AMD's Centrino challenger: Turion

[notoriousformula]

Turion is the brand name of a new line of energy-efficient notebook processors Advanced Micro Devices will come out with in the first half of 2005. It is chipmaker's response to Intel's Centrino notebook technology, company executives said at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas this week.

While the company did not reveal any technical specifications on the chip, AMD said Turion will fit into thin and light notebooks and be optimized for extending battery power. Currently, AMD mostly sells notebook chips for "performance" notebooks, which provide desktoplike computing power but can sap batteries and generate heat.

The company's Athlon 64 notebook chips come with thermal ceilings ranging from 25 watts to 62 watts. By contrast, the Pentium M, the processor at the heart of the Centrino chip bundle, has a thermal ceiling of about 20 watts. The thermal ceiling gauges how much heat the processor can produce without endangering the performance of the notebook.

The chip will essentially allow AMD to compete more effectively in the lucrative notebook market. In recent years, Intel has enjoyed a wider market share in notebooks than in desktops, in part because of the Centrino chip bundle.

"The product will be comparable--from a performance and battery life perspective--with Centrino," said Bahr Mahony, marketing manager for AMD's mobile segment.

Notebooks sporting the new processor will come out at the same time as the chip, he added. Turion notebooks will be marketed for the consumer and business market. The company will also continue to produce the Athlon 64 mobile chips as well as budget Sempron notebook processors.

Intel, however, will also come out with a new notebook chip, code-named Sonoma, in a few weeks.

In contrast to Intel, AMD will not make and promote a bundle of chips to go with Turion. Centrino is a bundle of chips that consists of a processor, the Pentium M, a chipset and a wireless chipset. Third-party providers like Broadcom will provide those additional chips, Mahony said.

Unlike many chips, such as Intel's Celeron or AMD's Sempron, Turion does not derive from a perusal of a Latin dictionary. The brand name connotes "tour," he said. However, "turion" also refers to vegetative dormant organs produced by perennial aquatic plants.

So far, code names for Turion chips have not appeared on AMD's public road map, but executives have said the company planned to come out with chips that fit the description.

 

[Mr_Evil]

The problem with AMD's strategy is that they won't be making the chipset to go with their low power proc. Which probably won't gain them market share as Intel will still have the edge in battery life with Centrino.

Didn't somebody find benchmarks that showed a Pentium M faster than a Mobile AMD 64? I'm no !!!!!! either way.

 

[nonsequitur]

if it's a new chip, it will have to be a new chipset.

 

[MechWarrior]

The problem with AMD's strategy is that they won't be making the chipset to go with their low power proc. Which probably won't gain them market share as Intel will still have the edge in battery life with Centrino.

Didn't somebody find benchmarks that showed a Pentium M faster than a Mobile AMD 64? I'm no !!!!!! either way.

That remains to be seen. Intels chipset doesnt give the "better battery life", there just really isnt any other chipset that will RUN the cpu so we dont know if that chipset cpu combination really does give better battery life.

I actually think AMDs strategy to allow other vendors to make the chipsets are better, I get my nVidia or ATi chipset and get to like it too, instead of stuck with intel.

 

[atomic3]

In contrast to Intel, AMD will not make and promote a bundle of chips to go with Turion. Centrino is a bundle of chips that consists of a processor, the Pentium M, a chipset and a wireless chipset. Third-party providers like Broadcom will provide those additional chips, Mahony said.

There will be a new chipset, just not manufactured by AMD.

 

[pxc]

Unless AMD just came out with some unannouned power saving breakthrough, it sounds like it will just speed bin, lower voltage and only try to catch up to TDP for the P-M CPUs (the 20W mentioned in notoriousformula's post).

That's pretty worthless because the main appeal of the Centrino platform is the ultra low power that it operates under on battery power. Just lowering the voltage and clock speed (and cloth throttling w/something like PowerNow!) isn't going to make a A64 a centrino competitor.

Dothan 1.5-2.1GHz all have 21W TDP in max power mode (i.e. plugged in). Under power saving mode (automatic on battery mode), that drops by 50-85% (3W-10W). And lower power modes than that are available for *another* 50% power savings

Too bad AMD "forgot" (see 3.27 revision on page 5) to include the mobile Athlon 64 chapter in the thermal datasheet: http://www.amd.com/us-en/assets/content_type/white_papers_and_tech_docs/30430.pdf . The DTR chips use the same power as the processors listed on page 13. At each power saving step, it runs about 2x hotter than a P-M.

 

[UnlimitedMP]

I'm almost always up for some competition. I'm hoping that when it comes out, it'll drive intel's prices lower. And then we reap the rewards.