Intel’s pretty much had the netbook and thin and light laptop space to itself for the last few years. Sure, VIA and ARM have tried to make a dent, but neither has really had much success. And for the most part, AMD has been sitting back and watching. The company’s early forays into the low power, thin and light space were perhaps a little too low power, with the AMD Neo MV-40 chip offering performance that’s barely any better than an Intel Atom chip while consuming much more power.
But now AMD is hoping to shake things up with its new Nile platform for ultrathin notebooks. The new processors will come in single and dual core varieties while consuming between 9 and 15 watts of power.When you add the NorthBridge controller, power consumption is somewhere between 16 and 23 watts.
PC makers will be able to pair the chips with ATI Radeon HD 5400 or 4200 graphics, which should give these notebooks at least enough power to take on Intel’s CULV platform. You’ll also have support for DirectX 10.1 graphics and DDR3 memory. And AMD is promising around 8 hours of battery life — although that will clearly depend on the batteries that PC makers offer for laptops with these chips.
AMD expects the Nile chips to show up in notebooks with 11 to 13.3″ displays, HDMI output, and 5.1 channel audio.
via Engadget
You can find a run down of the new chips after the break. Oh, and if some of these chip sound familiar, it’s because they’re the same ones found in the new Acer Aspire 521, 721, and 1551 laptops we saw last night.
AMD Turion II Neo K665 dual core processor
- Clock speed: 1.7GHz
- Cores: 2
- TDP: 15W
- Cache: 2MB L2
- I/O Bus Speed: 3.2 GT/s
AMD Turion II Neo K625 dual core processor
- Clock speed: 1.5GHz
- Cores: 2
- TDP: 15W
- Cache: 2MB L2
- I/O Bus Speed: 3.2 GT/s
AMD Athlon II Neo K325Â dual core processor
- Clock Speed: 1.3GHz
- Cores: 2
- TDP: 15W
- Cache: 2MB L2
- I/O Bus Speed: 2.0 GT/s
AMD Athlon II Neo K125 single core processor
- Clock Speed: 1.7GHz
- Cores: 1
- TDP: 12W
- Cache: 1MB L2
- I/O Bus Speed: 2.0 GT/s
AMD V105 single core processor
- Clock Speed: 1.2GHz
- Cores: 1
- TDP: 9W
- Cache: 512KB L2
- I/O Bus Speed: 2.0 GT/s
I ordered a Toshiba T215D with an AMD K325 processor. Hasn’t come in the mail yet. I was looking for a CPU better than an Atom single core, graphics better than Inten GMA 950 and DDR3 RAM. I also wanted something under 4 lbs, under $500 and a screen bigger than 10.2 inches. This Toshiba fit the bill nicely. Got it on sale for $399. I plan to upgrade it to 4gb of Crucial dual channel RAM and a Samsung 64gb SSD that uses less than 1 watt when active. I also plan to uninstall Windows and install Ubuntu Linux. This will be a nice, fast and lightweight system for under $600 with NO WinTel Inside!
Which of these models could be used in Netbooks? I feel that it is not far when we will see that AMDs are coming with Netbook models as well.
If you define a netbook as a computer with a 10 inch or smaller screen, the
Acer Aspire 521 fits the bill. It will have an AMD V105 processor:
https://www.liliputing.com/2010/05/acer-introduces-aspire-521-721-1551-amd-powered-mini-laptops.html
Well,
I would say that we could call all these devices as a Netbooks. Actually the term “Netbook” needs/deserves a new meaning.
What it really deserves is some open debate. There are plenty of bloggers who occupy cyber space who could actually have an intelligent discussion about it. A few rants here and there amounts to not much of anything. Yes I’ve been guilty myself. It’s complicated no question. The AMD equivalent to the Atom should be a strong consideration. I’m sure they will have their own branding. AMD is likely less concerned about “interests” and will likely be liberal in their use of terms. My vote is for some open forum about the topic. I realize from an SEO interest people want to be wishy washy about what they are calling the computers they are covering. A lot of good discussion could come of it, but the commentators seems to prefer a fragmented discussion.
Actually I feel that the tern “netbook” should be changed and made into a generic form.
But I guess time will tell what happens.
These will complete head to head with the Intel CULV. 11″ to 13″ and thin. The V105 will compare more to the Atoms so you’ll probably find it in the 10″ netbook size.
Anyway, these will probably not give as much bang for buck (watt) as the CULV from a processor point of view, but will have a nice adventage from a multimedia and gaming point of view.