A General Question About Processors

General Skanky

Prominent Member
Joined
Jul 28, 2000
Messages
4,444
Reaction score
90
Points
879
Location
Colchester
I have a Dell Inspiron with a Pentium 4 Mobile 1.8Ghz.

I would like to change to a new Dell Inspiron 9300 using a 1.73Ghz Centrino set up.

In the simplist terms possible as I know it depend on lots of other factors, but what, if any is the performance difference between the two please?
 
From what i understand the centrino is a reasonably new type of proccessor compared to the P4 mobile. It is more comparable to a powerpc proccessor, it will be a faster by quite a bit and it should help your laptop run more efficiently with less faults. Basically it is better and i would consider it worth getting if you are given the choice.

Hope this helps.
 
The Centrino chips are far more powerful than their clock speeds suggest. In many applications, that 1.73GHz chip is equivalent to a 3.0GHz Pentium 4. It will almost certainly annihilate your existing CPU in terms of performance.

Additionally the Centrino chips are designed for extended battery life, so you should be looking at 2.5 to 3 hours of use from the 9300, even though it's running a 17" TFT display and a pretty powerful CPU.

I would strongly recommend the upgrade.
 
I would defintiely prefer a Centrino to the current Pentium mobile CPU in my current Dell D600 laptop.
The Centrino was produced as a "clean sheet design" by Intel staff in Israel and easily outperforms other pentiums in terms of effective horsepower as well as power versus speed or "mA/MIP" as they say in the IC industry.

Chris Muriel, Manchester.
 
To get 'Centrino' you need three things in place:-

1. The Intel 855PM chipset
2. The Pentium M processor (e.g. Intel 745)
3. Intel Pro Wireless 2200BG card

You can argue that the wireless card is not really that necessary, but it is the chipset that makes all the difference coupled with the Pentium M CPU.

Performance wise a 1.6GHz CPU in Centrino is equivalent in speed to a 2.2GHz non-centrino using the Pentium CPU. :smashin:

There is an improved version of Centrino out now (Centrino 2 - code name Sonoma - but Intel chose to call this Centrino also) using the Intel 915PM chipset and faster Pentium M CPU (760) with a tri-band wireless card.

So unless you have the 855PM or 915PM chipset changing your CPU will not make much difference. :thumbsdow
 
Thanks for the replies.

In many applications, that 1.73GHz chip is equivalent to a 3.0GHz Pentium 4

This is the benchmark I was hoping to hear.

So unless you have the 855PM or 915PM chipset changing your CPU will not make much difference

And this explains a few things I'd not paid attention too in recent times.

So really, the 9300 from Dell seems to be a real trooper in the performance stakes.

I 'Googled' a few good reviews, but this all helps a lot.

Thanks again.
 
Hi General,

I've had a Dell 9300 for the last few months, here's my spec

1.86 M CPU
80Gb 5400rpm HDD
Nvidia 6800 Go 256MB
17" WUXGA 1920 x 1280
Wi-Fi & Bluetooth on board
1 Gig DDR2 RAM.
Sony 16x DVD RW-DL

Have used this for business, Gaming and as a HTPC, works fantastic as a portable HTPC as it has an external DVI, when connected to my 32" LCD TV, and using the Microsoft Desktop Elite for Bluetooth Mouse and Keyboard it becomes very functional and plays everything. WMV-HD 1080p (laptop screen) 720p (TV) plays perfect, as do DivX, Xvid, DVD's.

Have played Half Life @ 1920 x 1280 on the laptop and Farcry @ 1360 x 768 on the LCD TV, even if you are not a gamer the fact that this laptop can handle these games with High Quality settings is extremely impressive.

While away on business, the 802G onboard Wi-Fi usually finds an unsecured Wireless router so free surfing is a bonus, I also have a Nova-T Free to Air USB2 Tuner with remote, so as to take full advantage of the 17" Widescreen.

Can thoroughly recommend. :thumbsup:
 
Thanks.

How do you find the WUXGA display? A lot of people bang on about the reflections etc being bad, qnd have returned them to Dell.

I know there are a lot of idiots out there, but there 'seems' to be more comments than normal when this issue crops up.

I have no idea what to expect and was only going to buy the standard screen. Your opinion would be appreciated.
 
I too had taken particular note of that DVI output. Very useful.

With the 256Mb graphics card, it negates the need for an XBox, PS II etc.....
 
General,

I too have read literally hundreds of posts on various forums about the so called sparkly effect of the WUXGA, I have the LG display which is supposed to be the worst, the other WUXGA is the Samsung.

I find the display stunning and disagree with 90% of the negative comments, yes if you look long and hard there is a slight sparkly effect, but you would have to purposely scrutinise the display. The reflective coating is fantastic for watching DVD's and freeview, I don't find the reflective coating a hindrence at all when using it for work.

The desktop can be a bit small in 1920 x 1280, but if you change the dpi settings the fonts and icons increase to a usable size, Dell have also released a patch to fix dpi font issues when viewing certain web pages.

Oh and when you play the WMV-HD clips in 1080p you will be extremely impressed. As I say I have the LG so can't comment on the Samsung panel.

Given the choice of swapping the screen, I would keep the one I have. :thumbsup:
 
General Skanky said:
Thanks.

How do you find the WUXGA display? A lot of people bang on about the reflections etc being bad, qnd have returned them to Dell.

I know there are a lot of idiots out there, but there 'seems' to be more comments than normal when this issue crops up.

I have no idea what to expect and was only going to buy the standard screen. Your opinion would be appreciated.

I have the WUXGA on my 9100 - it's the best part TBH.
The rest of the laptop though is an unreliable pile of cr@p - I'd never by a Dell again (yet another replacement motherboard arrived today for me to fit in mine - it's the 5th in 15 months)
 

The latest video from AVForums

TV Buying Guide - Which TV Is Best For You?
Subscribe to our YouTube channel
Back
Top Bottom