trouble identifying and comparing chip

[tawraste]

hi! can anyone help?
i recently compared my pc with my mates laptop. he has an inspiron 9100 laptop, and i have been trying to identify the chip so that i can make a conceptual comparison with my present rig, his rig and the rig i would like to buy.
here is the information that cpu-z provides :
northwood pentium4 3.2ghz
family - F
model - 2
stepping - 9
cache - 512K

can anyone translate that into something i can identify? for example, would it be a 400,500,or 600 series?
how would this stand up to a 3.4 pentium4 as offered in the rock direct extreme ti? extreme ti 3.4thanks for any help!
tawraste

 

[slvr_phoenix]

No offense, but you're pretty much going about that bass ackwards. When people actually want to compare real performance they look up what the specs of the chip are for the given model number because it's the specs that matter, not the model number.

But besides, you're not going to find a model number for a CPU that was made before Intel switched to their new model number system. I don't think that any Northwoods were grandfathered into that model number scheme.

As for how it would stack up against the one that you linked to, I didn't see enough info there to really identify that proc at all. Maybe you should email them and ask them what it is.

 

[tawraste]

ah, no offense taken. i want to find out the model number for a very specific reason.
if it is a pentium 4 of the kind that is in the rock direct laptop, then based on the comparison i did the other day against my existing rig, there will be no way on earth i would shell out 1700 bucks for what i consider to be a negligable increase in performance. in this case, i would go for a mobile chip, as someone else i know has one and it kicks all our other rigs not just out of touch, but out of orbit. it is only the lack of 64bit compatibility that makes the mobile chip unattractive.
you are quite right about contacting rock - something i am getting on to - but according to what you say about p4s, it will still be very difficult to tell the difference yes?
is a p4 3.2 from 18 months ago that different from one now?

 

[slvr_phoenix]

is a p4 3.2 from 18 months ago that different from one now?

What matters most is really the difference in cores in my opinion. The 18 month old Northwood core is by far superior to the newer Prescott cores, both in terms of performance and heat. (Though the very new Prescott cores seem to be getting that heat back under control.)

Of course the Northwood cores don't have the new features like SSE3 and EM64T. But then there's really not much software out there that benefits from either of these yet.

Personally, I'd just hold on to what you have. In the future it might be worth looking into a nice laptop with a dualcore processor and 64-bit extensions. But for now I don't think you'd really benefit much (if at all) from an upgrade, at least processor wise.

Now if you game some serious titles, then it might be worth looking at an upgrade for a better graphics card. But that'd be a GPU comparison, not a CPU comparison.

 

[tawraste]

thanks very much dude, that makes things a lot more cut and dried. i think you may be right about waiting.
what's your opinion of these mobile chips? it's true they're very quiet, cool and fast; and the marketing push on them is extreme in the extreme. but how soon will this 64 bit thing take hold? i heard amd are already planning 128 bit in 2010 or thereabouts. do you think an investment in such a machine would be a false economy?
it would be nice to get one (say, with a 7800 gtx, for example), but i would be gutted if it wouldn't support the latest games in a year or two. then again, so many people have bought them would the industry shaft people that quickly? if i thought i'd get 5 years out of it, it wouldn't be so bad....

 

[slvr_phoenix]

Well, the specifically mobile chips like the PentiumM are great because they use a lot less power and put out a lot less heat. So you have a longer battery life and you don't burn yourself if you sit your laptop on your lap. :lol: Plus they don't need fans to be as loud to keep them cool. So that's always nice IMHO.

And the new dualcore mobiles just coming out, that's just neato keen IMHO. Though if you don't do multitasking then you don't really need dualcore.

As for the 64-bit hype, it's just that, hype. Eventually things will shift over that way. It'll take a few more years though before it's really even worth it to the average person. Right now the software support is limited and the driver support is even worse. So most people with a 64-bit processor, even the ones running the 64-bit version of Windows, are still mostly just using 32-bit software anyway. I'm not even sure if there's a laptop out there shipping with a 64-bit version of Windows because of the lack of drivers.

The biggest advantage of 64-bit to most people is in accessing more than 4GB of RAM. So especially for a laptop, I sure as heck wouldn't worry about it. In another couple of years things might start to look different, but right now 64-bit is pretty much just hype.

Oh, sure, there are a select handful of people actually taking decent advantage of it, but I bet it's less than 1% of the market, and definately not in laptops.

So I'd dare say that in 5 years there will still be plenty of people using 32-bit, especially in the laptop market.

My suggestion to you would be to enjoy what you have until you actually find that there's something you can't do on it anymore. When you reach that point, then upgrade.

Unless you've got more money than you know what to do with, in which case you can always donate to the illustrious Silver Phoenix Group.

 

[tawraste]

thank you very much dude,
this has really helped me out - thanks for your straight answers. it's taken me 2 months to find someone to talk to who's not on the volunteer AMD sales team ! finding someone reasonable seems harder than finding out about the components themselves thesedays!
unfortunately there's no donation for you though, as i think i'll go pentium M!
take it easy dude!
all the best

 

[chupa]

download a small program called "Belarc Advisor" ....it will tell you exactly what u have in ur computer and then you can compare with ur buddy.
hope this helps

 

[mpjesse]

Chupa Cabra!

 

[chupa]

lol sup mpjesse ....chupa lives!

 

[parlee]

can u put a pentium M cpu in a desktop mobo? and if so is there a way to overclock it, has anyone done this? im guessing itd be pretty good since it runs cool on passive laptop cooling... but the lower wattage/voltage wouldnt let it overclock as high?? help me out

 

[parlee]

do u have a link, im interested in that seems like a cool idea for my next comp if i want a silent comp without watercooling

 

[parlee]

would a huge zalman heatsink or somthing like that fit on a pM cpu? and if so would it keep the cpu at about ambient temps?