Exclusive: AMD's Centrino rival revealed

 

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By David Fearon

Posted on 3 Mar 2008 at 15:24

AMD has given PC Pro an exclusive briefing on its "Puma" mobile platform, destined to compete with Intel's Centrino.

The new platform - which will be officially unveiled at CeBIT 2008 tomorrow - will be based around a revamped processor design, codenamed Griffin and making its debut in the new 65nm Turion X2 Ultra processor.

Its main feature is a triple-powerplane design, allowing each of its two cores and the integrated north bridge to operate at different voltage and frequency for maximum power efficiency. Intel's Core 2 chips can't run with each core at different frequencies.

The overall Puma platform is Centrino-like in its structure, consisting of a new 7-series chipset and the new processor. But whereas Intel completes the trio with its own wireless adaptor, AMD is making more of its ATi Mobility Radeon 3400-series graphics. A wireless 802.11g/n adaptor is part of the overall platform but these are provided by one of several third-party manufacturers.

Graphics performance is one of Puma's main selling points. AMD is claiming up to four times the performance of the graphics chipset from its previous generation (Kite) devices, and a plethora of capabilities including true 1080p HD video playback and DirectX 10.1 compatibility, courtesy of an ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3400 graphics chipset.

Graphics switch

But the most interesting graphics feature is Hybrid CrossfireX. This will let a laptop use low-power integrated graphics in concert with a discrete Mobility Radeon HD 3400-series module for 3D games, but drop back to integrated graphics for standard 2D desktop applications.

In theory that should give the best of both worlds: decent battery life for standard use and good performance for 3D games when it's needed. Some laptop manufacturers have already tried something similar - Sony's SZ4XWN/C allows you to switch between integrated and external graphics - but the tighter integration of the ATi system means it can be automatic, with no reboot required.

Yet despite the apparent skew towards entertainment with the Hybrid CrossFireX and HD playback features, the company is fighting shy of going head-to-head with Intel.

Instead, the platform is being aimed at "small and medium businesses and public institutions," according to Bahr Mahony, a director of product marketing for mobile platforms.

Mahony says the emphasis on these sectors is because they're "more sensitive to acquisition costs". It's also making no claims that performance of the Turion Ultra CPU will challenge Intel's mobile Core 2 parts. Puma will be available in Q2 of this year.

See PC Pro's full coverage of CeBIT 2008 here