Yesterday, we heard rumors that AMD’s Puma notebook platform might have trouble competing with Intel’s Centrino 2 in terms of processor performance and power efficiency. However, according to IDG News, those purported shortcomings haven’t stopped AMD from seizing a whopping 100 or so design wins ahead of the planned June launch.
What’s 100 design wins to AMD? John Taylor, Product and Strategic Marketing Director for the company’s graphics division, told IDG that number is "twice as many designs as we had at the launch of our last mobile platform." Such growth is particularly interesting in light of what Intel has cooked up. IDG says Intel’s Centrino 2 platform will debut in early June at the same time as Puma. Centrino 2 will feature 45nm CPUs, support for DDR2 and DDR3 memory, and integrated graphics chipsets with DirectX 10, HDMI, and DisplayPort compatibility.
Judging by yesterday’s report and IDG’s update, Puma’s graphics features are swaying notebook vendors. Puma’s 780 chipset includes Radeon HD 3000-series graphics, which can reportedly be coupled with a discrete Radeon HD 3400 mobile graphics processor using Hybrid Graphics technology. Hybrid Graphics will allow Puma notebooks to switch the discrete GPU on and off as needed in order to save power.
3 voltage planes should make this an undervolters dream. I’m expecting big gains in battery life for people willing to undervolt.
Thank goodness performance and power efficiency is not important anymore.
I hear package shape and color is the latest fad 🙂
Again with the Apple references? Now they are stealing their code names and their old business model!
AMD got this one right. Graphics and battery life are more important than sheer cpu performance in a notebook. AMD also has the edge when playing blu-ray dvd’s on battery.
Congrats AMD.
this may be a strong indication that CPU performance is well beyond software and that AMD’s is “good enough” for now while the platform as a whole is too good to ignore.
agreed, congrats AMD for making the best of the adversity.
I’ll be honest — the ability to do on-the-fly switching between integrated and dedicated is badass. I would much rather take an AMD-powered notebook with a well-supported ATI graphics card and take the performance hit… rather than have to deal with Nvidia’s crap-for-service driver support in a notebook configured for the bleeding edge of speed.
Peace of mind goes a long way.
I’m totally with you Pickle, Nvidia’s driver is such a nightmare. Forceware number……. what? you can’t have that at Nvidia’s page but at Laptop vendor’s??? What’s the hell is that? Beside, I love the way you can install Catalyst driver on every product from ATi.
Apple called. They want their operating system name back !
Adi
i don’t know how you’re capable of turning anything and everything into an “apple is better” statement.
What the ?? Where the heck did i claim OS X is superior in my post ?!
I was just pointing out that PUMA was used as the name for OS X 10.1 when it was released. Maybe you need to reread my post..
Adi
Funny, PUMA was the codename for AMD’s laptop platform since last year.
God called, he wants his fruit name back.
ROFL, nice one.
Honestly, though, I doubt anyone cares about having their code name stolen. A trademarked brand name, sure, but a code name?
You win already, AMD stole Apple’s code name – They specifically targeted Apple’s OS code names for hostile takeover. Can we move on now, adi?
Yes. Now that someone acknowledged that, we can move on 🙂
Adi
All you have to do to make an Apple fan happy is tell them that the world revolves around their lovely company.
Noticed the smiley at the end ? I was joking
Adi
The Wehrmacht called Cupertino. They want their panzer names back.
LOL good one ! Finally someone with a sense of humor on this site today !!
Adi
I think he was mocking you.
what in sam hell is a puma?
§[<http://youtube.com/watch?v=ZydX5CPbq80<]§
Sam /[
LOL.. that was helarious…nice
Who cares, if they can’t run a profitable company they could have a gillion design wins and it wouldn’t matter…
stock holder? 😛
No I sold and made some money years ago. I’m not crazy 😉
Puma eh? Sounds like something humorous there.
Here kitty, kitty. 😉
Hopefully this Puma will do well for AMD.
I’m thinking that there’s more to this than meets they eye. Like AMD pricing it lower, or perhaps it’s promising availability sooner than Intel.
I think the real difference that AMD can claim is in GPU performance. If a laptop can do HD decoding with good performace in games, they can tap two markets that Intel is pretty weak on.
if a laptop is actually portable and can handle WoW, it’ll be a best-seller.