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
Clock Speed based Performance Comparison
While the price-based performance comparison is the more practical comparison, a comparison based on clock speed is quite possibly the more interesting. We took an AMD Athlon 64 3200+ (Socket-939, 2.0GHz) and pitted it against our 2.0GHz Pentium M 755 to see how efficient Intel's mobile core happens to be.| Business/General Use | |||
| AMD Athlon 64 3200+ (2.0GHz) | Intel Pentium M 755 (2.0GHz) | Performance Advantage | |
| Business Winstone 2004 | 22.1 | 24.2 | 10% (Pentium M) |
| SYSMark 2004 - Communication | 134 | 127 | 6% (Athlon 64) |
| SYSMark 2004 - Document Creation | 169 | 187 | 11% (Pentium M) |
| SYSMark 2004 - Data Analysis | 133 | 108 | 23% (Athlon 64) |
| Microsoft Office XP with SP-2 | 544 | 546 | Tie |
| Mozilla 1.4 | 360 | 321 | 11% (Pentium M) |
| ACD Systems ACDSee PowerPack 5.0 | 553 | 574 | 4% (Athlon 64) |
| Ahead Software Nero Express 6.0.0.3 | 497 | 510 | 3% (Athlon 64) |
| WinZip Computing WinZip 8.1 | 448 | 396 | 12% (Pentium M) |
| WinRAR | 566 | 370 | 53% (Athlon 64) |
| Winner | - | - | AMD Athlon 64 3200+ |
The Pentium M is extremely competitive with the Athlon 64 in our business/general use tests, even outperforming it in four of the benchmarks. However, in tests where the Pentium M's 2MB L2 cache isn't enough, the Athlon 64 pulls ahead - such as the Data Analysis SYSMark 2004 test and the WinRAR test.
Multitasking Content Creation
| Multitasking Content Creation | |||
| AMD Athlon 64 3200+ (2.0GHz) | Intel Pentium M 755 (2.0GHz) | Performance Advantage | |
| Content Creation Winstone 2004 | 30.9 | 27.9 | 11% (Athlon 64) |
| SYSMark 2004 - 3D Creation | 174 | 168 | 4% (Athlon 64) |
| SYSMark 2004 - 2D Creation | 214 | 238 | 11% (Pentium M) |
| SYSMark 2004 - Web Publication | 161 | 160 | Tie |
| Mozilla and Windows Media Encoder | 685 | 641 | 6% (Pentium M) |
| Winner | - | - | Tie |
Surprisingly enough, the Athlon 64 and the Pentium M 755 give us a tie here. Content creation applications tend to be more memory bandwidth sensitive than not, so we were a bit surprised to see that the Pentium M did so well here, but it appears that the low latency L2 cache is able to make up for its lack of memory bandwidth. To AMD's credit, as applications increase in size, the Pentium M wouldn't be able to compete as well, but for present day applications, it's interesting to see the Pentium M do so well without the aid of AMD's on-die memory controller.
Video Creation/Photo Editing
| Video Creation/Photo Editing | |||
| AMD Athlon 64 3200+ (2.0GHz) | Intel Pentium M 755 (2.0GHz) | Performance Advantage | |
| Adobe Photoshop 7.0.1 | 364 | 332 | 8% (Pentium M) |
| Adobe Premiere 6.5 | 405 | 418 | 3% (Athlon 64) |
| Roxio VideoWave Movie Creator 1.5 | 349 | 411 | 15% (Athlon 64) |
| Winner | - | - | AMD Athlon 64 3200+ |
The race is fairly close here, but AMD pulls away in the two video editing tests.
Audio/Video Encoding
| Audio/Video Encoding | |||
| AMD Athlon 64 3200+ (2.0GHz) | Intel Pentium M 755 (2.0GHz) | Performance Advantage | |
| MusicMatch Jukebox 7.10 | 540 | 529 | 2% (Pentium M) |
| DivX Encoding | 40.8 | 36 | 13% (Athlon 64) |
| XviD Encoding | 27.8 | 25.4 | 10% (Athlon 64) |
| Microsoft Windows Media Encoder 9.0 | 1.85 | 1.83 | Tie |
| Winner | - | - | AMD Athlon 64 3200+ |
The Pentium 4 completely blew the Pentium M away in the video encoding tests and while the Athlon 64 also manages to outperform it, the margin of victory isn't nearly as great. With a faster memory bus, it is possible that the Pentium M could significantly lessen the gap. Regardless, the win still goes to the Athlon 64.
Gaming
| Gaming | |||
| AMD Athlon 64 3200+ (2.0GHz) | Intel Pentium M 755 (2.0GHz) | Performance Advantage | |
| Doom 3 | 90.3 | 85 | 6% (Athlon 64) |
| Halo | 87 | 85.2 | 2% (Athlon 64) |
| UT2004 | 58.7 | 55.2 | 6% (Athlon 64) |
| Wolfenstein: ET | 93.1 | 85.5 | 9% (Athlon 64) |
| Winner | - | - | AMD Athlon 64 3200+ |
Gaming performance is extremely close, but AMD takes the slight lead over the Pentium M.
