Our testing methods
All tests were run three times, and their results were averaged, using the following test systems.
| Dell Inspiron 8200 | Dell Latitude D600 | |
| Processor | Intel Mobile Pentium 4 1.8GHz | Intel Pentium M 1.4GHz |
| Front-side bus | 400MHz (4x100MHz) | |
| Chipset | Intel 845MP | Intel 855PM |
| North bridge | Intel 845MP | Intel 855PM |
| South bridge | Intel ICH3M | Intel ICH4M |
| Chipset driver | Intel 3.20.1008 | Intel 4.20.1009 |
| Memory size | 512MB (2 DIMMs) | |
| Memory type | PC2100 DDR SDRAM | PC2700 DDR SDRAM |
| Graphics | ATI Mobility Radeon 9000 | |
| Graphics memory | 64MB | 32MB |
| Graphics driver | ATI 7.83 | ATI 7.80.4.1 |
| Storage | 30GB 4200RPM Ultra ATA | |
| Operating System | Windows XP Professional SP1 with DirectX 9.0a | |
Because the Pentium M is a mobile chip, it's hard to cobble together perfectly comparable systems for testing. Luckily, my Mobile Pentium 4-equipped Inspiron 8200 is similar enough to the Latitude D600 system to warrant a comparison, but there are a few key differences to note. First, notice that the Mobile Pentium 4 1.8GHz system is only using DDR266 memory while the Pentium M is using DDR333. Also note that, despite using the same graphics chip, the two notebooks differ in their graphics memory sizes and driver versions. With mobile graphics applications, you're at the mercy of notebook vendors for drivers. I used the most recent driver versions from Dell's web site.
Since I only had access to the Pentium M-equipped Latitude D600 notebook for a few days, I was only able to quickly run it through our standard suite of processor benchmarks. I would have loved to do some real-world battery life testing with the Pentium M, but there just wasn't time.
We used the following versions of our test applications:
- Cachemem 2.65MMX
- SiSoft Sandra Standard 2003 (2003.3.9.44)
- Compiled binary of C Linpack port from Ace's Hardware
- ZD Media Business Winstone 2002 1.0.1
- ZD Media Content Creation Winstone 2002 1.0.1
- Cinebench 2003
- Sphinx 3.3
- LAME 3.92
- Xmpeg 4.5 with DivX Video 5.02
- FutureMark 3DMark03
- Unreal Tournament 2003 demo benchmark
- Comanche 4 demo benchmark
- Quake III Arena v1.31
- Serious Sam SE v1.07
- SPECviewperf 7.1
The test systems' Windows desktop was set at 1024x768 in 32-bit color at a 60Hz screen refresh rate. Vertical refresh sync (vsync) was disabled for all tests. Most of the 3D gaming tests used the high detail image quality settings, with the exception that the resolution was set to 1024x768 in 32-bit color.
All the tests and methods we employed are publicly available and reproducible. If you have questions about our methods, hit our forums to talk with us about them.
