T43p vs. T42p

[Batuta]

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[MobileGuru]

IMHO I would stick to the T42P .. on the con side battery life on the T43P is reduced, graphics is slightly better but nothing that would make you go WOW, you lose one entire PCMCIA slot, but on the pro side you get faster FSB, faster memory spec, and the latest and greatest technology. I would recommend you save your money and get a T42P.

[dvorak]

I'd also suggest to stay with T42/p now and perhaps upgrade when the next generation comes out. (Considering Sonoma current and Carmel the one before :P)

Giving up 30 minutes of battery in even low-clock mode is defnitely not worth the 5% upgrade (Arguments based on Toms Hardware Guide's article).

Edit: I mistakenly considered Centrino as a generation, I meant to say Carmel, as Centrino is a name for the chipset famility.

[Batuta]

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[dvorak]

You lose one PCMCIA because Sonoma features the new Express Card.

You'll be giving up battery life because the PCI Express uses more power, the higher FSB uses more power, the processors use more power, the minimum clock is 800MHz, so that also takes more power.
I don't consider Sonoma to be much of a new generation, more like a half-generation :) We'll probably see something innovational in the upcoming Napa generation, atleast I hope.

The speed difference is because the FSB is higher, it gets multiplied by the multiplier of the CPU and then the MHz rating is gotten. MHz in general is not a good characteristic to compare speeds anyways.

Edit: I forgot to add the link to the article on THG.
http://www20.tomshardware.com/mobile/20 ... index.html
They ran different tests, even disabled everything else other than the processor and memory, got 20 minutes of difference.
Although notice the 4Wh battery advantage of the Sonoma platform, so it's safe to say, Sonoma will "feature" minimum of 30min less batterylife.

[MobileGuru]

I could not have said it better myself!

[Batuta]

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[dvorak]

To start off, I'll have to correct my mistake, it's not the PCIe that consumes more power, but the devices using it, appearantly the transport-lanes can be turned off one by one (seems I learn something new every day :)), the catch is that the GPU, for example, has more and more transistors with every new card, higher clocks and so on, which all require more power.

I suggest you read the article instead, I'm not that familiar with all the aspects of the ever-so-fast advancing technology :)

The same technology is being used in Alviso notebooks, along with an external connection, known as "Express Card," which will gradually replace the current PCMCIA or PC Card slots. IBM has included one PC Card slot and one ExpressCard slot inside its T43 and T43p ThinkPads, Iori said.

This quote was taken from http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1 ... 600,00.asp
Talks about battery life and Sonoma in general, also notes PCIe effect on battery.

The current Dothan processor's lowest clock is 600MHz, the new will add 200MHz to that minimum, hence 800MHz.
This site has some tests and an easy-to-read table with specifications:
http://www.gamepc.com/labs/print_conten ... e%5Ftest=1

Some more specific info on Sonoma, the current platform:
http://www.a1-electronics.net/Intel_Sec ... _Jan.shtml

To remind, althoguh Sonoma features new audio setup, to my knowledge, IBM will not implement it.

Again, I'm notifying you people (:P) that I'd wait for Napa, save my money and perhaps buy a hand-held device to keep me occupied:
Talks about Yonah, the dual-core processor that'll come in January 2006
http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=21091

Edit: Found a nice article with pictures presenting the Yonah on a test platform:
http://www.hwzone.co.il/reviewseng.php? ... rino2g-eng

[K. Eng]

There are some indications that battery life won't be all that different.

http://reviews.cnet.com/Dell_Latitude_D ... ml?tag=tab

The D610 (Sonoma) and the D600 (Carmel) have essentially the same battery life. However, note that the D610 reviewed is using a 400 MHz FSB Pentium M.

I am skeptical that the PCIe graphics chips will consume more power. The Mobility Radeon X300 is a PCIe version of the Mobility Radeon 9600, but the X300 is fabbed on a 0.11u process and should run cooler than the 9600. The relatively light GMA900 integrated graphics in the entry level T43s should likewise consume less power than the Mobility Radeon 7500.

Also, DDR2 SDRAMs run at a much lower voltage than DDR SDRAMs, consequently consuming less power even at higher clockspeeds.

I've thought about the battery life issue a lot and on the face of things, there doesn't seem to be any reason why Sonoma notebooks would have less battery life than Carmel ones, except for the higher FSB on the Pentium M.

[dvorak]

To put the battery isseu aside for second, I consider my strongest argument to not buy a T43 now (if you don't have enough budget to buy another one next year) )would be the dual core processor platform Napa coming in January 2006. Regarding performance, that'll IMO be a bigger jump than T42->T43, not to mention the other new technology available and hopefully integrated to Thinkpads.

[Thats of course just my opinion]

[Batuta]

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[MobileGuru]

I can't wait for the new cores to arrive either .. I am hoping for a nice performance boost over the present generation. There is nowhere to go but up from here!

[MobileGuru]

dual core processor platform Napa coming in January 2006.

Could you eloborate on that one, please?

Upcoming technology from Intel will put two processor cores on a single die, so there would be two physical processors occupying the socket versus the single we have today ... what is really cool is when you concider mobile hyperthread technology on top of that ... you have what the OS will see as 4 processors ready and willing to work.

Suhweet.

[K. Eng]

As far as I know, each of the two cores in Yonah processes only a single thread, thus the OS will see 2 logical CPUs and not 4 logical CPUs.

Screenshots of Yonah

http://www.hwzone.co.il/reviewseng.php? ... rino2g-eng

Clearly shows 2 threads for 2 cores.

[gazingwa]

The chipset supports hyperthreading, this was a preproduction image, I'm wondering if it was a windows issue, or it wasn't enabled, or it doesn't have it. windows xp pro is for 1-2 cpu's.....

[K. Eng]

It is only rumored that the chipset supports HT. It is clear that the chipset supports mulitple threaded processors, but it is less clear whether it supports Pentium 4 style HT (multiple threads per core).

My guess is that people on the web are confusing HT and multi-core support. Based on what I know about the P6 architecture and its derrivatives, I think it is highly unlikely that each of the cores in Yonah will process more than 1 thread.

[MobileGuru]

That is correct because those are the non-HT models.

[dvorak]

The real beauty, IMO, is the fact that when on battery, one core will turn off and hand over the cache, no extra power consumption, and when needed, turn it back on for some dual power :)

It'd be of course nice to see improvements regarding battery technology aswell, otherwise such a machine would only be of full use when external power is near.