Pegasus
Ti - PC Plus Magazine
(Jul '04)
Performance Award
Reviewing Rock’s Pegasus TI is not about the laptop looks
- and with its slim, black and silver chassis it looks classier
than many portables. It’s not about how big the hard disk
is, or how many texels the graphics processor can fling. Nor are
we focused on expandability and connectivity. The TI stands out
this month because it’s the first machine to incorporate
Intel’s new Dothan-core Pentium M.
While the original Banias-core chip has 1MB of L2 cache and topped
out at 1.7GHz, Dothan doubles this amount, and increases the clockspeed
to 1.8GHz and beyond. Because the new stained silicon has been
fabbed using the 90m process, Intel had been able to reduce the
transistor size, and thereby increase the number of transistors
(from 77 million to 140 million) for greater performance. Under
Intel’s new numbering system, this 1.8Ghz chip will be dubbed
the 745.
As
ever, the proof is in the testing. In tests with MobileMark 2002,
the Pegasus TI posted an excellent score of 199, while the internal
battery ran for 162 minutes. Dothan certainly makes good on its
promises for enhanced performance - few laptops we’ve
tested have managed too post scores near the 200 mark. One thing
to note is that, as the processor draws more power to deliver
this performance increase, the battery life suffers. Here it’s
fallen to just under three hours, which is slightly disappointing,
especially as we’ve come to expect three to four hours from
Banias-core Centrino laptops.
Loaded
with an ATi Radeon Mobility 9600 IGP, the 3Dmark2001SE score generated
during testing hits a good average of 8,514, while a workout with
3Dmark2003 rated the system with 2,202. Again, we’ve seen
better from machines with more powerful processors, although Rock
plans to switch the 9600 for the new 9700 in its final production
model. The benchmark scores will jump accordingly.
The
rest of the TI’s spec includes a 60GB hard disk drive, 512MB
of main memory and a DVD-ROM/CD-RW drive. The latter component
comes as something of a surprise - but again, this is a
pre-production model, and Rock has detailed a more up-to-date
Sony DVD/RW unit as its replacement. The black and silver chassis
gives it a solid, yet surprisingly slim feel. This is despite
the presence of the 15.4 in widescreen LCD, which is capable of
a native resolution 1,280x800 pixels.
The
Dothan-core processor may grab all the headlines here, but the
rest of the machine still needs to make the grade. Take a tour
around the rest of the chassis and you’ll find a trio of
USB 2.0 connections, plus single PCMCIA and FireWire connections.
There’s also a 3-in-1 card reader here, while wireless embraces
802.11b and 802.11g, thanks to a 54Mbps wireless module.
For
now, the first Dothan chips offer nothing to get truly excited
about. Like ATi’s 9700 IGP, the 1.8GHz Pentium-M featured
here is evolutionary, rather than a revolutionary, step forward.
Considering the increased power required by the chip, we’re
unlikely to see a big impact on laptop performance and functionality
until Dothan processors are incorporated alongside Intel’s
Alviso chipset in the ‘Centrino ‘ or Sonoma platform.
Nevertheless,
the arrival of this 1.8GHz Pentium-M does mark an important technology
shift. With a good balance between performance and battery life
it’s an ideal all-rounder. But wait a while for the price
to fall.
