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View Full Version : Preliminary Centrino 1.5ghz review!!!



Duvie
08-14-2003, 10:46 PM
Here are some synthetic benchmarks first.....

Test Systems:

#1
Gateway 1.5ghz Centrino
1024mb pc2100 DDR
40gb 4200rpm HDD

#2
P4 2.4b@3.15ghz
512mb pc3000 ddr @438mhz (pc3500)
40gb 7200rpm HDD (NTFS)

#3
P4 2.4b@1.8ghz (400fsb)
512mb pc3000 ddr @ 266mhz (pc2100)
40gb 7200rpm HDD (NTFS)

#4
P4 2.4b@2.01ghz (448fsb)
512mhz pc3000 ddr @ 280mhz (pc2200)
40gb 7200rpm HDD (NTFS)

Benchmarks used:

Prime95 version 22.12 (I tried vertsion 23 and all scores increasesd equally but had same separation)

Sissoft Sandra (non max version, tried it no difference)

PCMark2002 (all test)

____________________________________________

Prime95 benchmark 1792k

p4 3.15ghz (#2) -------- 76.22ms ---- (+223.5%)

p4 2.01ghz (#4) -------- 106.86ms --- (+130.7%)

p4 1.8ghz (#3) --------- 131.49ms --- (+87.5%)

p4m 1.5ghz (#1) ------- 246.49ms --- **basis**

_____________________________________________

Sissoft CPU (ALU (mips))

p4 3.15ghz (#2) ------- 8770 --- (+78.0%)

p4 2.01ghz (#4) ------- 5112 --- (+3.8%)

p4m 1.5ghz (#1) ------ 4927 ---- **basis**

p4 1.8ghz (#3) -------- 4596 ---- (-7.2%)

Sissoft CPU (FPU (mflops))

p4 3.15ghz (#2) ------- 4143 --- (+39.6%)

p4m 1.5ghz (#1) ------ 2966 ---- **basis**

p4 2.01ghz (#4) ------- 2643 --- (-12.2%)

p4 1.8ghz (#3) -------- 2351 ---- (-26.2%)

Sissoft MM (integer)

p4 3.15ghz (#2) ------- 12484 --- (+46.7%)

p4m 1.5ghz (#1) ------ 8514 ---- **basis**

p4 2.01ghz (#4) ------- 7973 --- (-6.8%)

p4 1.8ghz (#3) -------- 7111 ---- (-19.7%)

Sissoft MM (float)

p4 3.15ghz (#2) ------- 15951 --- (+61.2%)

p4 2.01ghz (#4) ------- 10184 --- (+2.9%)

p4m 1.5ghz (#1) ------ 9896 ---- **basis**

p4 1.8ghz (#3) -------- 9086 ----- (-8.9%)

______________________________________________

PCMark2002 (CPU)

p4 3.15ghz (#2) ------- 7721 --- (+57.8%)

p4 2.01ghz (#4) ------- 4902 --- (+0.2%)

p4m 1.5ghz (#1) ------ 4894 ---- **basis**

p4 1.8ghz (#3) -------- 4407 ----- (-11.0%)

____________________________________________

Conclusions so far is that the centrino at 1500mhz falls around the speed of a 2.0ghz 512kb chip or slightly better. My concern is though it scores well in floating points in the sandra test it really struggles in the benchmark in prime95. I tried newest version that says it supports the p4m but does not mention centrino exactly. difference was that all p4's across the board gained slightly from optimized code of the newer version.

The question for me is that several of the programs like prime95 and sandra saw the centrino 1500 as 600mhz in speed. Is this how the chip is preceived in an idle state and hence its limited power use or throttling like effect to conserve power?

I am going to run sandra for 10pass cpu and look at the scores to see if they increase with heavier continues use. I briefly ran the cpu/bios immediately after a test and it told me the cpu was now 800mhz, so there appears to be some sort of changing going on.

DAPUNISHER
08-15-2003, 11:40 AM
Did you set the power profile to always on just to be sure speed step wasn't kicking in?

Duvie
08-15-2003, 01:23 PM
I did and while it does make sissoft and prime95 now read the chip as a 1500mhz the scores do not change....

The chip must step up accordingly when prompted to by need of the program.....I saw maybe a .1-.2% increase across the board which may be a result of the chip recognizing and throtlling up.

Not a lot of options in tweaking the cpu in the bios so these scores are pretty much it....

I will start some real world test....

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