Intel Notebook Processors

There are quite a few different Pentium variations available for notebook computers which affect size, speed, and battery life. It can be quite confusing considering there are about four different Pentium CPU's used in notebooks today.

Mobile Pentium processors use a form of power management called SpeedStep which lowers power usage and processor speed depending on system load. SpeedStep has two modes: maximum performance mode and battery optimized mode. Mobile Celeron processors don't use SpeedStep.

Pentium M

Not quite Pentium 4 and not quite Pentium 3, the Pentium M was designed for notebooks from the ground up. Using ideas and technology from both the P4 and the P3, Intel came up with a processor that is very efficient in terms of computing while using much less power compared to the mobile Pentium 4's. The Pentium M is part of the Centrino package.

Celeron M

Nearly identical to the Pentium M but made for the budget notebook segment. The level 2 cache memory has been reduced to 512 KB where the Pentium M has 1 or 2 MB, SpeedStep is not enabled, and speeds are lower.

Mobile Pentium 4

The fastest "mobile" hyper-threading processor from Intel, very similar to the desktop Pentium 4 but has better thermal and power management properties. It also uses 533 MHZ FSB rather than the current 800 MHZ on non-mobile CPU's.

Mobile Pentium 4 Processor-M

Also known as P4-M. Currently sitting at a maximum of 2.6 GHZ and probably will not be available in higher speeds, this processor is basically being replaced by the Pentium M and Celeron M in the Thin and Light segment while the regular Mobile and Desktop Pentium 4 takes the high end segment.

Mobile Celeron

With much smaller cache memory this processor is not as fast despite high clock speeds. Found in inexpensive notebooks or the thin and light category and like the P4-M is probably going to be phased out.

Desktop Pentium 4

Desknotes or notebooks designed to be desktop replacements use non-mobile versions of the Pentium 4 to take advantage of the faster front side bus speed and lower cost. You can usually tell these notebooks apart when they mention 800 MHZ FSB or use dual channel memory.

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