Dothan review and performance test

silvervarg · Post by **silvervarg** » Tue Sep 07, 2004 4:19 am

I just stumbled on this brand new great review of the Dothan core.
Dothan is a Pentium-M with 0.09u process and 2M level 2 cache.

In this review they test it against many other CPU's with amazing results.
Is is faster than Athlon64 clock-by-clock!
It is nearly twice as fast as Pentium 4 Northwood clock-by-clock.

Heat dissipation is very low. They don't give any calculated figures, but they
do run it without heatsink in one test and without fan (heatsink only) in another test.
Ofcourse they need to underclock to run without heatsink.
Amazingly, they manage to run stock settings without fan!

All this is done on a Mini-ITX board by DFI G5M100-N (industry board, so still not really available).
Seems like an excelent board, so I do hope something similar will be release as a retail board.

Review on x-86.secret (in french)
Babelfish translator

Lifecycle · Post by **Lifecycle** » Tue Sep 07, 2004 8:25 am

There are some excellent results there, the fanless tests look very promising.

Related to the Pentium M, I found this interview a couple of weeks back. Not sure if it's been posted here already (I did search).

It contains the very interesting quote (from Shuttle):

Are there plans for a Pentium-M platform XPC?
We think Pentium-M is a very interesting processor, and you may be surprised to learn that we have had special XPC motherboards with Pentium-M processors running for some time now. But we will only introduce such a concept when we think the market is ready for it.

Jan Kivar · Post by **Jan Kivar** » Tue Sep 07, 2004 11:42 am

Kinda yesterday's news.

I don't think Intel has enough yields to get Dothan to desktop. Maybe next year when the market has become acquainted with the new model numbering. Which is utter crap IMO, especially when Intel releases new core revisions every month.

I do agree that Dothan has potential. A64 mobile has nearly the same potential, as does also the regular A64, if one manages to underclock and -volt it.

Maybe P-M will be the BTX-locomotive?

Cheers,

Jan

burcakb · Post by **burcakb** » Tue Sep 07, 2004 2:31 pm

I wonder how much of that performance translates into real world? 2M cache is a lot and would speed up tasks dependent on lots of memory. However, Athlons have traditionally managed to crunch out better benchmarks with lower caches. Personally I find Sandra benchmarks highly questionable.

I'm expecting the Dothan to be a good performer but I'd want more qualified comparisons first.

DanceMan · Post by **DanceMan** » Tue Sep 07, 2004 3:54 pm

That's an intriguing report, but it's been posted here before. I know becuase I posted a link to it at Hardware Central, with a credit to the poster here at SPCR.

silvervarg · Post by **silvervarg** » Tue Sep 07, 2004 11:02 pm

I wonder how much of that performance translates into real world? 2M cache is a lot and would speed up tasks dependent on lots of memory. However, Athlons have traditionally managed to crunch out better benchmarks with lower caches. Personally I find Sandra benchmarks highly questionable.

As processors are build quite differently there performance may change depending on the application that you will use them for. AMD has for quite some time had better performance for floating point arithmetics, and that often make considerable difference in games etc.
Since they had to go with a crappy video card (no AGP slot) in the review they could not tests games at all.
What they did test (apart from completely syntetic benchmarks) is:
MPG2 -> DivX, MPEG2 -> Wmv9 and Wav -> MP3.

All these 3 test is examples of very good benchmarks IMHO since they actually consists of tasks a real user might do that will push the CPU to full load.
Overall in these tests the Dothan 2.0B performs roughtly on pair with both P4 3.0C and A64 3000+. Not the fastest verysions of the P4 and A64 around, but still very good performance considering the low heat put out.

A few very imporatant things are still to be seen. The most important is when and to what price the Dothan + motherboard will be publicly available.
Another is if AMD will make a counter move. Perhaps using A64-mobile with extra undervolt and underclock or if they will just fight with lower prices.

The low heat output of the Dothan also puts it close to VIA C3 and AMD Geode, so we might see some competition from that area.

halcyon · Post by **halcyon** » Wed Sep 08, 2004 8:20 am

Yes, Dothan style cores are the future.

They are much more efficient and it seems that the leakage problems are not nearly as bad as with P4 Preshotts, even though both are 90nm.

However...

The trouble is, just as with the original Pentium M, that Intel refuses to sell it for the desktop.

They don't provide the needed volumes, support chipsets, marketing and pricing to do it.

So it will remain as the "laptop" and "mini-itx industrial" cpu of choice for those in the know. Very marginal sales compared to everything else.

And the rest of the masses will keep on buying P4, because it is "fastest".

Only now that Intel has run into a wall with the old style (read Preshott) P4 cores, will there be some light at the end of the tunnel.

However, by the time we get anything resembling Dothans for desktop (I mean easy availability, solid pricing, plenty of mobos, etc.) by then end of 2005, Intell will probably have souped up the thermal specs up-to 80-90W range again...

So much for that thermal advantage... Maybe they'll be good underclockers though

I know I sound pessimistic, so I hope I'm sorely wrong

mpteach · Post by **mpteach** » Wed Sep 08, 2004 9:37 am

By the time Dothans become widespread, windows64 will be out, and AMD will still hold the crown in instructions per clock cycle.

shathal · Post by **shathal** » Thu Sep 09, 2004 1:22 pm

Longhorn you mean?

Don't bet on it. That's going to hit us 2006/2007 roughly...

DanceMan · Post by **DanceMan** » Thu Sep 09, 2004 4:36 pm

They've just dropped several of the features that were to be in Longhorn, probably to be able to get it to market sooner. Regular new releases are cash flow for M$.