Pentium M vs Celeron M when running....

[derekstockton]

What would be the difference in these two processor when running the VB.NET(.NET) studio software and Oracle SQL. Visual Basic is the aspect I would be using this laptop im thinking of getting for my classes for next semester.
thanks
Derek

[blue60007]

The Pentium M should outperform the Celeron M by a mile.

[derekstockton]

For the price difference would it be worth upgrading to the P M (around 300$)?

Im not going to be doing any insanely huge assignments. I have a Visual Basic and a Database class that i know of that I will have to do some business based Access file linked programs in VB.NET. I will only be doing that type of programming, not graphic intense stuff. and No games will be played on the laptop either.

I know that the P M should/will outperform the C M, but as far as the price gap, is it really worth it. Im a student who is on a tight budget, and im just askin for some advice. I may be able to swing the P M If i can find/see justifcation that it is indeed a very big difference.

the computer I was looking at was the B120 from Dell, and everything else in the systems with the Pent M and Cel M is the same(memory may be 256 in the pent rather than the 512 in the cel. model), it has the same graphics...etc..

So is it really worth it?

THANKS

Derek

[faulkner132]

Go with the larger memory Celeron... hands down. Unless you are going to be compiling applications the size of Microsoft Office consistently, you will not notice the difference in compile time.

[blue60007]

Well if you have to cut the RAM to go with the Pentium M, I would go with the Celeron.

[glc]

There's a difference, but not a $300 difference in my opinion. Don't cut the ram - 256 with XP will be pretty nasty. Battery life will be less with a Celeron-M because it doesn't use Centrino.

[derekstockton]

Battery Life isnt that important to me. I mainly want something that would be portable enough to travel with. Hook up to wall isnt a problem with me. But i do travel to my home almost everyweekend(about 2 hrs from campus), and I would like to be able to take my programming assignments with me... becasue they can be pretty time consuming. That and the fact that I have a powerbook g4...and VB.NET is not compatible. It would be nice to have something that is so I wont have to go to the lab everynight to do these programs...it can be painful. ...Need something with XP that will run VB.NET..

So I suppose the celeron would be fine for my purpose's..

I can get Cel M(1.4 ghz) for $425 shipped...the B120 with 512mb DDR2, internal wireless, GMA 900...where as the pent m(1.6 ghz) would be about 788$ shipped...with 512 DDR2, internal wireless, GMA 900. The only difference's in the two I see are the cpu, and the screen size, 14.1 to 15, both widescreen

[faulkner132]

About a year ago I upgraded from a P3/650 to an XP 2600+ and I ran VB.Net on both. I compile programs consistently which are 5,000-10,000 lines of code (your school assignments will most likely be 1,000-3,000 lines of code) and the compile time difference is maybe 15-20 seconds less on the larger programs.

Bottom line is you are not going to see a significant amount of difference (if any) between the Celeron and Pentium for compiling your school projects.

[derekstockton]

Good Deal. Im going to go with the Cel.

Thanks everyone for the replies, you have been very helpful

derek

[thefultonhow]

Originally Posted by blue60007 The Pentium M should outperform the Celeron M by a mile.

Just wanted to jump in on this one, even though a decision has already been made. The Pentium-M and the Celeron-M differ in three main respects:

1. The Celeron-M has 1 MB of L2 cache, as opposed to 2 MB in the Dothan Pentium-M. This makes somewhat of a difference, but only a marginal one -- 1 MB is already a huge amount.
2. The new Sonoma Dothan Pentium-Ms run at 533 MHz front-side bus, whereas the Celeron-M only has a 400 MHz FSB. (The older Dothans use FSB400, so you'll see very little difference performance-wise between a Celeron-M and a Pentium-M in, say, a Dell Inspiron 600m or an IBM ThinkPad R50e.)
3. The Celeron-M lacks the Enhanced Speedstep Technology present in the Pentium-M that throttles the chip down while on battery. This has no performance effect; the only thing it affects is battery life.

So really, the performance difference between a Celeron-M and a Pentium-M is very small if you're looking at similarly-clocked chips. A 1.6 GHz Celeron-M will perform very similarly to a 1.6 GHz Pentium-M.