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Advanced Micro Devices (AMD)today introduced its 64-bit mobile processor, the AMD Turion 64, into the processor marketplace to do battle with the highly successful Intel Pentium M family of mobileprocessors.The Turion is based on the successful desktop processor AMD64 architecture.
With the older Athlon and Sempron mobile processor brands AMD sold less than 9 percent of all notebook computer microprocessors last year. Intel, the world's largest chip maker, has a commanding 86 percent market share of notebook processors. Since sales of notebook PCs are growing faster than desktop PC sales, AMD has a lot of interest in stoking its sales of mobile processors.
We already know that AMD is going to undercut the prices of current Intel Pentium M processors with its Turion line, which is one of their strategies for beating Intel. However, we have no benchmarks or performance measurements to show how the Turion processors actually stack up performance wise against competing Intel chips, nor do we know exactly what the battery life expectations will be with AMD 64 Turion processors. If Turion processors can both cost less and outperform Intel Pentium M processors in terms of notebooks speed and battery life, then that's going to give Intel some serious competition. But if Pentium M chips prove better overall, then it's likely consumers will still be willing to pay more for the Intel brand of processors.
Fujitsu-Siemens, Acer, Averatec, Asus, MSI and BenQ are some of the major manufacturers that will be releasing notebooks featuring the AMD Turionprocessor. Notebooks carrying the processor should become available by the end of March. Acer will likely be one of the first to market with the Turion, but there is no indication as to which notebook line Acer will place the processor in.Availability and Naming Convention Of Turions
AMD Turion 64 mobile technology models ML-37 (2.0 GHz, 1MB Cache, 35 Watts), ML-34 (1.8 GHz, 1MB cache, 35 Watts), ML-32 (1.8 GHz, 512KB cache, 35 Watts), ML-30 (1.6 GHz, 1MB Cache, 35 Watts), MT-34 (1.8GHz, 1MB Cache, 25 Watts), MT-32 (1.8GHz, 512KB Cache, 25 Watts), and MT-30 (1.6GHz, 1MB cache, 25 Watts) are available immediately worldwide, but as stated before, it will be 2 - 3 weeks before we actually see a notebook available with any AMD Turion processor.TheAMD Turion 64 mobile technology uses a new series of model numbers designed to provide a simple designation of both relative performance and degree of mobility within the processor family. The two letters of this model number indicate processor class, with the second letter designating increasing degree of mobility, as measured by power consumption (the lower the power consumption, the higher the mobility and lower the heat generated). As the second letter approaches the end of the alphabet, "higher" letters indicate greater mobility. The numbers indicate relative performance within the processor class. Higher numbers indicate higher relative performance among the AMD Turion 64 mobile technology family.
Right now the two Turion's available will be ML and MT. The ML maximum power consumption ceiling is 35 watts while the MT maximum power consumption is 25 watts. Standard AMD desktop chips have 90 watt power consumption ceilings, the Intel Pentium M line maxes out at a 27 watt power consumption ceiling.
Pricing
AMD Turion 64 mobile technology models ML-37 (2.0 GHz, 1MB Cache), ML-34 (1.8 GHz, 1MB cache), ML-32 (1.8 GHz, 512KB cache), ML-30 (1.6 GHz, 1MB Cache), MT-34 (1.8GHz, 1MB Cache), MT-32 (1.8GHz, 512KB Cache), and MT-30 (1.6GHz, 1MB cache) are priced at $354, $263, $220, $184, $268, $225 and $189 respectively, in 1,000-unit quantities. For pricing details visit: http://www.amd.com/pricing.
