A little understanding

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Mad Max · #1 Post by **Mad Max** » Sun Oct 26, 2008 7:52 am

I am new here to the forum but have been tinkering with Thinkpads for quite some time. I have an interesting question to put out to the forum. I currently own two machines, a G40 & a T30. The G40 has a 2.8 P4 running 1 gig of memory and a 60 gig hard drive. The T30 has been upgraded from a 1.9 to a 2.4 P4M and has 512 of memory and a 100 gig hard drive. My curiosity comes from the fact that the T30 will spank the G40 in benchmarking almost every time? I run PC Mark 2002 as this is from roughly their time and they can handle the tests. Why does the G40 seem to lag behind the T30? I thought newer machine, faster processor, more memory, it should handle the T30 no problem. Any thoughts?

#2 Post by **RealBlackStuff** » Sun Oct 26, 2008 8:00 am

The construction of those CPUs is different.
The T30 has an optimized "mobile" CPU, which is faster than the G40's "straight" CPU.
Don't know how your above CPUs compare, but e.g. a T23 PIII-Mobile 1.13Ghz has roughly the same speed as a "straight" 1.7GHz CPU.

Also check the RPM of the hard disk, and the size of the HD cache.
These are quite decisive for overall speed measuring.

Your T30 can take 2x 1GB = 2GB RAM by the way (unless one of your RAM slots doesn't work).

aaa · #3 Post by **aaa** » Sun Oct 26, 2008 9:32 am

They are both Northwood P4s, the P4M is just lower wattage but otherwise the same. It's not it's being "mobile" that makes a performance difference, but there is a difference between architectures (P3/PM vs P4/P4M).

dr_st · #4 Post by **dr_st** » Sun Oct 26, 2008 9:48 am

This is unusual. a 2.8GHz P4 should beat a 2.4GHz P4-M consistently.

Maybe the G40 is bogged down by lots of software, or maybe PCMark 2002 is not very accurate for some reason?

Try other benchmarks. Such as SuperPI/wPrime, or a newer PCMark.

sparta.rising · #5 Post by **sparta.rising** » Sun Oct 26, 2008 10:35 am

Does the G40 have a 4200RPM drive and the T30 a 5400RPM (or 7200RPM)? That could explain a performance difference.

ajkula66 · #6 Post by **ajkula66** » Sun Oct 26, 2008 11:06 am

G40's Integrated graphics are definitely not helping in any benchmarking tests...

dr_st · #7 Post by **dr_st** » Sun Oct 26, 2008 1:27 pm

On second thought, I agree with George and sparta. PCMark, as far as I know, is an overall system benchmark, not just a CPU one. Hence, the GPU and the HD speed can make a big difference indeed.

The benchmarks I mentioned (SuperPI/wPrime) are almost 100% CPU-oriented, and the G40 should have a clear advantage in those.

Puppy · #8 Post by **Puppy** » Sun Oct 26, 2008 2:32 pm

dr_st wrote:This is unusual. a 2.8GHz P4 should beat a 2.4GHz P4-M consistently.

No. Pentium 4 was the worst Intel CPU architecture ever. New Intel desktop CPUs followed very good Pentium-M path.

dr_st · #9 Post by **dr_st** » Sun Oct 26, 2008 5:54 pm

Puppy wrote:
dr_st wrote:This is unusual. a 2.8GHz P4 should beat a 2.4GHz P4-M consistently.
No. Pentium 4 was the worst Intel CPU architecture ever. New Intel desktop CPUs followed very good Pentium-M path.

We are comparing a Pentium 4 to a Pentium 4 here...

Puppy · #10 Post by **Puppy** » Sun Oct 26, 2008 8:00 pm

dr_st wrote:We are comparing a Pentium 4 to a Pentium 4 here...

Ooops, sorry.

spuddog · #11 Post by **spuddog** » Sun Oct 26, 2008 8:12 pm

The OP says "2.8 P4" and "2.4 P4M"

Scott

Mad Max · #12 Post by **Mad Max** » Mon Oct 27, 2008 8:14 pm

The 2.4 P4M definetly spanks the 2.8 P4. I have tried three different benchmarks have come up the same each time. I used the same hard drive to eliminate that variable. So the graphics and the proc are the deciding factor. I do like the bigger screen of the G40 though. If only I could afford a bigger hammer! Thanks for everyone's input. I was going to sell one of the two, but now I think I'll keep both.

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