Want to read Slashdot from your mobile device? Point it at m.slashdot.org and keep reading!

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
×
AMD

AMD Starts Shipping Mobile Durons 65

Posted by timothy from the the-immobile-ones-were-immobile dept.
HiyaPower writes: "AMD announced today that it has started shipment of its mobile Duron line of processors. While these were supposed to have made it out the gate in 00Q4, it is nice to see that they have finally appeared. Designed around a 1.6V VCore, these processors have a power dissipation of roughly 25W at 600 Mhz, and 29W at 700 Mhz according to the tech specs. Pricing is aggressive as might be expected in this environment. The AMD mobile line has been a good one since the K6-III+ processors. Hopefully, these Durons will live up to the tradition." I bet this release is a spur to the folks at both Intel and Transmeta -- isn't it nice to watch one-upmanship at work sometimes?
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

AMD Starts Shipping Mobile Durons More

AMD Starts Shipping Mobile Durons

Comments Filter:
  • AMD's press statement reads: "AMD is excited that NEC Japan is using the Mobile AMD Duron processor to power its new LaVie U notebooks,"

    I haven't heard or read anything about this LaVie U notebook line from NEC. It is not mentioned on nec.com [neccomp.com]. Will these notebooks only be available in Japan (The press statement only mentions NEC Japan!)?

    That would mean a relatively low level of support for the mobile Duron, wouldn't it? It would fit the impression you get when you look at the press statements on NEC's website [neccomp.com]: They still praise the introduction of the mobile PIII 800Mhz but I can't find anything about the new notebooks.

  • Maybe I can actually buy a laptop now.

    The price of the processor is the least of your worries. There's so many other expenses when you buy a laptop (like the screen) that a low cost processor won't have too big of an effect...

    But any little bit helps, I guess... as long as you can save a couple bucks.

  • Linux appears to be the root of your problems. Format your hard drive and install a legal, licensed copy of Windows ME or Windows 2000 and everything should be great, not to mention more productive and fun.

    If you need help with formatting your hard drive, contact your computer manufacturer's technical support.

  • 1.6V, Alas the i-openers are only socket-7, but the k6-iii+ can do 550 Mhz in those kitties anyway, so the boost isn't very much even if you could pull it off (which you can't). The upgradability of the i-opener is highly limited by the constraints of power and heat dissapation. The wall wart only makes 18V at 2A, so you only have about 40 watts max to play with for everything. One of the biggest problems with the heat is the infamous Q16 transistor that drops the vcore. The only way you get it up high overclocks is to stick a resistor in the base and dump a heat sink on it.

    But as you note it would be sweet.

  • We run Linux on a laptop to provide infrastructure for a traveling demonstration of cable modem high-speed service and a variety of applications built on top of that. The Linux laptop provides a variety of services to the client machines:
    • DHCP
    • TFTP
    • Timed
    • Network syslogd
    • SMTP and POP3 mail (plus cron jobs to clean up after sloppy e-mail clients)
    • Proprietary packet-forwarding and NAT software (uses X Windows for display purposes)
    • HTTP, both local content and proxy
    • SMB file and printer services
    • Plus tcpdump for packet sniffing and diagnostics

    We use the laptop with two Ethernet cards because it provides a single small package incorporating system unit, keyboard, and display. The Duron would be a bit of overkill for us, as the current box is a refurbished unit with 120 MHz Pentium and 16M of DRAM. It's been doing the job reliably for most of the past three years.

  • I already play 3D games on my PowerBook... Quake3 runs 65fps using the "fast" settings. Of course, I'll run out of batteries in just 3 hours of playing, since the G3/500 draws 8 watts when utilizing the FPU heavily, and the R128 mobility M3 (with 8M VRAM) draws 2.0 watts.

    of course, it's annoying that the Mac versions of games are generally more expensive here in Finland, and usually harder to find a specific title you're looking for. And, you need to bring Linux down and boot into MacOS to play them, this is just as bad as in the intel world where linux guys need dual-boot setups if they want to play games...

