Help Me Understand Processors

[Gottaknow]

I'm about to buy a used T30. It has a Pentium 4-M 2.00GHz processor.

Being that the T30 is now a few years old, I was wondering how this processor compared to the processors in newer T models.

I'm confused because I see that many of the newer processors also have around 2GHz speeds or even slower, so I figure they must have faster bus speeds or more L2 cache or something, right?

How does their bus speed and L2 cache compare to the T30s bus speed and L2 cache?

Is the T30s processor still a pretty good processor? I'm also confused if this P4 processor on the T30 is a "centrino" or what. Please explain that to me also.

Thanks.

[jdhurst]

First, Centrino is marketing terminolgy - it is not a processor. Given that, a Pentium-M Banias 1.4Ghz processor is faster than a Pentium-4 2.0GHz processor. Even though the P4 is marked as a P4 Mobile, it is not a PM. I had that T30 2.0, then a T41 with a Banias 1.4, now upgraded to a Dothan 1.8. The Dothan flies compared to the P4. All that said, a T30 P4 2.0GHz with a 7200-rpm disk upgrade and ample memory (512MB) is a very solid and respectable performer. ... JD Hurst

[mouse@cheese.storage]

Hi,


The problem with all of this not understanding lies in marketing trying to sell computers by the GHz for so many years, believe me there is much more to it, like cache, bus-speed, but also actual processor architecture (how many execution units and of which type, how are they used and so on).
Besides that there is the whole environment, meaning the north and south-bridges which connect that processor with all the rest of the components, main memory, HD and so on. Depending on the application one or the other is more important.
So a computer should not be judged on processor performance only, but on its total capability in relation to what you want to do, a 2GHz P4 is still not outdated, but compared to e.g. the PM it might use more of your battery and the connection to the memory will be slightly slower, although that will be hardly noticable for most applications (like typing this reply).

Hoping this helps, although it might confuse even more

[Gottaknow]

Thanks for the replies. Good, helpful answers.

How about the bus and cache sizes on the new chips vs. the P4?

And how much does that matter?

[emorphien]

Thanks for the replies. Good, helpful answers.

How about the bus and cache sizes on the new chips vs. the P4?

And how much does that matter?

Well they help, but there's a lot more to a chip than just bus, cache size and speed. It depends on how they execute the code, the pipeline length and so on. The P-M is overall a very efficient processor while the Pentium 4 never was and never will be.