Thinkpads Forum

I had done some performance feel trials on several thinkpads to interpolate to other processors at different speeds and types in the process of gathering data.

I used one distribution based on debian 8 xfce since this is only way to get this S3 GPU working properly on PIII-M 1.2GHz w/ 1GB in a T23, R40 (768MB, ATI GPU, P-M 1.6) and A31p P4-M 2.0GHz.

First, I draw on benchmarks data on the internet for P4-M 2.0 and PIII-M 1.2GHz and they are both same performance. While the P-M 1.6GHz is only twice as better in performance as either of either aforementioned CPUs.

Now run youtube of similar movies on iceweasel in flash and html showed that PIII struggle more often than P4 but yet is close. P-M 1.6 does much better. This makes me realize this is better off to gather money for T60 stuff and save up for T420. For older thinkpads I have collected so far is destined for older programs and floppy support. Dell holds the last generation that late in floppy support are Latitude D830 (D6x0 and D531, D8x0 series, early and late P-M, and last two CD and C2D stuff) to support floppy caddy; while Thinkpad last floppy support is R40 which is a banias P-M/DDR only technology. This is where I wished R52 had that support also "R52 15.4" widescreen, Not the Z-series.

Cheers, thinkpadcollection

thinkpadcollection wrote:Dell holds the last generation that late in floppy support are Latitude D830 (D6x0 and D531, D8x0 series, early and late P-M, and last two CD and C2D stuff) to support floppy caddy; while Thinkpad last floppy support is R40

Dell Latitude D Series does not have true floppy support. Dell D/bay floppy is a winner, one of best USB floppy drives available, worthy of medal award: it has a modular connector, USB mini B. Nearly all other USB floppy options have a non-removable cable(every single portable one I ever saw or am aware of). Another choice of USB floppy is VST FDUSB: it has a USB (full size) B receptacle.

The D modular media bay is neat: it has power connection, PATA connection, and USB connection. Almost, but not as mighty, as Ultrabay 2000. Ultrabay 2000 connects to true IBM PC floppy drive: last ThinkPads which can interface a true native floppy drive is T43/R52, but only in Dock II. not portable.

Several times, I thought about feasibility of installing a USB FDD into Mac Mini, MacBook, or other laptop. I am surprised such a mod has not yet been attempted. I am not capable of performing such a modification, but I dream of seeing it done by someone else.

edit 2016-04-04 add mention VSD FDUSB

Now run youtube of similar movies on iceweasel in flash and html showed that PIII struggle more often than P4 but yet is close.

The PIII-M is mainly bottlenecked by its 133MHz FSB, while the Pentium 4 is simply less efficient both in terms of performance per megahertz and power consumption.

axur-delmeria wrote:

Now run youtube of similar movies on iceweasel in flash and html showed that PIII struggle more often than P4 but yet is close.

The PIII-M is mainly bottlenecked by its 133MHz FSB, while the Pentium 4 is simply less efficient both in terms of performance per megahertz and power consumption.

Don't forget about the GPU in the A31p, it probably assists a bit more than the T23's.

Pretty consistent results based on my own research and observations. The P-3 and P-M are both P6 (or in the P-M's case, closely related to it) architecture, meaning they're more or less identical chips aside from bus speed, cache size, registers, instruction sets etc. The P-4 is a totally different animal with is pipeline being roughly twice that of the P6 chips and low efficiency per clock and watt, which is a major factor to consider in a notebook. There's a reason Intel abandoned NetBurst and began to pursue refining P6, which after the P-M became the Core, Core i*, etc.

One more to add to the similar performance level is Atom N270, N450/N455.

Have not found faster atom 1.83GHz with 400Mhz GPU computer yet.

Cheers, thinkpadcollection

Can you try some 7zip benchmarks?

For consistency's sake, have them run just a single thread with the same dictionary size.
Anything between 4-16MB is OK, just make sure that its RAM usage is lower than the amount of physical RAM: a single-threaded 7z benchmark with a 32MB dictionary uses around 213 MB, which may be too much for some PIII-M laptops.