3D Rendering
| 3D Rendering | |||
| AMD Athlon 64 3200+ (2.0GHz) | Intel Pentium M 755 (2.0GHz) | Performance Advantage | |
| Discreet 3dsmax 5.1 (DX) | 278 | 269 | 3% (Pentium M) |
| Discreet 3dsmax 5.1 (OGL) | 344 | 350 | 2% (Pentium M) |
| SPECapc 3dsmax 6 | 1.28 | 1.23 | 4% (Athlon 64) |
| Winner | - | - | Tie |
3D Rendering performance is even closer between these two, leaving us with a tie between the Athlon 64 and the Pentium M at the same clock speed.
Professional Applications
| Professional Applications | |||
| AMD Athlon 64 3200+ (2.0GHz) | Intel Pentium M 755 (2.0GHz) | Performance Advantage | |
| SPECviewperf 8 - 3dsmax-03 | 15.47 | 10.73 | 44% (Athlon 64) |
| SPECviewperf 8 - catia-01 | 12.06/strong> | 9.096 | 33% (Athlon 64) |
| SPECviewperf 8 - light-07 | 12.08 | 10.71 | 13% (Athlon 64) |
| SPECviewperf 8 - maya-01 | 15.69 | 15.47 | Tie |
| SPECviewperf 8 - proe-03 | 15.22 | 10.74 | 42% (Athlon 64) |
| SPECviewperf 8 - sw-01 | 12.24 | 8.593 | 42% (Athlon 64) |
| SPECviewperf 8 - ugs-04 | 13.99 | 10.24 | 37% (Athlon 64) |
| Winner | - | - | AMD Athlon 64 3200+ |
The SPECviewperf 8 suite goes to AMD, as the Athlon 64 completely dominates the Pentium M, clock for clock, in these very memory bandwidth, latency and FP intensive tests.
Pentium M vs. Athlon 64 Clock Speed Based Comparison Conclusion
While the Athlon 64 3200+ pulled away with the win in most of our test suites (tying twice), the Pentium M 755 put up a very hard fight. Given how strongly the Pentium M competes with the Athlon 64 on a clock for clock basis, the obvious answer would be to use the Pentium M to compete with AMD instead of the Pentium 4, right?Wrong. The fundamental issue is that although the Pentium M is surprisingly competitive with the Athlon 64 on a clock for clock basis, the Pentium M's architecture can't scale to the same clock speeds that the Athlon 64 can. The fact of the matter is that while the Pentium M will hit 2.26GHz by the end of 2005, the Athlon 64 will be on its way to 3.0GHz and beyond. It's the same argument that was present during the Pentium III vs. Pentium 4 transition period, and we all know the result of that transition.
The Pentium M's astounding successes against the Athlon 64, despite the lack of an on-die memory controller and only a single channel DDR333 memory bus, are without a doubt due to its 10 cycle L2 cache. We've seen how much a reduction in memory latency can do for performance - the Athlon 64 is a living, breathing example of that. But an even greater reduction in L2 cache latency is even more powerful under the right circumstances.
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saratoga - Tuesday, February 8, 2005 - link
Overall this artical brings up a lot of the points missing in other Dothan reviews. Very nice work. Too many people have looked at a few benchmarks, bashed Intel for the P4, and missed the whole issue here.Intel isn't stupid. Its obvious they don't think Dothan will work in its current form as a desktop chip, and thats why they're still sticking with Prescott at the moment, and only bring the P-M over much later in a reworked form with Yohan. Assuming they ever do introduce a desktop chip based on the P-M.
Also, siginificant scaling out of Dothan seems unlikely. They'll probably get a few more speed grades out of it, but whoever was saying 3GHz was dreaming. Maybe at 65nm, but that sure as heck won't be dothan, and it won't be for a while yet.
PrinceGaz - Tuesday, February 8, 2005 - link
Well put classy, the P-M is a chip that at least in its current form can never be a desktop processor because of severe weaknesses in several areas.A faster dual-channel chipset will never make up for its poor FPU performance in heavy-duty applications, something I'd heard about many months ago but hadn't seen reliable benchmarks of until now.
If you want to do word-processing or browse the web, I'm sure the P-M will be very efficient. If you want to run the sort of spplications that seriously test a processor and are the reason you'd buy it in the first place for a desktop PC, then the P-M falls far short of the mark, in fact it is so far behind at times that it is embarrasing.
