I use the same motherboard for my Pentium M rig. It hosts a GTX-260 Core216 and a PM 745 @ 2.4GHz. Very fast and stable combination. In fact, it's always felt (and benchmarked) faster than any of the single-core K8 machines I've built. I'm not sure how much of this has to do with Win7 being the OS; my single-core A64 systems still run XP.

The ICH that the Speedster uses actually supports AHCI, despite being only a SATA-150 controller. You could use something like a 60GB SSD as your boot drive if you wanted to.

For memory, I'd recommend dual-channel DDR2-800 memory instead of DDR1-400. DDR2-800 will downclock to 533MHz for a perfect 1:2 FSB:DRAM ratio. At 533MHz, most PC6400 modules will let you run them at CAS 3-2-2-8, which will boost performance.

Not sure what your budget is, but I've always wanted to put my PM rig in a Silverstone Temjin TJ08-E mATX case. It's currently in an Antec 300 midtower, which, while definitely not as sexy (or quiet) as the Temjin, does the job.

I purchased two Speedsters, neither of which came with a proper S479 HSF. I had to remove the heat spreader from one of my old P4s, attach it to the PM, and then mount a standard S478 HSF on it. This seems to work well, as CPU temp never exceeds 34 deg.

Thanks for the tip about the cooler, I thought that if the bracket sat a little lower than a standard 478 mount that the cooler would be lower as well but I will fix that. I don't like ddr1 anyway (costly) and for storage I will be using 2.5 sata 2 gen era drives as I will have a few on hand as I am salvaging some for a friend. I wasn't sure about the graphics card but it managing a 280 is a surprise so I will dig a little deeper when I can. I would have it done soon but car trouble makes things difficult >.<

So far I will get an antec psu (380-550w) on the cheap and use 2.5 drives. Will have to look for something that can be easily modded for cooling. Got a pm 770 on hand (hopes for 2.5ghz+).

Finally got the rig up and running, took ages to get enough parts. So far I am running a pm 770 at 2.4ghz. Got desperate and bought a open boxed 4650 gddr3 but at least it has dx10. Beyond that it has almost 1TB worth of 2.5 sata drives 🤣 and the case looks great for being a no name generic (all black).

At one time I was thinking about building a low power gaming capable PC for use during power outages. It would be powered by a modified UPS with large batteries attached. I never went forward with it but the Pentium M seems like a great candidate for that. I wish they were more common.
Our outages range from hours to days. It hasn't happened recently but when it does it gets very boring.

I like the board as it has great os support, Win95 all the way up through to Win 7! The pm cpu its self isn't that hard to come by but the desktop boards are very rare 🙁 Had to import mine from the UK.

For very low power build look into an e350/450 amd apu, stock at 18w but you can undervolt for extra power savings.

shamino wrote:

At one time I was thinking about building a low power gaming capable PC for use during power outages. It would be powered by a modified UPS with large batteries attached. I never went forward with it but the Pentium M seems like a great candidate for that. I wish they were more common.
Our outages range from hours to days. It hasn't happened recently but when it does it gets very boring.

Playing games while power outages? 🤣, seems not sense for me. Laptop like desktop PC.....

nforce4max wrote:

I like the board as it has great os support, Win95 all the way up through to Win 7!

I don't think the 915 chipset and PCIe graphic cards are supported in Win9x.

GL1zdA wrote:

nforce4max wrote:

I like the board as it has great os support, Win95 all the way up through to Win 7!

I don't think the 915 chipset and PCIe graphic cards are supported in Win9x.

Hehehe then you haven't seen this!

http://www.msi.com/product/mb/915GM-Speedster … ver&os=Win%2095

nforce4max wrote:

GL1zdA wrote:

nforce4max wrote:

I like the board as it has great os support, Win95 all the way up through to Win 7!

I don't think the 915 chipset and PCIe graphic cards are supported in Win9x.

Hehehe then you haven't seen this!

http://www.msi.com/product/mb/915GM-Speedster … ver&os=Win%2095

Are you sure it working? I can only see support Windows 2000/XP/2003 only when I go to Win98 SE driver.

is an OCed P4 faster than an OCed Pm?

cdoublejj wrote:

is an OCed P4 faster than an OCed Pm?

