Early Hands on with new AMD Puma and Toshiba A300

by Kevin O'Brien

The Toshiba Satellite A305 series laptop holds a special place in my heart, be it the AMD or Intel version. Here at Computex 2008, I had a chance to check out the brand new AMD Puma platform version of the A305. While the name will probably change as more details come out, it is based off the same chassis and looks very similar. With the configuration almost identical to the A305D model we just reviewed, what better notebook to compare the new AMD Puma platform against?

Specifications of the Toshiba A300 AMD Puma notebook:

• Windows Vista Home Premium (SP1, 32-bit)
• AMD Turion Ultra ZM TL-80 (2.1GHz)
• 15.4" diagonal widescreen TruBrite TFT LCD display at 1280x800 (WXGA)
• RS780M + SB700 Chipsets
• 2GB DDR2 800 SDRAM (maximum capacity 4GB)
• 320GB 5400rpm Hard Drive
• DVD SuperMulti (+/-R double layer) drive with Labelflash
• 1.3 megapixel webcam
• Harmon/Kardon stereo speakers
• 75W (19V x 3.95A) 100-240V AC Adapter
• 6-cell (4000mAh) Lithium Ion battery

Build and Design

The design is identical to both A305 models currently on the market, including the color scheme of the Fusion finish. The model on display was far from pristine with probably a billion fingerprints, but the finish underneath the sludge was still beautiful when wiped clean. Build quality is every bit the same, giving the same solid feel which to would expect from a high quality notebook.

(view large image)

Puma Changes

The AMD Puma-equipped notebook has gained an HDMI output, even though it sports integrated graphics. The older A305D notebook only offered VGA only as a primary video output connection. S-Video which used to be found on the A305D, is now gone on the new version, and you only see a blank port where that would have gone. One really nice feature that was a big surprise was the inclusion of and eSATA port, taking the place of one USB port.

Performance

The first thing on my mind when I saw this notebook was to find out how it compared to the older A305D notebook. I did not have the time to install PCMark05 while no one was looking, but I did manage to sneak wPrime on it. The resulting score was a bit under what I had hoped for, and slower than the previous notebook we had reviewed. Some of this might be attributed to the notebook being an engineering sample, with not so perfect drivers.

wPrime (version 1.58) comparison results:

38.437

Notebook / CPU	wPrime 32M time
Toshiba Satellite A305D (Turion Ultra ZM TL-80 @ 2.1GHz)	38.437s
Toshiba Satellite A305D (Turion X2 TL-64 @ 2.2GHz)	37.220s
Toshiba Satellite A305 (Core 2 Duo T8100 @ 2.1GHz)	36.442s
Asus M51S (Core 2 Duo T5550 @ 1.83GHz)	46.293s
Lenovo IdeaPad Y510 (Core 2 Duo T5450 @ 1.66GHz)	50.184s
HP Pavilion dv6700t (Core 2 Duo T5450 @ 1.66GHz)	50.480s
Dell Inspiron 1525 (Core 2 Duo T7250 @ 2.0GHz)	43.569s
Dell XPS M1530 (Core 2 Duo T7500 @ 2.2GHz)	37.485s
Portable One SXS37 (Core 2 Duo T7250 @ 2.0GHz)	41.908s
Sony VAIO NR (Core 2 Duo T5250 @ 1.5GHz)	58.233s
Toshiba Tecra A9 (Core 2 Duo T7500 @ 2.2GHz)	38.343s
Toshiba Tecra M9 (Core 2 Duo T7500 @ 2.2GHz)	37.299s
HP Compaq 6910p (Core 2 Duo T7300 @ 2GHz)	40.965s
Sony VAIO TZ (Core 2 Duo U7600 @ 1.20GHz)	76.240s
Zepto 6024W (Core 2 Duo T7300 @ 2GHz)	42.385s
Lenovo T61 (Core 2 Duo T7500 @ 2.2GHz)	37.705s
Alienware M5750 (Core 2 Duo T7600 @ 2.33GHz)	38.327s
Hewlett Packard DV6000z (Turion X2 TL-60 @ 2.0GHz)	38.720s
Samsung Q70 (Core 2 Duo T7300 @ 2.0GHz)	42.218s
Acer Travelmate 8204WLMi (Core Duo T2500 @ 2.0GHz)	42.947s
Samsung X60plus (Core 2 Duo T7200 @ 2.0GHz)	44.922s
Zepto Znote 6224W (Core 2 Duo T7300 @ 2.0GHz)	45.788s
Samsung Q35 (Core 2 Duo T5600 @ 1.83GHz)	46.274s

Vista Windows Experience Index Scores:

( view large image)

Ports and Features

• ExpressCard slot (ExpressCard/34 and Express Card/54)
• 10/100 Ethernet
• Modem jack
• 5-in-1 media card reader
• VGA out, HDMI
• Microphone input port
• Headphone output port
• IEEE-1394 (FireWire)
• Three USB 2.0 ports (with "Sleep and Charge&quot
• One eSATA port

Left: VGA, HDMI, LAN, eSATA, one USB port, Firewire

(view large image)

Right: Two USB ports, Model, Optical Drive, AC Power, Kensington Lock Slot

(view large image)

Battery Life

As you might remember from our A305D review, with the 6-cell battery the older AMD notebook managed 3 hours even. The new Puma based notebook, with the power profile set to "Balanced" and screen brightness down estimated to 2 hours and 24 minutes remaining after a few minutes being unplugged. While these numbers don't look impressive, I highly suspect the low battery life is a result of this system being an early engineering sample.