But you don't get anything for nothing, the P-M is great at doing easy stuff very quickly which is what laptops are used ofr mainly; but when the going gets tough, you want a real desktop processor like the A64 to keep things moving.
classy - Tuesday, February 8, 2005 - link
T8000What part don't you understand? The Pentium M has been reviewed all over the net. Out of all the reviews only one reviewer hit 2.8. Everyone else, was similar to Anandtech's results. 2nd I don't no where you been, but every review of an FX55 I have seen it routinely hits 2.8 with no problem. And almost all the lower speeds hit the 2.6-2.7 ballpark. Not mention that a small increase with A64 is much more signifcant than even a modest Intel OC because of the architecture of the A64 cpus. Hey everyone has a favorite cpu, video card, or motherboard maker. But when something is better, its just better. And for anyone to even remotely argue the Pentium M as a challenge to the A64 cpus is a bit silly. This chip reminds me a lot of the old 366@550 celery chips. IF you got a 366 to do 550 it was a great chip because it gave you nice performance for the price. The Pentium M doesn't have a price advantage and is on a platform that is outdated. IF you can overclock it to decent levels it performs pretty good in some aspects but still sucks in many others. The problem is IF. But as I stated ealier IF is out for the evening with MAYBE.
LackofVision - Tuesday, February 8, 2005 - link
I couldn't disagree more with the conclusions in this article.Anyone who can't see the promise of a desktop processor design based on the banias in't going beyond just looking at the numbers. Especially when you start thinking down the road about dual core's and the heat and performance bottlenecks associated with them.
So because the banias can't outperform the p4 or athlon64 in every benchmark, when hamstrung by an outdated chipset, and designed primarily for low power usage, the processor won't be competitive when running on a modern subsystem with a re tuning of the core design to make it more suited to the desktop?
Nothing like comparing apples to oranges and then drawing a conclusion on what a pear tastes like.
jamawass - Tuesday, February 8, 2005 - link
I doubt it, Intel makes huge profits by putting a price premium for mobile processors. They won't jeopardize this for a few enthusiasts.KristopherKubicki - Tuesday, February 8, 2005 - link
FrostAWOL, #51: What's your point? Those HP blade servers run Pentium Ms and there is no mention of Pentium 4 anywhere.Kristopher
HardwareD00d - Tuesday, February 8, 2005 - link
Pentium M = YawnT8000 - Tuesday, February 8, 2005 - link
#52Since it is very rare to see an A64 CPU overclock above the available speeds without subzero cooling, the comparision would likely be between a 2.4 or maybe 2.6 Ghz A64 and a 2.8 Ghz P-M.
Also, P-M CPU's with higher multipliers usually overclock better due to the limited FSB possibilities of the i855 chipset. This could explain why Anand did not reach 2.8 Ghz in this review.
dobwal - Tuesday, February 8, 2005 - link
While i think that this is a good article. Allowing us to see the performance of the dothan in its current state against desktop cpus. Some of the conclusions that are made by the author don't take account of alot factors.1. "The problem is that in the transition to the desktop world, its competitors get much more powerful, while the Pentium M is forced to live within its mobile constraints."
How can this statement be valid. The mobile constraints on the Dothan is never really removed. Nothing is really done to try to make the mobile dothan mimick a (possible) desktop variation of itself. Do you really think there is a chance for a official desktop dothan running at 2.4 with DDR 333 in single channel with 533 FSB. How about re-running these benchmarks along with a 3.2Ghz P4 with DDR 333 (single channel) and a FSB speed of 533.
2. "The fundamental issue is that although the Pentium M is surprisingly competitive with the Athlon 64 on a clock for clock basis, the Pentium M's architecture can't scale to the same clock speeds that the Athlon 64 can. The fact of the matter is that while the Pentium M will hit 2.26GHz by the end of 2005, the Athlon 64 will be on its way to 3.0GHz and beyond."
The fact of the matter is you are comparing the scalability of the king of mobile chips vs. the scalability of the king of desktop chip and making an assumption without taking account of all the factors involved. The fact is we do not know the scalability of the dothan without its mobile constraints. Even more so, we don't know the true scalability of the mobile Dothan. What other mobile cpu offers the same level of performance vs. battery life.
Its more profitable for a company to retard performance increases of its cpu if there is no other cpu that can offer the same level of performance currently or in the near future. Revisions or new steppings increase cost.
AMD is in the same boat with the A64.
How long has A64 been stuck on 2.4Ghz. Most of the latest PR number increases with relation to A64 have come from HT increases, dual channel and moving from 754 to 939. Imagine the scenario of where the Prescott worked as intended and the Tejas was around the corner. Do you think that the A64 would be still at 2.4Ghz or more like 3.0 or 3.2Ghz.
While some of the conclusions could be seen as true under the circumstances of Intel never officially introducing the dothan to the desktop world. Where all we get are mobile Dothans on chipsets with desktop features.
However, these benchmarks can't prove or disprove the viability of a dothan that was devised by Intel to be a desktop competitor.
classy - Tuesday, February 8, 2005 - link
#55IF Intel does this. IF Intel does that. Unfortunately IF left with MAYBE and they went to the movies to see the new #1 movie from Intel, Could Have, But Didn't, starring Mr Dothan CPU. :)