Archived from groups: alt.sys.pc-clone.dell (
More info?)
Fixer wrote:
> Theres no such thing as a Centrino Pentium M Centrino is the combination of
> the Pentium M CPU, the intel chipset and an intel WiFi card although the
> rest of what you said is true
I'd be hard pressed to compare a Pentium-M 735 or 740 (1.7GHz) to a
Pentium 4 560 (3.4GHz); I currently own a Dell D610 P-M 760 (2.0GHz 2MB
L2 cache 533MHz FSB, Sonomoa chipset) and a self built desktop P-4 520
(2.8GHz 1MB L2 cache 800MHz FSB, 865G chipset) and the speed comparison
depends largely on what you are doing. For an interesting comparison,
anandtech ran benchmarks on a P-M blade server (it's in the Linux
section) and you can see which tasks utilize the additional cache and
predictive branching and which do not. Although there may be tasks
which run comparable to a P-4 at twice the clockspeed, I'd argue that's
the exception and the average multiplier would be closer to 1.5-1.7.
With that said, I'd say the Inspiron 9xxx series is a decent desktop
replacement, but personally I don't see much point to notebooks in that
catagory. My roommate owns a 9200, and it's probably left the house
twice in the last 6 months because it's so cumbersome. In fact, I don't
even consider it a LAPtop; honestly if that's on your lap for any period
of time it'll probably make you sterile (although his is a P-4M, much
hotter than the P-M). Honestly if you're going between just two
locations, it may be better to build two comparable desktops (which is
close to the price of the 9300).