Advanced Micro Devices is trying to assert its graphics technology advantage over Intel as part of a rollout of new mobile processors.
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HP dv2 laptop uses AMD ultrathin processor
(Credit: Hewlett-Packard)The Intel rival on Thursday introduced new processors for the mainstream laptop segment while stressing the visual prowess that its ATI graphics unit offers.
Consumers won't be left in the dark about visual features this time, according to AMD. "When you look at two systems side by side in retail, you really can't tell what kind of visual experience you're getting," Bob Grim, director of client product marketing, said in a phone interview. "You're going to see us take a sharp turn and talk less about component specifications and talk more about the usage that those technologies enable."
The AMD graphics chip-based "Vision" technology complements Microsoft's DirectX, a multimedia programming interface built into Windows 7. As an example, transcoding, in which one video format is converted to another, is done on the graphics processor for faster conversion, AMD said.
On the processor front, new processors announced Thursday as part of AMD's "2009 mainstream notebook" lineup--which range up to 2.6GHz in speed--use a 45-nanometer manufacturing process, matching the mobile chip geometries that Intel has been offering for about a year and a half.
The mainstream notebook chips offer an "active battery life" of nearly two hours (1 hour, 55 minutes) and a "resting battery life" of nearly five hours (4 hours, 55 minutes), AMD said.
And AMD now officially lists four processors for the "ultrathin" laptop segment, though some of them are already used by PC makers such as Hewlett-Packard. Processors for thin laptops typically use less power than mainstream silicon. In AMD's case, those categorized as ultrathin draw between 15 and 18 watts compared to 35 watts for the mainstream.
Notebooks featuring the 2009 AMD mainstream notebook technology became available on September 2 in certain Asian countries. Broad global availability of more than 50 designs is scheduled to coincide with the forthcoming release of Windows 7, AMD said.
Notebook PCs with Vision Technology are expected to be widely available during the holiday buying season timed to the release of the Windows 7.
Hewlett-Packard was one of the early trendsetters in the ultrathin laptop market with its Voodoo design. But the product has languished for more than a year. What happened--or what will happen--isn't clear.
The ultrathin laptop market is hot and one of the most visible laptop segments today. And activity in this segment has spiked recently in the wake of a raft of new, inexpensive thin laptops from MSI, Acer, and Lenovo, using low-power Intel chips.
HP's Voodoo Envy was a trendsetting ultrathin laptop but it hasn't been updated in a year.
(Credit: Hewlett-Packard)The Apple MacBook Air and Dell Adamo are two of the most prominent designs. The Air has now been refreshed twice. Dell's svelte Adamo was announced in March, complementing its ultrathin business laptop, the Latitude E4200.
But the razor-thin 0.7-inch-thick Voodoo Envy 133--first announced in June 2008--has stood still. ... Read more
Updated at 5:15 p.m. PDT: correcting for AMD dual-core Neo in HP dv2 laptop and adding Acer Aspire Timeline AS3810T discussion.
Advanced Micro Devices will debut its dual-core low-power Athlon chip technology on an updated laptop from Hewlett-Packard next week. This will be followed by "Congo" low-power silicon later this year.
HP will update its Pavilion dv2 laptop with a dual-core version of AMD's low-power Athlon processor
(Credit: Hewlett-Packard)AMD is aiming its Neo technology at the ultra-thin laptop market. This is the same market that Intel has addressed for a long time with its ULV (ultra-low-voltage) chips. However, until very recently, laptops using Intel's ULV chips were expensive "executive jewelry," as Intel CEO Paul Otellini has described the segment. (Think: $2,000-and-up Sony Vaio TT or Toshiba Portege R600 laptops.)
That was then. Intel now targets its ULV silicon at inexpensive ultra-thin laptops. It's probably safe to say that AMD beat Intel to the punch (and got Intel's attention) when HP announced the 0.9-inch-thick, $700 dv2 laptop at CES in January, sporting the first Neo chip.
And the dv2 was more than a Netbook: it had a 12-inch screen, ran Windows Vista, packed ATI graphics, and came replete with a 320GB hard disk drive and 4GB of memory.
The updated HP Pavilion dv2 is expected to debut on June 10 with the dual-core Athlon Neo.