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Perhaps a few remarks to put things in perspective:
<blockquote id='quote'> quote:<hr height='1' noshade id='quote'>Originally posted by jherber
turion is a bad idea at this time. it might be years before typical users break the current 4 gigabyte limit on notebooks. because software hasn't evolved to the point of requiring this technology, it only makes the chip more expensive to manufacture and less energy efficient.<hr height='1' noshade id='quote'></font id='quote'></blockquote id='quote'>
- while notebook hardware idd. doesn't need 64bit memory address yet, desktop hardware is getting close to that limit... combine that with the time it takes to recompile and optimize all software (you need to start doing this before you hit that barrier) and the huge cost to develop seperate software for 32bit-notebooks and 64bit-desktops (as you suggest), and you might see why starting this transition "early" in both segments simultaniously is the best option. Laptops are related to desktops in both hard- and software... change one, change the other.
- 32bit more expensive & less energy efficient than 32-64bit combo? I seriously doubt it. But if you still want 32bit only, I guess the cheaper, cooler & better performing Pentium4 is your choice [}
], and not the Athlon64 or a derived product (like Turion64)... I expect Turion to be as competitive with PentiumM as Athlon64 with Pentium4.
<blockquote id='quote'>quote:<hr height='1' noshade id='quote'>Originally posted by yassarian
Yea the 64bit is more or less irrlevent -- AMD's *biggest* problem is that they do not design or make the chipsets, but rather relies on 3rd party to figure out that step. Usually it means the whole setup won't be as efficient as say Intel's centrino. I guess only pretty specific workstation class notebooks might benefit from more than 4GB of RAM -- but then again you ran into the same chipset problem: only if companies like VIA or SiS are willing to make the chipset that supports it.
Otherwise the performance seems pretty good thou -- it makes a viable "lighter" DTR, I doubt Turion will be able to compete with Intel in the true "thin-and-light" area thou. But if SiS can deliver the PCI-E chipset as promised, the DTR field just got a bit more interesting. [] Always a good thing imo. Too bad I'm kinda weary of SiS's quality and compatibility thou... <hr height='1' noshade id='quote'></font id='quote'></blockquote id='quote'>
- If I know one thing, it's that you need to stick to what you're good at. Granted AMD does't have the size or resources to develop a complete range of chipsets, but that doesn't have to be such a big disadvantage - just look at one of the hottest desktop-products on the market today, the NForce4 SLI (ps. that's not an Intel product []), it even drove Intel to allowing NVidia to create an upcoming Pentium version of NForce4. Depending on ALi, ATI, NVidia, SiS & VIA might not be as fast to market as creating your own, but if they're there and it's a good product, I fail to see the difficulty (ps. there are already a few chipsets released for Turion, so no problems there)
- DTR is still the segment for Mobile Athlon64 - Turion will compete with Pentium M in 25-35W segment...
just my $0.02Last edited by a moderator: May 8, 2015 -
I'll add my own 2c as well
If you take a look at the notebook in my sig (powered by a turion), it is smaller and lighter than its nearest centrino competitor, the travelmate 8104, and according to the estimate, has better battery life. AMD should definitely be able to compete with Intel, it is just a matter of how the chips are implemented by Acer and the like.
The main reason the athlon 64 can compete with the pentium 4 is its integrated memory controller. Without that, AMD would probably still be making chipsets -- with a large portion of the northbridge now in the cpu, and with the standardized hypertransport link between everything, AMD has much less to worry about regarding how VIA/SiS/nVidia/ATi create chipsets. I'm hoping that this will hold true for the notebook market as well. The ati chipset looks awesome, and while I didn't really the sis release fully, I did catch that they won't have pci-express graphics support until Q2 of this year instead of right now. If Q2 means they release it April 1st, then that's great, but I am hoping to have a notebook in my hand by the first couple of weeks in May...
Regarding the whole 32 vs 64 bit argument, I think it will be a while before the industry settles down so that we as consumers actually see a benefit to 64 bit computing. And since 32 bit programs running on windows xp 64 bit are a bit slower sometimes, Microsoft and everyone else involved will have to really push if they want to sell that product. Unless they give it away to anyone with a 32 bit license, which would be nice... By the time things settle down more, EMT64 will probably be introduced into the Pentium M's anyway, so it'll be a marketwide changeover.
