Is Centrino 2 the leap ahead that Centrino was? Zara Baxter investigates.
When Centrino was launched in 2003, everything about it was aimed at conserving power. The Pentium M processor it was designed to run with was powerful and power efficient of its era.
The core Centrino platform components of processor, chipset and wireless interface represented a new form of marketing for Intel, and perhaps as a result Centrino didn’t make a massive splash initially.
One of the key advantages it offered, apart from the excellent Pentium M, was standardized Wi-Fi. In the dark days of early Wi-Fi, chipset incompatibilities meant that USB dongles and PC Card wireless adapters were patchy at best, and often had to be combined with a compatible router.
It helped to have tame firmware for both. When Centrino came along, it meant that Wi-Fi worked – admittedly with a few hiccups, but suddenly the issues weren’t about getting products to connect to each other, but getting them to connect securely.
That, in turn, meant public Wi-Fi hotspots. Airports, coffee shops and internet cafes could invest in infrastructure knowing that people would be able to connect and spend money.
Before too long, Centrino not only dominated the laptop market, it became practically the only game in town.
These days, it’s practically impossible to buy a laptop without wireless networking. As a result of Centrino driving the ubiquity of Wi-Fi, and because Australia won’t get WiMAX for at least a year yet (see WiMAX 101, opposite), the central question about Centrino 2 is “is it worth it?”
The value proposition
Centrino has undergone a few updates since launch. The original ‘Carmel’ gave way to ‘Sonoma’ and then to ‘Napa’, notable for the addition of the Core 2 Duo, SSE3 instructions for multimedia support and GMA950 integrated graphics, as well as new power management features. Most recently, Santa Rosa has performed well in our labs, and it provides draft-n Wi-Fi and either GM965 or PM965 graphics.
When you look at the updates so far, Centrino seems like more of the same. The list of improvements sounds familiar, but substantial changes are implied from the version shift from Centrino to Centrino 2. Let’s look at the four core components of a Centrino Platform – CPU, chipset, graphics chipset and Wi-Fi module – to find out.
CPU
Centrino 2 laptops will all carry 45nm Penryn processors; Santa Rosa Centrino models are also compatible with 45nm Penryn processors, but the Centrino brand doesn’t imply a particular class of CPU. That confusion is now eliminated, and given the difference we’ve seen in performance and battery life from Santa Rosa 45nm laptops, that’s a good thing.
Intel is introducing five new Core Duo CPUs for Centrino 2, all with 1066MHz front side bus (FSB). Given that they’re almost identical to their Centrino equivalents in most other respects, we don’t expect any major performance improvements.
The Quad-core Core 2 Extreme X9100 model is worth mentioning because it will be unlocked – so enthusiasts can now overclock it for high-performance gaming.