  • Re:Power comparison. (Score:3)

    by Shadow99_1 ( 86250 ) <theshadow99@gma[ ]com ['il.' in gap]> on Monday January 15, 2001 @10:34AM (#506772)
    Um this woudl be far more interesting if you used the correct 1.4v for the Duron which makes a 600 Mobile Duron have a wattage of 20 (or 21 depending on which way you do the math) & the 700 Mobile Duron uses 24...

    A mobile P3 at 800 uses nearly as much as the 600 Duron...

    Btw if your overally concerned with heat makes sure your laptop uses an OS that uses HLT... Especially with the Mobile Duron... that could easily lower wattage of the Mobile Duron by 5-7 W...
  • ah, so they gave you a pass today too...

    o well, your mother probably committed suicide when she saw you.

  • really, well then you deserve what you get, which is a buttfucking, followed by a run in with a mac truck

    Isn't it a wonderful world we live in where processor selection can lead to anal penetration?

  • Comment removed (Score:3)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Monday January 15, 2001 @10:52AM (#506775)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • NVidia is building a mobile GeForce 2MX ... should be in the stores soon(tm)
  • I know 25W is somewhat low for current x86 processors, but does anyone know what the power dissapation for, say a mobile 500MHz G4 is? I know the desktop G4's use a lot less power (no need for a cpu fan).
  • That would be a great combination....the 'GeForce2Go' chips have gotten slagged since their announcement as using too much power, so combine that with a 25 watt 'mobile' Duron and you'll have the first laptop that requires liquid cooling. :)

    Note to NVidia fans - if you look at the specs you might think the GeForce2Go only uses a little more power than an equivalent ATI M part....except the M's have integrated VRAM and the GF2G's don't...throw in the external VRAM for the GF2G and it's way out of line.
  • Is it just me, or is 25W unacceptably high?

  • There's no such thing as a mobile G4. The main reason is that the G4 is already biased towards low-power usage since its main market area is routers and other internet infrastructure stuff. Apple is only a mid-sized player in the chip market. IMO Apple should go for the POWER4 architecture chips from IBM which are _real_ desktop and server CPUs, and can easily outperform any x86.

    The regular G4 (7400) eats 11.5W maximum, true, but the part they use in the new PB4Ti is 7450 aka G4+ which is a different chip. Since it has 256K of on-chip L2 cache, it's got lots (lots) more transistors (around 22M) than the old design (6M IIRC)... I saw a figure of 14 watts max somewhere for the G4+, but I'm quite unsure whether it was for the 533MHz part or the 733MHz one.

  • Now I might wait to buy my notebook. But the thing I really want is a notebook mobo to support ddr ram for my notebook. I want to work that 200mhz bus out. Anyone know if this is gonna happen?
  • You'd think that with all the practice you've gotten, you'd at least generate better flamebait. But no. Well, you can still serve as an example of a total failure, I guess.

  • We should show this to Micro$quish as how things are supposed to be. If you release something with a bug or inferior, you get in trouble.
  • Do you have some sort of perl script that generates this bullshit? I swear you must be spinning the Wheel-O-Buzzwords, because it sounds like you don't know what the fuck you are talking about, and you are talking out of your ass.

    maybe you would make more sense if you ran Windows 2000.

  • This is such an obvious troll I won't even point it out...

  • Stock (Score:1)

    by Micah ( 278 )
    What I want to know is if this and the weekend Sun announcement is gonna make AMD's stock rise tomorrow.

    If so I want to buy a few hundred shares when it opens. :-)
  • ... If only you could switch between, high CPU speed and small usage battery, and slow CPU speed, and high usage battery. So, it would fit the perfect gammer, and the perfect business man, writting up word documents.
  • Why, oh why are we still stuck in the power hungry insanity of x86 technology?

