AMD have traditionally kept well out of the ultra mobile PC and netbook market but after recent news that they might have a value-oriented platform on the way, previous news that there was a 1Ghz part in the works and the appearance of the 1.2Ghz Turion X2 in the Raon Digital Everun Note I’m using to type this article, I’m wondering what’s really happening.
Image via CHW
It could be that AMD are simply able to offer multiple variants of existing cores for special projects. I’m sure if someone like HP knocks on the door, a lot of PowerPoint slides get produced, but maybe these are all variants of the same device with cores removed (or disabled) cache removed (or disabled) or clock multipliers locked.
I’ve measured the Turion X2 in the Everun Note as far as I can and when it’s locked at 800Mhz and with 70% cpu load, it adds about 7w of extra drain as reported by perfmon. At 1.6Ghz, 22W would seem a reasonable TDP figure to be quoting. Apparently, the new CPUs are to be paired with the 740 chipset but the 740 and 690 chipset from AMD are said to be pin compatible so is it possible that I already have one of these architectures here under my fingertips right now? For those that are interested, there’s an image from CPUID to the right here. I can certainly confirm that at 1.2Mhz, its much more powerful than an 1.6 Atom part so at 1.5Ghz, you’re almost competing with Core2Duos. (Not quite though, the Core2 architechture seems more powerful, clock-for-clock, than the X2 I have in the Note.)
Remember that Raon were the first people ever to get hold of the 600Mhz version of the AMD Geode LX, well perhaps they’ve got contacts in the right places and what we’re seeing in the Everun Note is exactly what’s coming to an AMD netbook soon.
There will be a lot of talk about this affecting Intel but I think the main problem is that this AMD CPU and Chipset is good enough for most notebook and even some desktop scenarios. Where Atom (Diamondville at 1.6Ghz) is good, it does have limits in everyday productivity use but the new AMD stuff will break that barrier and potentially, provide enough for a do-it-all cheap notebook, netbook or UMPC. That could really kill the traditional market and bring sizes and right down from 15" to 10 or 12." where people will be expecting sub $500 prices.
interesting stuff =) while i don’t think that the Note’s really what that slide is referring to, i think it could definitely be a ‘tech demo’, as it were.
from what i’ve read, the 740 chipset is pin compatible with the 690. for all intents and purposes, it /is/ the 690, just die-shrunk. while it’s not ‘new tech’, it’s definitely a good thing, as the chipset has a lot of life in it yet. while definitely not up to speed with the latest and greatest anyone is offering, the platform has more than enough power while still remaining in an acceptable power and heat window suitable for netbooks, for example.
now, when’s the Everun Note 2GB ram option release?
If Raon wants to go for the kill, they should go with one of those two CPU’s then,
Make a 8.9″ inch model
At least an 89% full size keyboard
PCI-express card slot for those 3/4 cards
And we’d be seeing a real big competitor amongst the other mainstream Netbooks!
I agree it would be a very popular product especially if it was under 1kg.
and the 789G chipset.
If Raon would do that, they would not sell anything because the market is in other hands already. i think Raon does exactly the right thing by offering niche products which other companies do not have or simply are not capable of offering. maybe a slider type or one with moving screen would be interesting. i would rather see an option of 2 or more GB RAM and improving on heat and battery. this could be the perfect device up to a specific size! personally i opted for a gigabyte m528 which i’m sure is great, but the everung will make me sell my other laptop and by a 20inch screen instead and have THE device for all – as steve already mentioned in his reviews!
i meant the netbook thing with 8.9″ screens etc.
In addition to being die-shrunk from 80nm to 65nm, the 740G, like the 690T & E (but not the others) have their own discrete frame buffer, so they don’t use system RAM for video. That alone pushes up the available memory to a real 1GB, which in turn is enough for Vista to run on. But I wouldn’t complain about having two.
Personally, I hope the Everun Note is easy to swap parts on; could you imagine how cool it would be to stick an Intel X-18 SSD in this? I mean, it doubles the cost of the machine, but still.
I have yet to see the insides of this little wonder.
it almost looks like the picture is saying you got a 1,8Ghz processor instead of a 1,2…
Or maybe the 1,2Ghz is 1,2 effectively but acts like a 1,8Ghz processor, just like the Atom is a 1,6Ghz acting like a 1Ghz.
This would make this processor nearly twice as fast as the Atom processor.