TabletPCReviewSpot.com Forums - Performance of 2.5 Year Old 2 Ghz Pent. M (Tecra 9100) vs 2 Ghz Sonoma Pent. M in M4?

First, let's clarify some terminology. There is no such thing as a "Centrino" chip. Centrino is a platform that combines a Pentium M processor with Intel's wireless technology. When the two are mated, an ISV can call a system "Centrino". If they use a different wireless solution, they can't call it Centrino. The processor is a Pentium M regardless.

That said, the Pentium M has a higher IPC (instructions per clock cycle) than the Pentium 4 desktop processor, so at the same Ghz speed, a Pentium M would be a "faster" processor. When I say faster, of course, I mean capable of processing more information per clock cycle. Incidentally, this is the same reason why AMD processors perform so well compared to equal speed Pentium 4 processors ... higher IPC. A Pentium M processor at 1.6Ghz is roughly equivalent in processing performance to a 2GHz Pentium 4.

Now then, the early Pentium M processors were also known by the codename "Dothan". "Sonoma" is the codename for the newer Pentium M processors. Both can be called "Centrino" if using an Intel wireless chip (so you can have a Dothan Centrino, or a Sonoma Centrino).

Sonoma is capable of higher bus speeds because it uses a more advanced chipset (any combination of a memory controller chip, north bridge chip, and south bridge chip), so an equivalent processor speed on a Sonoma might indeed feel faster than a Dothan processor. Sonoma also have the ability to use DDR2 RAM and SATA hard drives, both of which will increase performance as well. The "speed" of a laptop is a carefull balancing act of a lot of different technologies.

In your case, however, you said you had a Pentium M 2Ghz processor (sounds like Dothan) already, and were wondering if it would be faster with the same processor in a Sonoma-based machine. The answer is "probably". Sonoma is a more advanced chipset, and there will be some small performance gains across the board, so it should be marginally faster. Is it worth upgrading to a whole new machine for? Not likely.