    Compare the above numbers with that of the StrongARM [intel.com]/XScale [intel.com] technology:

    StrongARM @ 233 Mhz consumes 725 mW @ 2.0v.
    Intel XScale @ 400 Mhz consumes 500 mW @ 1.0v.
    Intel XScale @ 1000 Mhz consumes 1.6 W @ 1.8v.

    Any of these processors would turn in very credible performance on a Linux-based system. We've come a long way in the past couple of years. Might it be time to test the market on a non-Windows general purpose computer? How about one that's portable and has respectable battery life?

    The success of the Compaq iPaq 3600 speaks volumes for the market for such a device.

  • ... and these today-released mobile duron chips have NO power steppings.

    I think intel's way is much better than nothing at all.
  • But what about the Nubile Morons?
  • This is *insightful*? There should be some pretermoderation; Moderation is moderated up or down if we think the moderation tag is funny, etc... :)
  • this individual is a prime example of why the rules enforcing contraception MUST be enforced in houses of ill-repute.
  • Here's what *I'm* curious about.

    Without being very authoritative, various google searches for <a href="http://www.google.com/search?q=watts+g4"> 'watts G4'</a> and <a href="http://www.google.com/search?q=watts+g3"> 'watts G3'</a>

    It speaks of the G4(non mobile) as sucking up <a href="http://macweb.macol.net/~PowerMacG4Central/" >20+ watts</a> as high power. A fast G3 sucks something something like <a href="http://macweek.zdnet.com/2000/06/04/0606newp pcchips.html">4 to 5 watts.</a>

    Soooo... Is this hype, or are the PowerPC chips *really* that cool, in comparison? And why are we settling for such power sucking PCs? Are we just that cheap? Or that greedy? In terms of ecological effects (heating and noise), PCs are fine room warmers... but still, that's a side effect we can engineer out, can't we?

    Geek dating! [bunnyhop.com]
  • (oops, repost, with easier to follow links!)
    Here's what *I'm* curious about.

    Without being very authoritative, various google searches for:
    <a href="http://www.google.com/search?q=watts+g4"> 'watts G4'</a>
    and
    <a href="http://www.google.com/search?q=watts+g3"> 'watts G3'</a>

    It speaks of the G4(non mobile) as sucking up <a href="http://macweb.macol.net/~PowerMacG4Central/" >20+ watts</a> as high power. A fast G3 sucks something something like <a href="http://macweek.zdnet.com/2000/06/04/0606newp pcchips.html">4 to 5 watts.</a>

    Soooo... Is this hype, or are the PowerPC chips *really* that cool, in comparison? And why are we settling for such power sucking PCs? Are we just that cheap? Or that greedy? In terms of ecological effects (heating and noise), PCs are fine room warmers... but still, that's a side effect we can engineer out, can't we?

    I'm sooo tempted to buy an Apple. It would seem powerful *enough*(of course, not the most powerful), and featured, enough, what with Firewire, USB, ethernet and modems, and cool enough, what with Airport antennas, some systems with CD-R and DVD-R, gigabit, etc...

    I guess Mac OS X will seal my doom, what with the strength and stability of BSD, the slickness of Aqua, and display pdf...

    Geek dating! [bunnyhop.com]
  • (oops, repost, with easier to follow links!)
    (second time. I keep forgetting POT!)
    Here's what *I'm* curious about.

    Without being very authoritative, various google searches for:
    'watts G4' [google.com]
    and
    'watts G3' [google.com]

    It speaks of the G4(non mobile) as sucking up 20+ watts [macol.net] as high power. A fast G3 sucks something something like 4 to 5 watts. [zdnet.com]

    Soooo... Is this hype, or are the PowerPC chips *really* that cool, in comparison? And why are we settling for such power sucking PCs? Are we just that cheap? Or that greedy? In terms of ecological effects (heating and noise), PCs are fine room warmers... but still, that's a side effect we can engineer out, can't we?

