Dell Laptop Processor Question

[jeep2001]

I have a Dell Inspiron 1000 laptop with a Celeron processor that runs at 2.2 GHz. Over Christmas, a relative showed me her Dell Latitude that has Centrino and cost 1,300. I went into the Control Panel/System to review the hardware, the processor runs at 1.73 GHz.

Its a little confusing, I doubt my 469.00 laptop runs faster than her Centrino 1,300 baby...but can someone explain. Thanks

 

[ski]

Her laptop may have a faster MB, more and/or faster RAM, faster video card, better sound card/adapter, bigger HD, different optical drive(s), larger display, etc., etc.

 

[cdogg]

Centrino processors are Pentium-M mobile CPU's with wireless technology integrated. Pentium-M's have been around for a couple years now, and should not be confused with the Pentium 4M which existed before.

Pentium-M's are much, much faster per MHz than any P4 desktop, and especially any laptop that uses the outdated P4M. Not only is it faster, but it is extremely efficient for longer battery life. Also, the celerons come in many breeds, and depending on the generation of the one you have, could be no match for even the slowest Pentium-M out there.

To give you an idea of performance, the 1.73GHz Pentium-M you were looking at will outperform a 2.6GHz desktop P4 in most benchmarks and be on par with 2.8Ghz. If you have an older celeron (older than 2 years), then chances are that it was based off the P4M and comes nowhere near the performance of your relative's laptop.

~cdogg
"Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." - Albert Einstein
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[paparazi]

jeep2001
Yes indeed, you need to see past the pure mhz of the CPU.
As you have probably noticed clock speed is only one aspect of a CPU's statistic and is only part measure of it's performance.
It is therefore increasingly dificult to know just exactly which processor is faster as you have found out.
This is nothing new though, AMD has been battling against this mindset for some years with all of it's Athlon CPU range and in the end decided to use a naming system that would compare any particular CPU in the range to the equivelent Intel P4 or Celeron (depending on if Athlon or Duron/Sempron)not on mhz but general performance.

This is why for instance, we have ended up with a AMD CPU running at just 2.2Ghz (3500) but running on par (performance wise)with say an Intel 3.4 which actually runs at it's advertised speed.
Even Intel have given in chasing pure clock speeds and have adopted to drop clock speed in with their latest CPU ranges, replacing it with a model number instead.

Martin


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