Meet:Mobility Podcast 59 is now available.
Sascha, JKK and Chippy in a long and detailed podcast about some premium netbooks, the latest Tablets (Tab, Viewpad, Playbook included), and talk about Chrome OS and AMD’s Bobcat.
Apologies for the audio quality on Chippy’s vocals.
On this podcast:
Sascha Pallenberg of NetbookNews – @Sascha_p on Twitter.
JKK from JKKmobile – @jkkmobile on Twitter
Chippy from Carrypad– @Chippy on Twitter
Full show notes, listen and download links at MeetMobility.com
i consider you, JKK, Sascha the best in the mobile business, but come on guys your bias against AMD is getting ridiculous (especially JKK). i dont care how much Intel pays in sponsorship, its not worth your credibility.
lets forget all personal feelings & just look at pure numbers, i know Steve loves numbers. feel free to prove me wrong with real numbers & not dismissive misdirection like JKK does, he’s just to close minded of anything that isn’t Intel or Windows.
lets look at where Zacate is actually trying to compete, the highend netbook or lowend ultraportable. obviously it cant compete against standard Atom w/Intel GPU at the lowend.
Zacate E350 – 19w
N550/ION(8) – 8.5w + 6w = 14.5w
D525/ION(16) – 13w + 13w = 26w
i3/i5/i7 ULV = 18w
the general census i got from all the pro benchmarking sites is that Zacate has entry-level ULV CPU performance with ION(16) GPU performance. but as you can see Zacate crushes the D525/ION2 combo in TDP, plus Zacate idles at 1/2 the wattage. lets also not forget that Zacate is an entirely new architecture & benchmarks have not even been updated to take full advantage. only the N550/ION2 combo wins in wattage but Zacate (and others) are SIGNIFICANTLY more power.
also, while Zacate will compete with ULV ultraportables in power it will do so at nearly 1/2 the price. so please tell me once & for all how Bobcat isnt competitive in the highend netbook/lowend ultraportable space?
Cant remember exactly what I said in the podcast but you’re right in talking about the netbook+ and culv space. This is where VIA Nano fits in too.
I think we’re all taking it from a mobile perspective and the sub-10W average drain space when we make our comments but fair point, we should make it more clear and detailed.
I’ve been wanting to review X86 CPUs recently and have started a new section in my ebook for it. I hope to have that done soon and will present the facts along with some thoughts. Looking forward to testing too.
Opps. P.S. This is Chippy.
I’ve paid respect to you comment in an article over at UMPCPortal. Would love to hear your comments there. http://www.umpcportal.com/2010/11/is-amd-now-in-the-ultra-mobile-game-with-ontario/
Personally, I feel the current AMD NEO platform has been wildly overlooked. The K125/K325 (single/dual) have shown very impressive performance at ULV level wattage (12w CPU + 7.5w NorthBridge = 19.5w). Clearly AMD does NOT compete at the lowend netbook market (Atom/GMA3100) but they do compete very well at the Atom/ION & CULV level. I like to use PCvantage & 3DMark as they are typically the “standard” in CPU/GPU benchmarks, most of these numbers are from Engadget & rounded up/down for simplicity sake.
CPU – GPU – total wattage – resolution
N550/ION(8) = 1800 – 1500 – 14.5w – (1024 x 600)
K125/ATI 4225 = 2300 – 1500 – 19.5w – (1024 x 600)
K325/ATI 4225 = 2600 – 1300 – 19.5w – (1366 x 768)
D525/ION(16) = 1950 – 2500 – 26w – (1366 x 768)
Zacate = 2600 – 3300 – 18w – (1366 x 768) *provided by AMD
i7-ULV = 3900 – 1200 – 18w – (1366 x 768)
My overall impressions, at this level AMD & Intel are VERY competitive with eachother. CPU wise, Zacate seems to fit between Atom & ULV. GPU wise, its a little above ION(16) & WAY above ION(8)/ULV. Personally, my feeling is the traditional Atom/GMA netbook as we all know it is dead, this will be further evidenced in 2011 when Intel takes Atom into the GPU-accelerated world to compete with AMD (& not rely ION anymore). Everybody just needs to get use to higher power consumption figures, the sub 10w days are over & will only be reserved for W7 tablets (Atom Z-series/AMD Ontario).
Something that I find interesting about the K125/K325 is it’s flexibility. What do i mean by that? You can find it in 10″ SVGA netbooks & 11″ WSXGA ultraportables, unlike Intel where Atom is for netbooks & ULV is for ultraportables. So for example, if you hate 10″ SWVGA screens like i do & prefer 11″ WXGA its virtually impossible to get any cheap Atom based device, instead you have to pay anywhere from $600 – $900 for a ULV. But there is an alternative if you go with AMD, you can get netbook pricing ($400) with 11″ WSXGA on several K125-based devices.