    I'm sooo tempted to buy an Apple. It would seem powerful *enough*(of course, not the most powerful), and featured, enough, what with Firewire, USB, ethernet and modems, and cool enough, what with Airport antennas, some systems with CD-R and DVD-R, gigabit, etc...

    I guess Mac OS X will seal my doom, what with the strength and stability of BSD, the slickness of Aqua, and display pdf...

    Geek dating! [bunnyhop.com]
  • Why would any want to make a mobile out of Durons?

    Now making one out of Durex I could understand, but *Durons*?
  • I'm still waiting for a mobile 10+ cpu cray T90 =) By the time it comes out, i may even be able to afford it.
  • This is nice and all, but I already have my Crusoe laptop...

    Now where the hell are the SMP Athlon boards!!! =)

    .technomancer

  • Power supply (Score:4)

    by blacksmith ( 42129 ) on Monday January 15, 2001 @07:17AM (#506799) Homepage
    The article is wrong - the mobile devices don't run at 1.6v. If you look at this page from AMD [amd.com] it's 1.4v. Assuming this is the same core rather than the upcoming Morgan core, then the power consumption should just be scaled down by the square of the suppy voltage. 21 W for the 600 MHz and 24 W for the 700 MHz, based on the power consumptions for the desktop versions.
  • This is exactly the way it should be happening. With three major companies vyeing(sp?) for the mobile proc market it's great to see how there really can be performance increases. I love the example of how when AMD finally got the Athlon out and running how proc prices have plunged and performance has increased exponentially.
  • Not to mention the price wars for the mobile chips. Maybe I can actually buy a laptop now.

    I'm also glad that although they missed their 00Q4 deadline, that they got it out the door soon afterwards. I think Blizzard needs to learn from them.
  • I hear ya! I've been concerned about my current ThinkPad warming my blood tempurature. (Our cats love to rest beside the warmth of the fan's out-vent!)

    I would consider it well worth the reduced battery life to include some Peltier Devices [everything2.com] just for the underside, so I don't go sterile!

  • Just the old 'spitfire' core with lower voltage :( (Score:3)

    by hkultala ( 69204 ) on Monday January 15, 2001 @07:20AM (#506803)
    AMD is designing a new "morgan" duron core,
    which will have PowerNow and ther power-draw-
    orientated enchantments too.

    But that chip is not yet ready,
    so they just lowered the voltage of current duron
    from 1.6 to 1.4 V, and added a "mobile"-sticker on it.

    It has too big power requireemnts to be a real good mobile part, and I think k6-2+ and k6-III+
    are still AMD's mest mobile parts.

    We will have to wait a few months until
    AMD releases truly mobile palomino and morgan-cored athlons.

  • Yes. Sony has a VAIO laptop that includes a Crusoe. Check it [transmeta.com] out.
  • "In fact, it'd be really, really cool and worthy of our notice...if it had more than one mouse button! AW-HAW-HAW-HAW! *snort*"

    Don't you mean PROPER mouse buttons?

    --
  • Good question, and I've been trying to find enough tech specs on the PBG4Ti to answer the question. The Apple comes with a 50Wh battery, while the Compaq Armada M700 comes with a 47.4Wh battery. Apple claims a battery life of five hours on a machine with a built-in DVD drive, 128 MB RAM, and a 15-inch display. Compaq claims 2.3 hours battery life with only the hard drive, 64 MB RAM, and a 14.1-inch display. I think a reasonably conclusion is that the Apple uses roughly half the power of the Compaq, if we assume that both companies are lying to the same degree.

    Meanwhile, my Vaio PCG-Z505HS, which I am gladly rid of, ate its battery in 1 hour or less, with 128 MB of RAM, a 12.1" display, and no drives attached. Sony claims 1-2 hours battery life.