(view large image)

Conclusion

Overall I was pleased to see a fast refresh of the Toshiba Satellite A305D in person with the new AMD Puma platform. It has all of the great features and styling of the A300, as well as a few upgrades from the past model with the inclusion of HDMI and eSATA. My only concern is the less than stellar system performance and battery life, which should have at least been on par if not better than the previous model. Let's hope once this revision becomes official, the kinks are worked out and performance goes way up.

"Booth babe" not included with purchase. (view large image)

 

Top stuff! Looking forward to seeing some graphics benchmarks for the RS780M. I'm guessing that'll be marketed as the Mobility HD3200. I wonder if we'll see on-board crossfire with mobility radedon HD3200 and HD3450 as with the desktop...

 

I rather have the booth babe

 

You'll just have to ask the booth babe to move over while you run some graphics benchmarks. This is where the new chipset might have something interesting to offer. Or, maybe, it just drains the battery faster.

John

 

I will take the girl

 

nice,but can we have dedicated videocard benchmarks?

 

Sadly I didnt have pcmark or 3dmark on my memory stick, and it was amazing that I got the chance to run what I did on the notebook at all. They were VERY observant on what you were doing with the machines

 

i think NBR staff should take hypnos lessons...

 

Thanks a lot mate. Your effort is appreciated it. Looking forward to new stuff .

 

Next time take a girl with you, she creates big distraction and you do the work

 

Have you found any AMD laptops that support ATI XGP?

 

Are you talking about the girl or the Toshiba?

 

That Wprime benchmark doesn't look too bad. It looks like the tl-80 can keep up with a t7500 despite the lower clock speeds and smaller cache.

 

Battery life better be a good deal. I`m still looking for a fast laptop with awesome battery life for my friend, and Toshiba seems to be heading in the right direction.
Nice preview Kevin!

 

Interesting article. How long before will we see these on newegg or hp do you think?

 

hm...Interesting, I thought the new platform would be faster than the old one, it can't even beat the T7500 !

 

I don't think so: http://www.hexus.tv/show/2008/03/EXCLUSIVE_CONTENT_AMD_Puma_3x_quicker_than_Intel_integrated/

Kevin said the laptop was an engineering sample and possibly didn't have proper drivers.

 

That is exactly what has us excited. We've seen a number of "behind the scenes" demos of the the Puma platform with integrated graphics performing as well as (or even better than) low-end dedicated graphics cards.

The raw processing power (in terms of crunching numbers) of the new AMD processors doesn't give you a major advantage over previous processors. However, most users aren't running complex math equations like SuperPi and wPrime all day. Most people want their notebook to be able to play the new cool 3D video games and 1080p Blu-Ray movies ... and still get good battery life.

AMD is claiming that Puma can do that. We'll have to wait and see when full, consumer-ready notebooks are released in the coming months (or weeks).

 

Same here, should be at least close to Intel(the proc) once they are done, and with perfected drivers.
But yeah, HD3200 pwns.

 

Any word when NBR will be able to get an actual Puma to test?

 

Hopefully "sooner" than later. We can't give firm dates at this point because we don't have a production Puma-based notebook in the office at this time.

 

Was there much running in the background (processes, anti-virus software etc.)? Because I have found wPrime scores to vary quite a bit when you have stuff running in the background or have had the computer on for a while.

But still, it's great to see something on AMD's new platform, even if the score isn't any better than the standard 2.1ghz Turion X2. wPrime doesn't seem to use L2 cache very much which is probably why the Turion X2s do quite well in it and maybe when the new Turion Ultras are tested with programs that rely on L2 cache more, then we will see an improvement (they have double the L2 cache).

 

Even though these results weren't impressive, I still think the Puma lineup has great potential. I will look forward to a production machine benchmark in the future.

 

Puma platform obviously target (mainstream) home (doesn't need raw power or great battery life)/entertaining (HD video)/gaming users.

Too bad AMD is still not a match for Intel in business sector.

But, better to take market share where they can compete.

 

If you can try checking this one out http://www.fudzilla.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=7714&Itemid=1.

 

wPrime responds to bandwith. OC the FSB of an Intel CPU, and you got better scores than higher clocked versions with lower FSB (mine at 2,8GHz with a 933MHz FSB scored better than a X7900 at 3.4GHz with a 800MHz FSB). When you take into account that HyperTransport offers superior bandwidth, you see why Turions score better than C2D's.

That said, the lower score is an anamoly, as one of the major impovement of the Turion Ultra is HT 3.0. That should translate into even higher wPrime scores (aka, lower times), which it does not.

 

nice job on the review for not having the notebook all to yourself..
maybe the A305D "older" version on toshibas site will be considerably discounted...!

 

x3100 gets 3.5 on my comp... but 3.8 from integrated graphics is impressive i admit.

 

This is where I think you misunderstood. Sure they're not as powerful as Intel, but they are still plenty fast. Besides all the takeover was surely going to slow them down a bit, although if they carefully execute things, they should reap the benefit in the future. We'll have to see how they do, but by no means their CPUs are slow. Just a tad slower.

 

WEI is a joke. I'd take it with a grain of salt.