The dual-core Neo chip used in the updated HP dv2 (which is exclusive to HP) will be followed by AMD's Congo technology, due in the third quarter, which integrates AMD's HD3200 graphics, an improvement over the current "Yukon" platform. The all-important power envelope--that, after all, is what sets the technology apart from mainstream mobile silicon--of the whole package including the graphics is expected to be about the same as the first-generation Neo, according to AMD.
Other vendors will follow with low-power dual-core Congo chips later this year, according to AMD. The new silicon will be used in 24 designs across 11 different PC makers--though AMD says this list is expected to grow.
One of the challenges that AMD faces is benchmarks. This CNET review of the first HP dv2 laptop with the initial Neo chip said that though the "1.6 GHz Neo CPU MV-40 has enough processing power to run Windows Vista smoothly, something that has tripped up Intel-Atom-powered systems" when "running multiple apps simultaneously, none of these low-power, single-core CPUs were particularly impressive, and the Neo and Atom were essentially tied in our multitasking test. By way of comparison, a standard Intel Core 2 Duo ULV (ultra-low voltage) processor, as found in more expensive 12-inch laptops, easily beats them all."
Another challenge is power efficiency. Though a dual-core Neo chip should close some of the performance gap with Intel dual-core ULV chips, it remains to be seen what kind of battery life Neo delivers with two cores. AMD says the extra core only adds three watts over the current single-core 15-watt power envelope. The newest Intel-based ultra-thin laptops boast significantly better battery life than older Intel ULV laptops, with some models, such as the Acer Aspire Timeline AS3810T, delivering up to eight hours on one charge.
Intel is launching its line of processors for thin, inexpensive laptops at the Computex tech conference in Taipei. Intel marketing chief Sean Maloney talked about this in a phone interview.
"It's clear that people like devices to be thin and light," said Maloney, who was speaking from the Computex conference in Taipei where he will be giving a keynote on Tuesday.
"We've really taken that to heart and come out with a complete top-to-bottom range of microprocessors that enable radically longer battery life and much smaller designs," said Maloney, referring to Intel's new lineup of consumer ultra-low-voltage (CULV) processors.
Maloney continued. "There are a lot of computers being announced here (Computex) that look like conventional notebooks in terms of how wide the screens are, but they're super-thin, the performance is very good, and they get up to nine hours battery life without a big, fat battery at the back," he said.
MSI X340 X-Slim laptop is one of the first CULV laptops
(Credit: MSI)"It's a big change for industry. It means the technology weaves its way into your life more because you're going to have all-day notebooks," Maloney said.
The new processors will encompass the Core 2, Pentium, and Celeron processor architectures, according to Maloney.
Prices for these new laptops will start at $399 and range up to $2,000 in some cases, Maloney said.
And will laptops based on these chips impact the sales of Netbooks? "I don't think so," Maloney said, but added: "It's a loser mentality to not develop one segment because you're worried about the other."
Maloney continued. "The demographics (for Netbooks) that's completely untouched is kids between the ages of 7 and 12. So, the Netbook market is still at a very early stage," he said.
In addition, Intel unveiled the Mobile Intel GS40 Express Chipset for the new ULV-based laptops. This "value" chipset enables ULV-based laptops to support HD (high-definition) playback, Windows Vista Premium support and native support for integrated HDMI (High-Definition Multimedia Interface).
Wireles options will include embedded WiMAX or Intel "My Wi-Fi" technology. My Wi-Fi transforms a laptop into a WiFi personal area network, connecting directly with up to eight Wi-Fi-certified devices, according to Intel.
Though a crush of new thin laptops are expected, the MSI X340 is one of the first. The X340 has a 13.4-inch screen, weighs 2.86 pounds, and measures .78 inches thick.
Advanced Micro Devices' chief executive predicts that Netbooks will eventually disappear. This thinking, though obviously favorable to AMD's strategy, isn't completely at odds with Intel's.
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The lightweight HP Pavilion dv2, which uses the AMD Neo processor, is marketed as a notebook
(Credit: Hewlett-Packard)"The distinction between what is a Netbook and what is a notebook is going to go away," AMD CEO Dirk Meyer said Thursday in the company's earnings conference call.
"There will be a continuum of price points and form factors," he said.