  • Found it here:

    http://e-www.motorola.com/brdata/PDFDB/MICROPROC ES SORS/32_BIT/POWERPC/MPC7XX/MPC7400FACT.pdf

    The 450MHz G4 uses 5.0W typical, 11.5W maximum, at 1.8V. I'm guessing there is a little lower core voltage in the mobile G4.
  • Well, maybe you could get a VERY small buffer for your Dremel tool, and polish all the pins 'til they're shiny. Make sure you hang it up out of reach of the $CHILD_PROCESS, though.

    --
  • Intel to debut 5ghz P5 [sexcowairlines.com]
    IRNI
    SexCow Airlines [sexcowairlines.com]
  • The replacements for those marketing flacks who were sacked responded with lightning speed, and shipped aan adhesive-backed overlay for the already published ads, intended to head off the consumer backlash. These are to be placed over the previous slogans in all adds, replacing the possibly insulting text with "Runs Winders Grate!" in large red letters.

    --
  • Yeah, I know, IHBT, but the Sony PCG-F630 runs on an AMD K6-2 550. Idiot.
  • Using your groin as a heatsink is not recommended :P I wouldn't be too excited about having one of these things blasting my groin with radiation either.
  • As many others have pointed out the G3 in my particular Powerbook draws anywhere from 5 to 12 watts. I could have a dual G3 Powerbook with the same power requirements as a single Duron chip. On the battery I get a playable framerate with Quake 3 for about two and a half hours. If I were doing work on the battery I get about four hours, five if I really work at it. How do PC notebook makers even compare their supposedly mobile solutions? I can understand desktop replacement class laptops getting shit battery life but how do companies like Dell sell macho laptops that have 59Wh batteries that are lucky to finish a DVD on a single charge (to the defense of all, running your CD/DVD drive really tears up the battery no matter which processor you've got although some more than others). This is probably just the Barcadi and coke talking.

  • Re:Power dissapation (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    No, the TiG4 uses a 7410, which is a lower power derivative of the 7400. The 466/533 desktop still use the 7400 (or perhaps the 7410) while only the 667 and 733 will will use the 7450 with 256kB L2. All come with 1Mb of L2 (L3 for 7450)cache at varying frequencies (core/2 for TiG4, don't remember for the others). Don't know why they did not push the cache to 2Mb for the high end models (the G4 supports it and itwould help a lot on some task).

    This said, the next gen desktop should use IBM Power4 and forget Altivec. This would give volume to IBM of what is a apparently a screamer and easily scales to 8 way SMP. Cost for 8 way would be high, but not excesive considering the horsepower; this could be kept as an option, standard would be one chip, i.e 2 way SMP.

  • What are you talking about? I have a natural +1 bonus that I like to flaunt.

    I actually do say useful things, generally. It's not like my 3 identical posts got modded up 3 times...

    Geek dating! [bunnyhop.com]

  • Yep, key phrase there, "NEC Japan."

    Might be a better idea to try http://www.nec.jp" [www.nec.jp] instead.
  • Actually it is http://www.nec.co.jp [nec.co.jp] and my Japanese is terrible. If there is any info on the site about the notebook being available outside Japan it is beyond me.


  • Well, what else are you going to do with all those chips fried while overclocking them, but hang them above your computer?

    --
  • I bet this release is a spur to the folks at both Intel and Transmeta -- isn't it nice to watch one-upmanship at work sometimes?

    On the subjet of one-upsmanship, it merits mentioning that the new G4 PowerBooks [apple.com] are a formidable entry into the laptop arena; 5 hours' battery life on a 400-500 mHz ultraslim laptop is nothing to sneeze at.

    In fact, it'd be really, really cool and worthy of our notice...if it had more than one mouse button! AW-HAW-HAW-HAW! *snort*

    Ahem.

    information wants to be expensive...nothing is so valuable as the right information at the right time.

