bandwidth starved.

  • 68GTX - Thursday, March 24, 2005 - link

    Looks like Legit reviews is currently testing with a new beta bios with voltage options.

    "Part 2 is being updated... ASUS-USA sent me over a new BETA BIOS that is awesome. Fixes the performance issues and the voltage issues that were noted in the article... Take a look at the new voltages..."

    http://forums.legitreviews.com/viewtopic.php?t=157...

  • Mangler - Thursday, March 24, 2005 - link

    Legit Reviews also has this adapter reviewed today at: http://www.legitreviews.com/article.php?aid=181

    They compared an Intel 770 CPU on both the DFI 855GME-MGF motherboard and the ASUS P4P800SE for an apples to apples look. (i855GM versus i865PE)

    They focus more on overclocking and use of the kit. A must read for any enthusiast.

  • Goi - Thursday, March 24, 2005 - link

    #12, you can't say that tha Pentium M is based on old technology. There are many power saving techniques on the Pentium M that aren't implemented in the P4, both in the microarchitectural level, circuit level and logic level. The Pentium M is a hybrid between the P3 and the P4, but to say that it's closer to the P3, I'm not sure I agree with that. It does use executation units that are simialr to the P3's, but there are many areas where they are different, including the issue/control logic, which is a BIG part of microprocessors nowadays(and really, in the past decade or so).

  • mrmorris - Thursday, March 24, 2005 - link

    I'd like to point out that while the Pentium-M offer sub-desktop performance at worst, it does so with out heating up the room or requireing earplugs to dampen the fan noise! Therefore, as an office/coorporate workstation it fits perfect.
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