Does anyone have good performance benchmark comparisons between Mobile
Pentium 4 3.2GHz notebooks vs. Pentium-M/Centrino based notebooks? I would
greatly appreciate it if you can point me to some good information.

I am trying to decide whether to get a notebook with Mobile Pentium 4 3.2
GHz with HT or a Pentium-M 1.7 GHz notebook. Processing power is important
to me mainly because of video editing work.

VideoEditing wrote:
Tom's Hardware guide www.tomshardware.com has a pretty good review,
although it is compares a P4M 2Ghz AIRC and slow MP-M 1.2Ghz or 1.3Ghz
and is a bit dated, but the conclusions are probably still valid. Video
is going to be a strong function of the video adapter with CPU
secondary. Get the newes adapter with on board RAM (64MB at least), ATI
mobility is very good. Whatever laptop you get, make certain that it
has ports necessary to handle whatever legacy equipment you have, or
that you can live without. Video in/out and audio in/out are getting
rare. Screen is less of an issue now since most have bright high
contrast screens.

Q

There is no mobile P4 with 3.2 GHz

There is only a desktop CPU with 3 Watt or so less
maximum power rating falsly declared by Intel as mobile.

Depending on thermal design power

<30 W = mobile
30..50 W = so called "mobile"

--
Roland Mösl
http://www.pege.org Clear targets for a confused civilization
http://web-design-suite.com Web Design starts at the search engine

"Quaoar" <quaoar@tenthplanet.net> wrote in message
news:VfKdnSRS89x5Jbjd4p2dnA@comcast.com...
I would disagree. Video editing is more dependent on CPU than on video
adapter. Indeed, I would place video adapter after CPU, memory and hard
drive in order of importance. Critical for video editing is capturing from
the source to the hard drive and rendering the final product into a video
file neither of which depends much on video adapter. If you look at system
requirements for popular video editing software like Mediastudio pro and
Premiere, about the only video requirement is a decent creeen resolution.

Get the newes adapter with on board RAM (64MB at least), ATI

Ian S. wrote:
You reply as though you have extensive editing experience. Two years
ago I definitely would have agreed about the CPU, but it seems to me
that the CPU constraint has largely, if not completely, disappeared for
at least prosumer level video editing, even on portables. I think
vendors, although not focusing on video editing in particular, have
recognized that CPUs have enough "surplus" capacity that they can
reasonably provide systems with shared video RAM at least for video
playback.

I will agree that video production is still constrained by CPU
throughput, but again, for the consumer it is just a matter of wait time
and not very much a matter of quality as it was just a few years ago.

What do you see in Centrino vs. P4 as video editing platforms? The
consensus here seems to be that Centrino (or just Mobile PM) is equally
as, if not fractionally more, capable than the P4/P4M.

Q

As well looking for a laptop for video editing. I think that the important
thing to have is a fast HD which is difficult in laptops. Does anyone know
if you can plug a Mini DV camera into firewire, and save directly to a USB
2.0 HD, or firewire HD, eg; daisy chain for firewire?

I'd think there wouldn't be a problem with firewire to usb 2.0, but i think
the daisy chaining fro firewire depends on the actual camera.

Haven't done too much research but how is the speed of usb 2.0 compared to
firewire.

Dave

P.S: looking at a Dell 5150 P4M 3.06, 512MB, 60 GB (don't know if i want to
pay $400 CDN more for 7200 internal) 32MB video (which shouldn't matter too
much considering that it would benefit for little 3d title rendering?)
SXGA+, 4X DVD+R/W,


"VideoEditing" <videotimpennylee@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:mxfVb.10407$kK.4178@newssvr29.news.prodigy.co m...

Someone who understands should explain why the processor with more L2 cache,
etc... would benefit>?

Dave


"VideoEditing" <videotimpennylee@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:mxfVb.10407$kK.4178@newssvr29.news.prodigy.co m...

"Dan Koren" <dankoren@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:4026f83b$1@news.meer.net...
what does the L2 cache do again?

"Quaoar" <quaoar@tenthplanet.net> wrote in message
news:bLqdnf6ET4UYFrvdRVn-ig@comcast.com...
I began editing on a PII 400 mhz and mediastudio pro on a win98 machine a
few years ago. It left a lot to be desired. ;-) Now, I have a much faster
machine (Athlon XP 2600+) and things work much better but the newer software
is even more demanding of the hardware than it was a couple of years ago.
The newest versions of the popular editing software probably wouldn't even
run on my old system! And rendering speed still is limited I believe by CPU
speed. Even now, I think my render time is about 1 min/min of video so I
still go away and do something else. But you're right, today's CPUs (>1 Ghz)
can handle video editing: Premiere requires 800 Mhz but recommends a 3 Ghz
P4 suggesting the more CPU speed the better.
That is true. The software seems to work more smoothly now.