  • Power comparison. (Score:5)

    by Matt2000 ( 29624 ) on Monday January 15, 2001 @07:22AM (#506820) Homepage

    I'm an AMD fan (and they're hot, so they can use all they can get, HAH! ouch) so I'm glad to see AMD finally getting going on the high end laptop market. For comparison to the 25W and 29W power consumption, here's some Intel mobile power consumption data:

    Original Mobile Celeron 266: 5.8 W [intel.com]
    Mobile Pentium III @ 650 Mhz 7.9 - 14 W [intel.com] depending on load (speedstep technology)

    And previously from AMD:
    Mobile K6-II @ 400 mhz: 12 Watts [amd.com]
    Mobile K6-III @ 450? mhz: avg. 12 watts [amd.com] probably more.

    So again, AMD comes out heavy on the power usage, and probably heat. Unfortunately my Pentium II laptop is already heating my groin area too much when I'm working with it on my lap, don't need another 20 W of power getting transmitted down there.

    It's just common sense.

  • Mobile Durons? (Score:5)

    by jd ( 1658 ) <(imipak) (at) (yahoo.com)> on Monday January 15, 2001 @07:23AM (#506821) Homepage Journal
    Wouldn't it make it difficult to keep them in the computer? And what would you feed them?

    I suppose you -could- always add a hamster wheel in there, to keep them amused.

  • What kind of battery life does your Crusoe laptop get vs. a moble duron?

    I think for laptops battery life is much more important than speed. But then again, maybe I'm wrong. Maybe People would prefer to get 3 hours of quake rather than 6 hours of word and excel on an airplane.
  • Millions of AMD enthusiasts were astounded today when AMD released their new Mobile Duron, code named the Muron (pronounced Moor-On for humor sake).

    Spokesman for AMD felt they would really be reaching the type of computer goer needed to get this chip off the ground.

    Also launching this very same day is AMD's new marketing campaign... which heralds the slogan a Muron for a Moron.

    Immediately after the initial release, several marketing wizards were fired and beaten.

  • Hopefully laptop builders will make a performance graphics laptop so that I can finally purchase a laptop and be able to actually play 3d games on it.

    Exciting.
  • "morgan" duron core

    Will it be called a Moron?

  • For the same reason's you'd want to run it on a desktop. Linux can be used as a desktop operating system. There are plenty of office products out there for it, and support for laptops is widespread. Throw "linux on laptops" into a google search and you'll find more info there about installing linux on any model of laptop than you ever would for a particular desktop.

    Also, if you are administering Unix machines, X works much better in it's original form than some X clone for win32...

  • ...is that AMD, like Transmeta and unlike Intel, does power-stepping properly. Intel just slows the chip down, but it still eats just as much power as usual. A powerful, CHEAP processor like the Duron should be *very* popular in notebooks. I'm definitely considering one myself.

    - A.P.

    --
    * CmdrTaco is an idiot.

  • Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • 29 Watts! (Score:3)

    by aussersterne ( 212916 ) on Monday January 15, 2001 @07:33AM (#506829) Homepage
    You'll melt your zipper shut -- or worse -- with this thing sitting on your lap.

    Mobile Duron + Geeks = Instant Unix!

  • As reported here [theregister.co.uk], and seen on the VIA website [viatech.com], VIA began shipping its high-bandwidth today [15.jan.2001], 266MHz DDR SDRAM and Athlon-supporting two-chip chipset, the Apollo KT266.

    Demo'd at Comdex last November, the KT266 supports AMD's Socket A chip interface, connecting the processor to the rest of the world via a 266MHz frontside bus. The chipset supports up to 266MHz DDR (Double Data Rate) SDRAM on the memory side for maximum data throughput rate of 2.1GBps, but will also work with PC-133 SDRAM. It can cope with 4GB of RAM, according to VIA's press release, but only 2GB if the company's Web site is to be believed. Go figure...

    In any case I can hardly wait for this technology to also be available for the mobile world. AMD and Via are probably working closely together on this, and it would be nice to see some of this for the road warriors out there.

Slashdot Top Deals

"Don't try to outweird me, three-eyes. I get stranger things than you free with my breakfast cereal." - Zaphod Beeblebrox in "Hithiker's Guide to the Galaxy"

Close