I am really holding out for a turion (hello, my sig), but if things don't pan out well performance, battery and cost wise, I wouldn't have hard feelings going with a pentium m.
Arima W622
Athlon 64 (Turion) 3200+ | 1gb DDR400 low latency | 60gb 7200 rpm (hopefully SATA w/ NCQ) | 128MB X700 radeon | 15.4" 1680x1050 screen | 1.25" thin | 5.69lb | 4.5 hours battery life
sign me up!Last edited by a moderator: Feb 2, 2015 -
<blockquote id='quote'> quote:<hr height='1' noshade id='quote'>Originally posted by jherber
i just don't want the "typical" notebook user to think the turion brings something that will make their life better at this time. software developers are not "typical" users.
<hr height='1' noshade id='quote'></font id='quote'></blockquote id='quote'>
idd. they are not (I should know - but it's those developers that need to make tomorrows software, and that won't be 64bit until they know your CPU can handle it. If the user doesn't have to care whether his program is 64bit or 32bit, the developer can make that decision for him, which should mean a smoother change in the next few years.
<blockquote id='quote'>quote:<hr height='1' noshade id='quote'>Originally posted by jherber
dothan also has 10-20% less power consumption for comparable processing speeds, unless that is, you are comparing it with the cheaper 35 watt turion parts, which will put the dothan up closer to 40% more power efficienct. amd will not be able to compete in terms of power efficiency until they design a chip with mobile computing in mind. the turions are just power binned athlon 64s.
<hr height='1' noshade id='quote'></font id='quote'></blockquote id='quote'>
Turion is a remodeled Athlon64, but imo. you are confusing 'processing speed' with Mhz. which is just part of the equation determing the performance of your CPU. AMD itself claims Turion has the 'performance advantage' over PentiumM, even though battery life will probably still favor Intel's PentiumM. Making a faster CPU than Dothan is not difficult (Pentium4, Athlon64), making a more power-friendly one neither (both AMD and Intel have procs around or below 5 watt). Benchmarks will determine the trade-off between battery & performance, but I think Turion will provide a nice alternative to the PentiumM... For now, I'm waiting on the first site to do a full review.
ps. imo. the integrated mem. controller should provide compensation to the fact that the original design wasn't mobile ...Last edited by a moderator: May 8, 2015 -
Do they even make P4M chips anymore? All I've seen lately are regular P4 chips crammed into notebooks, with horrificly high temps and awful battery life.
64-bit mode provides twice the number of registers as 32-bit mode (x86 being a register-starved architecture), which provides a very significant performance boost. Figure 20-30% on average, with cryptography and Java closer to 100% (guess why Sun loves AMD64). Throw in that low-latency integrated memory controller, Enhanced Virus Protection (the NX bit), no Intel marketing tax, etc, and the Turion makes for a very compelling platform. Oh, and it can address a crapload of memory, if need be. Being able to memory map >4GB files is kinda nice too.
Having 64-bit capability all the way from thin-and-light mobiles to multiprocessor servers is a Good Thing. One binary to rule them all []. Intel's kludgy clone of AMD64 only runs in high-wattage desktop and servers, and doesn't provide as big of a performance boost as real AMD chips do in 64-bit mode.
Oh, and AMD's thermal specs list MAXIMUM temps, while Intel's list typical temps (less than max). It's very tough to get an AMD CPU to hit its max temp. A 25W Turion MT is going to be very comparable to a Pentium M in terms of battery life.
We've got chipsets from ATI, nVidia, SiS, ULi, etc, etc. I fail to see how this is a bad thing, especially if you're getting a thin-and-light with shared memory graphics. With Intel you're stuck with what they design, or hope that third-party chipset makers figured out everything that Intel didn't tell them. -
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AMD Turion 64 Mobile Processor Released
Discussion in 'Notebook News and Reviews' started by Andrew Baxter, Mar 10, 2005.
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