To be honest, I don't think laptops are particularly suited to video editing
regardless of the CPU. Both Centrino and P4 will obviously work but then
Adobe Premiere is quite specific in requiring a "dedicated large-capacity
7200RPM UDMA 66 IDE or SCSI hard disk or disk array." How available are such
setups for a typical laptop and at what cost? I can't imagine where I as an
amateur would require the portability factor offered by a laptop for my
video editing. I simply keep shooting video and wait until I get home to
actually edit it - I can always view the raw stuff on a TV or even the LCD
display of the camcorder. Don't get me wrong: I love my ThinkPads (560X and
T22) but never gave a moment's consideration to using even the T22 for video
editing. For the cost of outfitting a laptop with appropriate memory and HD
for video editing, I could almost build a dedicated desktop machine for
video editing. Indeed, I put together my AthonXP system with 500 MB DDR3200
memory, 160 GB 7200 rpm HD, 128 MB video card for about $400 by relying on
sales and rebates at Fry's Electronics. I'd be interested in hearing from
folks who really need the portability feature for their video editing. Maybe
I'm missing something.

Thank you very much for all your input. I have recently read a lot (in this
group) regarding the performance benefits and shortcomings of P4-M and P-M
Centrino CPUs. When I orginally posed the question I was hoping that maybe
some one can provide some concrete numbers as to how the two types of CPUs
compare.

As for the reason of having a notebook for video editing, it is mostly just
amature stuff that needs to be done during a conference, seminar, etc.,
where I do not have access to my desktop. I need to be able to put together
clips that was shot the day before or sometimes in the morning to be shown
in the afternoon or evening. Rending time is important to me. The shorter
the better.

The most fundamental question to me is, all things being equal (same video
card, harddrive, RAM amount, etc. as much as possible of course), which CPU
will provide better performance, ie, shorter render time.

Thanks again for everyone's input.

"VideoEditing" <videotimpennylee@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:mxfVb.10407$kK.4178@newssvr29.news.prodigy.co m...

"VideoEditing" <videotimpennylee@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:BfAVb.10647$L32.10361@newssvr29.news.prodigy. com...
Tomshardware.com suggests that the pentiumM/Centrino should perform about
the same as a P4M that's 500Mhz faster in clock speed. So, since your
application seems to rely less on battery longevity (presumably you'd be
editing while the laptop was plugged in), I'd go for the raw horsepower of
the fastest P4 you can get. I also see where Ulead's latest video software
supports Intel's Hyperthreading technology which may provide some advantage
to going with a P4 with HT in a notebook. Obviously, you'll need the
appropriate interfaces (IEEE 1394 for DV and perhaps USB2 for external HD).

"Roland Mösl" <founder@pege.org> wrote in message
news:402673eb$0$10814$91cee783@newsreader01.highwa y.telekom.at...

There are however a handful of laptops
that sport 3.x GHz desktop processors,
including Extremes as options. Check
www.eurocom.com to see some.



dk

"VideoEditing" <videotimpennylee@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:mxfVb.10407$kK.4178@newssvr29.news.prodigy.co m...

The L2 cache, memory banwidth and disk speed
are likely to be the first bottlenecks you
hit before raw CPU power becomes the limit.

In general, the M's win over the P4-M's for
many workloads because of their 1MB on-chip
L2 caches.

But why not test, rather than guess? Any
decent retailer should allow you to run a
few test programs on the systems you're
considering.



dk

I have tested one. The Fujitsu Siemens Amilo
3.06 GHz.

At my benchmark from my daily work, slower
than a 1.6 GHz Centrino


--
Roland Mösl
http://www.pege.org Clear targets for a confused civilization
http://web-design-suite.com Web Design starts at the search engine

L2 is faster than access to the RAM.


--
Roland Mösl
http://www.pege.org Clear targets for a confused civilization
http://web-design-suite.com Web Design starts at the search engine

I just prepare to publish notebook tests.
I am searching for "real world" benchmarks

This means tests out of an real production environment
where speed counts.

For myself, I use my own CMS content menagemnt software
as the measurement.

What video editing software?
Is there a free trial?
Test data to perform a benchmark?

I plan to test maybe 10 different notebooks and 3 desktops
in the next 2 weeks


--
Roland Mösl
http://www.pege.org Clear targets for a confused civilization
http://web-design-suite.com Web Design starts at the search engine

"David" <dlipnow@mts.net> wrote in message
news:t8DVb.2044$N76.4578@news1.mts.net...

The level 2 cache (L2) is a bank of
fast static memory (SRAM) that sits
between the level 1 (L1) cache(s)
(banks of even faster SRAM) and
main memory (much slower DRAM)
acting as a speed matching buffer.

Once upon a time level 2 caches
used to be too large to be in
the same chip as the processor,
however nowadays L1, L2, and
even L3 caches can fit on the
same chip as the processor.

The M's L2 on chip cache is 2x
larger than the P4-M's, with
the result that the CPU is
less likely to be slowed
down by memory (which is
highly workload dependent
anyway).




dk

"David" <dlipnow@mts.net> wrote in message
news:WbCVb.1992$N76.4424@news1.mts.net...

Because only a relatively small fraction of
an application's code and data can fit in
the L2 (or even L3) cache at any one time,
and the system with the larger cache is
less likely to have its processor slowed
down by the much slower main memory. Of
course this is all highly dependent on
the application's memory footprint and
data access patterns.




dk

"Dan Koren" <dankoren@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:40272a54$1@news.meer.net...

BTW if one had the choice, hypothetically,
of getting a 2x faster CPU or a 2x larger
cache, the latter would result in a higher
performance gain much more often than the
former.



dk

Would love to hear from you regarding your results when you have them!


"Roland Mösl" <founder@pege.org> wrote in message
news:4027283f$0$14966$91cee783@newsreader02.highwa y.telekom.at...