Depends on which one plus a PM build has more of cool factor than a p4 rig. 😎

In some benches it will be very hard for a oced p4 to completely beat a maxed out pm. Already gunning 2.48ghz and still testing 😁

northernosprey02 wrote:

Playing games while power outages? 🤣, seems not sense for me. Laptop like desktop PC.....

True, laptop would be efficient. But my laptop is old and weak, and buying a better one would be expensive.
But buying oversized batteries for the UPS is also expensive, so if I look at what everything costs a low power laptop might make more sense. I never got serious about it because of the cost.

shamino wrote:

northernosprey02 wrote:

Playing games while power outages? 🤣, seems not sense for me. Laptop like desktop PC.....

True, laptop would be efficient. But my laptop is old and weak, and buying a better one would be expensive.
But buying oversized batteries for the UPS is also expensive, so if I look at what everything costs a low power laptop might make more sense. I never got serious about it because of the cost.

Laptops don't do this cpu justice 😮

Topped out at this as I go any higher than 160mhz on the chipset I lose sata functionality 😮 Runs fairly fast 😁

Went by West (town in Texas) and got the creepiest vibe 😵

nforce4max wrote:

cdoublejj wrote:

is an OCed P4 faster than an OCed Pm?

Depends on which one plus a PM build has more of cool factor than a p4 rig. 😎

In some benches it will be very hard for a oced p4 to completely beat a maxed out pm. Already gunning 2.48ghz and still testing 😁

I have a 1mb cached 800mhz bus p4, so i guess that makes it a presscott? it's oced 600 mhz. would i loose out on gaming performance going to Pentium m? can PM OC well? can hit 3+ ghz?

EDIT: to the poster above me you image is too small to see the text.

shamino wrote:

Our outages range from hours to days. It hasn't happened recently but when it does it gets very boring.

I've been through a 10 day outage. The solution is called a generator with plenty of fuel on hand. Keep the laptop batteries charged, the food cold (much more important than any computer in such a situation), and some lights on in the dark.

nforce4max wrote:

Laptops don't do this cpu justice 😮

Topped out at this as I go any higher than 160mhz on the chipset I lose sata functionality 😮 Runs fairly fast 😁

Nice! My Speedster and PM-745 will not run one MHz over 2.4GHz/133. I'm not sure if the CPU or board is stopping it, but it will not boot into Windows at 2.41/134. Yet at 2.4/133, it's 101% stable. I actually thought that was a "feature" of the mobile i915, but apparently it isn't. 🙁

cdoublejj wrote:

I have a 1mb cached 800mhz bus p4, so i guess that makes it a presscott? it's oced 600 mhz. would i loose out on gaming performance going to Pentium m? can PM OC well? can hit 3+ ghz?

EDIT: to the poster above me you image is too small to see the text.

I highly doubt that a PM could hit 3GHz. The absolute best PM overclocks I've seen on the 'net are around 2.8GHz with i875 boards and socket adapters.
An overclocked PM would definitely beat the fastest P4s in gaming performance. So long as I stick with single-threaded games, my PM @ 2.4GHz actually manages to outperform my 939 X2-4600!

I was playing 1 of the STALKER games and NFS Prostreet, could the PM handle that? also can it do HD youtube when OCed?

cdoublejj wrote:

I was playing 1 of the STALKER games and NFS Prostreet, could the PM handle that? also can it do HD youtube when OCed?

Haven't tried playing NFS ProStreet on it, but based on the rather low system requirements (2.8GHz P4, 512MB RAM, FX5950/Radeon 9500), I'd guess that pretty much any Dothan would be able to handle it with a good graphics card.

My machine has no problem with YouTube HD. CPU usage stays nice and low even with 1080p clips. Course, the GTX-260 does all of the heavy lifting.

cdoublejj wrote:

I was playing 1 of the STALKER games and NFS Prostreet, could the PM handle that? also can it do HD youtube when OCed?

Honestly a good PM build can handle a lot of the newer titles but only with a decent graphics card, after all there are still p4 systems running current titles. I'll take a PM over any AMD C or E series any day. Plays Bioshock great so I can't complain.

If only there was an option for adjusting the volts then getting 2.6-2.8 would be no issue on some samples.