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Page 1 of 1 pages for this article An in-depth look at Dothan: Intels Pentium M by Article Admin
Published: 12/26/2004
If you?re an Intel enthusiast, the last eleven and a half months haven?t been especially bright, especially when compared to the heady days of 2002 and 2003, when Northwood hadn?t met a clockspeed it didn?t like, and Canterwood could do no wrong. The retail market?s pre-launch anticipation of what was widely seen as Pentium 4?s pre-emptive strike against the Athlon 64 was badly deflated by the higher temperatures, decreased efficiency, and mediocre scaling Prescott actually delivered. The launch of Alderwood and Grantsdale in June hasn?t done much to change the situation. While these chipsets are fine, stable products in and of themselves, they?re Prescott-only unless you?re one of the rare individuals who can afford an Extreme Edition. For users replacing older systems the chipsets themselves could be attractive options, but they don?t offer much in the way of compelling features to the enthusiast market, and they?re saddled with Prescott?s thermal baggage. Prescott may be as attractive as the idea of belly flopping into a concrete-filled swimming pool, but another star has been steadily rising over Santa Clara. Intel first debuted the Pentium M (codenamed Banias) when they launched the Centrino mobile platform back in 2003, but enthusiasts didn?t really begin giving it a serious eye until Banias transitioned to 90nm, picked up an extra meg of L2 cache, and became Dothan. Its easy to see why consumers turned off by Prescott?s thermal signature and power requirements might be attracted to the ultra-cool, low-wattage Dothan?but does Intel?s mobile processor have what it takes to compete on the desktop market? Gaming: Final Fantasy, Quake 3, UT2K3 & 2K4.Final Fantasy XI:
FFXI?s benchmark is extremely latency sensitive and has often favored Athlon 64?s architecture. Athlon 64 still performs best in this test, but again we see the benefit of P-M?s 2 meg cache. The gap between P4 3.46 EE and P-M is surprisingly small, given the clock differential. Quake III:
Quake III is an interesting test to examine. Given the high performance the P-M turns in (very nearly the fastest we?ve measured), I?m betting that the entire working dataset fits inside the P-M?s L2 cache. Even though the P-M?s clockspeed is much lower than either the P4 3.46 or the Athlon FX-55, its latency to L2 is equal-to-or better than the FX-55?s or the 3.46EE?s L3 cache latency. This implies that the upcoming 2 meg Prescott?s may finally shatter the 1000 FPS barrier?and put an end to Quake III benchmarking.
Unreal Tournament 2004:
In UT2K4 the Dothan passes 3500+ and ties with 3.46EE though the gaps in all cases are small. Prescott 3.2E scrapes past Dothan 1700 by a meager 4%, despite an 88% clockspeed gap. Thus far, the Pentium M has beaten Prescott to a pulp in gaming performance?will things look different in newer games? < previous - (12 of 18) - next >
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