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
Price based Performance Comparison
To make it easier to digest all of the numbers, we've done a couple of head-to-head comparisons that help paint a more complete picture of the Pentium M's desktop performance.The first, and most important, comparison from a consumer standpoint is the price-based performance comparison - pitting the Pentium M against equivalently-priced desktop CPUs.
At $430 the Pentium 4 560 (3.6GHz) is the perfect competitor for the $435 Pentium M 755 (2.0GHz). So, let's see how the two stack up:
| Business/General Use | |||
| Intel Pentium 4 560 | Intel Pentium M 755 | Performance Advantage | |
| Business Winstone 2004 | 21.4 | 24.2 | 13% (Pentium M) |
| SYSMark 2004 - Communication | 137 | 127 | 8% (Pentium 4) |
| SYSMark 2004 - Document Creation | 201 | 187 | 7% (Pentium 4) |
| SYSMark 2004 - Data Analysis | 184 | 108 | 70% (Pentium 4) |
| Microsoft Office XP with SP-2 | 522 | 546 | 4% (Pentium 4) |
| Mozilla 1.4 | 459 | 321 | 30% (Pentium M) |
| ACD Systems ACDSee PowerPack 5.0 | 547 | 574 | 5% (Pentium 4) |
| Ahead Software Nero Express 6.0.0.3 | 545 | 510 | 6% (Pentium M) |
| WinZip Computing WinZip 8.1 | 412 | 396 | 4% (Pentium M) |
| WinRAR | 479 | 370 | 29% (Pentium 4) |
| Winner | - | - | Pentium 4 |
Under business applications, the Pentium M does fairly well, winning four benchmarks, but the Pentium 4 560 comes ahead with 6 total wins and a higher average win percentage. It is noteworthy to point out the Pentium M's victory in Business Winstone 2004, which is due to its low latency L2 cache, something that the Pentium 4 most definitely lacks.
Multitasking Content Creation
| Multitasking Content Creation | |||
| Intel Pentium 4 560 (3.6GHz) | Intel Pentium M 755 (2.0GHz) | Performance Advantage | |
| Content Creation Winstone 2004 | 32.7 | 27.9 | 17% (Pentium 4) |
| SYSMark 2004 - 3D Creation | 231 | 168 | 38% (Pentium 4) |
| SYSMark 2004 - 2D Creation | 288 | 238 | 21% (Pentium 4) |
| SYSMark 2004 - Web Publication | 206 | 160 | 29% (Pentium 4) |
| Mozilla and Windows Media Encoder | 676 | 641 | 5% (Pentium M) |
| Winner | - | - | Pentium 4 |
In multitasking content creation applications, the clear win goes to the Pentium 4 with much larger margins of victory in applications that stress FP performance as well as memory bandwidth.
Video Creation/Photo Editing
| Video Creation/Photo Editing | |||
| Intel Pentium 4 560 (3.6GHz) | Intel Pentium M 755 (2.0GHz) | Performance Advantage | |
| Adobe Photoshop 7.0.1 | 342 | 332 | 3% (Pentium M) |
| Adobe Premiere 6.5 | 461 | 418 | 9% (Pentium M) |
| Roxio VideoWave Movie Creator 1.5 | 287 | 411 | 30% (Pentium 4) |
| Winner | - | - | Pentium 4 |
The Pentium M is surprisingly competitive in Adobe Photoshop and Premier, but clearly loses to the Pentium 4 in the VideoWave test. With more and more video editing applications being optimized for the Pentium 4's architecture, at this point, we'd give the win to the Pentium 4 here as well.
Audio/Video Encoding
| Audio/Video Encoding | |||
| Intel Pentium 4 560 (3.6GHz) | Intel Pentium M 755 (2.0GHz) | Performance Advantage | |
| MusicMatch Jukebox 7.10 | 484 | 529 | 9% (Pentium 4) |
| DivX Encoding | 55.3 | 36 | 54% (Pentium 4) |
| XviD Encoding | 33.9 | 25.4 | 33% (Pentium 4) |
| Microsoft Windows Media Encoder 9.0 | 2.57 | 1.83 | 40% (Pentium 4) |
| Winner | - | - | Pentium 4 |
Although audio encoding paints the Pentium M in a competitive light, look at any of the video encoding tests and it's obvious that the Pentium M isn't in the same league as the Pentium 4 on a price competitive basis.
Gaming
| Gaming | |||
| Intel Pentium 4 560 (3.6GHz) | Intel Pentium M 755 (2.0GHz) | Performance Advantage | |
| Doom 3 | 84.6 | 85 | Tie |
| Halo | 87.5 | 85.2 | 3% (Pentium 4) |
| UT2004 | 59.3 | 55.2 | 7% (Pentium 4) |
| Wolfenstein: ET | 97.2 | 85.5 | 14% (Pentium 4) |
| Winner | - | - | Pentium 4 |
Gaming performance is pretty close, but the Pentium 4 does take the slight lead in some games.
3D Rendering
| 3D Rendering | |||
| Intel Pentium 4 560 (3.6GHz) | Intel Pentium M 755 (2.0GHz) | Performance Advantage | |
| Discreet 3dsmax 5.1 (DX) | 268 | 269 | Tie |
| Discreet 3dsmax 5.1 (OGL) | 327 | 350 | 7% (Pentium 4) |
| SPECapc 3dsmax 6 | 1.64 | 1.23 | 33% (Pentium 4) |
| Winner | - | - | Pentium 4 |
As we've already seen, FP performance is not a strongpoint of the Pentium M when compared to higher clocked Pentium 4s - which is why we see the Pentium 4 with such a strong lead in the 3dsmax 6 test.
Professional Applications
| Professional Applications | |||
| Intel Pentium 4 560 (3.6GHz) | Intel Pentium M 755 (2.0GHz) | Performance Advantage | |
| SPECviewperf 8 - 3dsmax-03 | 17.04 | 10.73 | 59% (Pentium 4) |
| SPECviewperf 8 - catia-01 | 13.87 | 9.096 | 52% (Pentium 4) |
| SPECviewperf 8 - light-07 | 14.3 | 10.71 | 34% (Pentium 4) |
| SPECviewperf 8 - maya-01 | 13.12 | 15.47 | 18% (Pentium M) |
| SPECviewperf 8 - proe-03 | 16.7 | 10.74 | 55% (Pentium 4) |
| SPECviewperf 8 - sw-01 | 13.09 | 8.593 | 52% (Pentium 4) |
| SPECviewperf 8 - ugs-04 | 15.31 | 10.24 | 50% (Pentium 4) |
| Winner | - | - | Pentium 4 |
The SPECviewperf 8 suite stresses both FP performance and memory bandwidth, so the results here are not surprising at all - the Pentium M isn't a workstation class processor either.
Pentium M vs. Pentium 4 Price Based Comparison Conclusion
At the same price, the Pentium 4 560 is a much better deal than the Pentium M 755, regardless of application suite. Also remember that we're not taking into account motherboard cost in this comparison, which makes the Pentium M 755 about $100 more expensive on the desktop.The Pentium M does produce a lot less heat than the Pentium 4 560, which has to be worth something, right? Well, as we've shown in previous comparisons, the Athlon 64 3500+ is fairly competitive with the Pentium 4 560, and if you get the new 90nm core, produces significantly less heat - making it the better option. You get the performance of the Pentium 4, but with thermal characteristics closer to the Pentium M.
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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)