"Given the way Netbooks are configured today, consumers who want a notebook at those kind of (low) price points have to compromise and as a result don't enjoy a full PC experience, particularly around the graphics and media capability of the machine," Meyer said. "And likewise people who wanted a thin and light machine had to pay a lot of money, typically well over a thousand dollars."
Upcoming inexpensive ultra-thin notebooks will meet the need for a small, thin, lightweight laptop that is more powerful than a Netbook, Meyer said.
This sentiment is actually backed up to some extent by Intel's recent behavior. Intel CEO Paul Otellini, in that company's earnings conference call last week, spoke oddly of Netbooks in the past tense. He said the buzz around Netbooks at the Consumer Electronics Show "validates our view that (the market) had a high potential for growth and it was an exciting segment, in particular in this kind of economic environment." (Emphasis added.) Otellini did add, however, that he expected Intel "would do very well in the Netbook market in the course of the next couple of years."
Whether his use of tense is just a way to refer to the Netbook market to date or a Freudian slip tied to Intel's intention to bring out new mainstream Core architecture chips for inexpensive thin notebooks later in the year, is not clear. This chip platform could potentially suck a lot of the enthusiasm out of the Netbook market.
And Intel has small plans for its Atom processor in 2009. Aside from a tiny increase in processor speed and a slight improvement in graphics, nothing big is slated for the platform. Is the demise of the Netbook market as we know it today something both AMD and Intel agree on? We'll see.
Updated at 11:05 p.m. PST with additional information throughout.
Another Netbook? No, not exactly. Hewlett-Packard's new Pavilion dv2 is an ultraportable, thank you. And the new Athlon Neo silicon inside from Advanced Micro Devices will try to prove that point.
AMD is introducing new chips at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas that target the no-man's land between Netbooks and notebooks. Typically, these designs are referred to as ultraportables--the most salient examples being Apple's MacBook Air, the Toshiba Portege, and the Sony Vaio TT series.
So what makes AMD's platform different? In one word, price. Ultraportables fall into the boutique category of laptops: very stylish, very slim, very light--and very expensive. Usually ranging between $1,500 and $3,000. HP's notebook with Athlon Neo silicon cuts the price in half. The Pavilion dv2 will start at $699 and top out at $899 for standard configurations.
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HP 12-inch Pavilion dv2 ultraportable starts at $699, at least half the price of traditional ultraportable notebooks like the MacBook Air, Toshiba Portege, and Sony Vaio TT series.
(Credit: Hewlett-Packard)The dv2, at 3.8 pounds, is slightly heavier than ultraportables that typically weigh between 2.5 and 3 pounds. It is 0.9-inches thick, slightly thicker than more expensive ultraportables like the MacBook Air.
But the Pavilion dv2 will pack features such as an AMD-ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3410 separate (discrete) graphics chip, a relatively large hard disk drive (HP lists drives up to 500GB), and a 12.1-inch LED screen. Features that differentiate it from Netbooks and put it squarely into ultraportable territory.
AMD Athlon Neo silicon details
(Credit: AMD)The dv2 will also come with WWAN (Wireless Wide Area Network) options as well as standard Bluetooth and Wi-Fi.
Bahr Mahony, AMD's manager of mobile products, said in an interview that one of the few ultraportables available today with discrete graphics is the MacBook Air, but this starts at a whopping $1,800. (The Air uses Nvidia's GeForce 9400M graphics and Intel's Core 2 Duo low-voltage processors.)
The Athlon Neo platform can handle 1080p HD playback and a "casual" gaming experience with realistic 3D graphics, using the optional ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3410 graphics chip.
AMD's Athlon Neo processor--formerly code-named "Huron" under the platform codename "Yukon"--runs at 1.6GHz and has a power envelope of 15 watts, comparable to Intel ULV (Ultra Low Voltage) Core 2 Duo processors that power ultraportables today.
AMD's Neo does fall short in one respect, however. Currently it is only single-core, whereas Intel ULV processors are dual-core at a comparable power envelope, and, moreover, typically integrate 6MB level-2 cache memory to boost performance. AMD's Neo has only 512K of cache memory.
A dual-core chip, code-named "Conesus," will come in the second half of this year, according to AMD's Mahoney.
The first HP Pavilion dv2 ultrathin notebook is expected to be available from HP in the second quarter.
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