Mobile Pentium 4, is it dual?

ulaoulao

Controller Man
Staff member
Ok I'm not up on the technology these days. I have a loptop that supports the Mobile Pentium 4. My aim is to get it ready for dolphin. I know dolphin likes a dual core, so what is the Mobile Pentium 4 ? Here is a blurb about it.

Mobile Pentium 4 was the last generation of mobile microprocessors with NetBurst microarchitecure. The mobile microprocessors were based on two Intel Pentium 4 cores - Northwood and Prescott. The processors had either 512 KB (Northwood core) or 1 MB (Prescott core) level 2 cache, and 533 MHz Front side Bus. Some Northwood mobile CPUs and all Prescott processors included Hyper-Threading technology. Although these processors had the same power-saving features of Pentium 4-M microprocessors, power consumption of these CPUs was significantly higher than the one of Mobile Pentium 4-M processors. In fact, the power consumption of Prescott-based mobile Pentium 4 was so high, that it hardly could be considered a "mobile" processor.

So this line "The mobile microprocessors were based on two Intel Pentium 4 cores" kind dances around the idea its a dual core, anyone know if it is or not? I'm aiming for the "Mobile Intel Pentium 4, 3.06-GHz, 533-MHz" cpu as the laptop should support it. but I need to change to the board and would like a second opinion that its a dual processor.
 

Zach

New member
No,

what they were saying was the design basis for the mobile P4 core, was based on the design of both the Northwood and Prescott core designs.

ala Chrysler K platform being used in many different models, but all similar to a degree

The dual-core generation came after the P4 as far as I know. Any "dual core" type function previous to this was implemented via SMP, with two physical CPU's on the board

Honestly, I'd just look for a newer laptop. Depending on what you want to spend, you can get a Core2Duo Laptop I am betting in the $700 range or less. Plus they have way better power management (or as one guy on a forum said, actually HAVE power management) and down the road if you throw a SSD drive into the mix to replace the HDD, you'll get some more battery life too and a good overall performance boost, based on what I remember of laptop drives as a whole.

Only concern with dolphin is.. Aren't you still gonna need a GPU? I know laptops are slowly getting "passable" mobile GPU options, but I kind of doubt your aging machine has anything decent, and even when replacing the board I am guessing a decent GPU is gonna add to the cost?

In this case its simply better to get a brand new one. You'll be so much better off for it. Sell your old one and put the money towards the purchase.
 
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ulaoulao

Controller Man
Staff member
You have all good points and info . but this laptop was free and I dont have 700 ..

It has a nvidia on the amd board and an ati on the intel board, both are fine for dolphin.But from what you said it may not be enough cpu power.
 
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