News Bits: AMD and ATI to Merge?, New Envy u:734, XPS M2010 Closeup, HL2 Episode 1 Release

VoodooPC introduces Middleweight Gaming Notebook, ENVY u:734

May 31<SUP>st</SUP> VoodooPC expanded its notebook lineup with the introduction of the Voodoo ENVY Middleweight u:734 Gaming Notebook. High-powered components at the heart of the system include the new Intel Core Duo processor and the top-of-the-line Nvidia GeForce Go7900GTX.

The powerful Core Duo processor allows for running multiple demanding applications simultaneously, and accelerates technologies such as 2- and 3-D modeling, video editing, digitial music and photography, and graphics-intensive PC games. The ultra-powerful Nvidia Go7900GTX is the fastest mobile GPU on the market, giving users the ability to enjoy exceptional high definition gaming and video playback.

The ENVY u:734 weighs in at 8.5 lbs, fairly light for a 17" system. Dimensions are 15.6" x 11.5" x 1.57". Up to five hours of battery is possible with the extended battery options. Other features of the u:734 include a 17" WUXGA display, up to 160GB of hard drive storage, slot load DVD Burner, and a built in 1.3 megapixel video camera.

VoodooPC will accept orders starting June 1<SUP>st</SUP>, and units will begin shipping early July.

Link to Product

AMD + ATI merger looks likely

According to RBC Capital markets, AMD may be looking to buy ATI Technologies. Analyst Apjit Walia wrote in a note to investors yesterday:

"The synergies of this seem consistent with the recent announcements by AMD to significantly increase capacity over the next few-years."

The thought is not out of the ordinary - it has been speculated that the graphics companies would be likely to be bought by the microprocessor companies.

"This tie-up might make sense for AMD at this juncture but we don't think Intel should pursue tying-up with graphics companies and should instead look at the communications-space. . . The competitive dynamics of the microprocessor-market seem to be changing permanently. We believe Intel is still not 'reading-the-writing-on-the-wall' and continues to over-focus on PCs."

Intel is currently issuing drastic price cuts for its Celeron, Pentium 4, D, and Conroe microprocessors. In the analyst's opinion, Intel has gained some share back from AMD as a result of the price cuts, but the impact on the margins is negative.

The PC Market continues to slow - Intel's June Quarter is looking "progressively worse"; revenues are down close to ten percent.

"We turned neutral on Intel couple-of-weeks ago given our view of the risk-reward being balanced given the bad-news out there, but we remain negative on the semi-space. However, this AMD-ATI tie-up would obviously be a clear-positive for the graphics space."

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Inventec to ship 10 million notebooks in 2007

Inventec plans to ship over ten million notebooks next year, compared to seven million this year according to company sources.

Inventec shipped less than five million notebooks in 2005. However, with overall shipments to Acer, Toshiba and Hewlett Packard (HP) likely to reach 6.5-7 million units in 2006 and the clients further growing their shipments, Inventec stands a good chance of becoming the fourth notebook maker that breaks the ten million unit annual shipment mark, after Quanta Computer, Compal Electronics and Wistron, the sources said.

Acer and HP led the pack for shipment growth in Q1 2006. Inventec's new plant in the Pudong district of China will start production in 2007 at the earliest. Volume production should begin in 2008.

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A closer look at the XPS M2010 portable desktop

(view large image)

Featuring a 20.1" LCD display (as indicated by the name), the Dell XPS M2010 is essentially a 'portable desktop'. Senior Vice President of Dell in America, Ro Parra, described the M2010 as "something computer users could watch a movie on and then take it to the office for a presentation."

At 18 pounds, the M2010 certainly isn't a traveling machine. The power supply weighs in at a further 1.5-2lbs. In order to be moved, the screen is latched down the keyboard base.

We covered the M2010 and the rest of Dell's recently announced XPS series here earlier this week.

TGDaily has put up an [URL=http://www.tgdaily.com/picturegalleries/gallery-200606013-1.html]Image Gallery[/URL] for the XPS event - the rest of the story can be found [URL=http://tgdaily.com/2006/06/01/dell_xps_m2010_launchevent/]here[/URL]. [p] [p][B]Valve releases Half-Life 2: Episode One[/B] [p]June 1<SUP>st</SUP> - Valve released the first in a trilogy of episodic games, Half-Life 2: Episode One. It reveals the aftermath of Half-Life 2 and goes beyond City 17. The game does not require Half-Life 2 to play, and also includes a first look at Episode Two, due at the end of this year. [p][URL=http://www.tgdaily.com/2006/06/01/half_life_2_episode_1/]Read More[/URL] [p] [p][B]AMD says 45nm by 2008[/B] [p][img]http://www.notebookreview.com/assets/12694.jpg[/img][/p] [p]Over the next three years, AMD is expected to increase production capacity of their Dresden Fab by four times, thanks to recent upgrades and transformations of Fab 30 and Fab 36. AMD is moving away from 200mm wafers, and is looking to completely replace them with 300mm wafers by Q2 2008. [/p] [p]In order to increase production capacity further, Fab 36 will loose its test facilities, but new ones will be built in Singapore and Suzhou, in addition to a separate facility in Dresden.[/p] [p][img]http://www.notebookreview.com/assets/12696.jpg[/img][/p] [p]([URL=http://www.notebookreview.com/assets/12695.png]view larger image[/URL])[/p] [p]65nm processor fabrication is currently on schedule for AMD; it will be replaced in mid-2008 with a 45nm SOI process. K8L is still a 65nm platform, and its anticipated release is next year. [/p] [p][URL=http://dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=2639]Read More[/URL] [p] [p][B]Alienware Aurora m9700 review[/B] [p][img]http://www.notebookreview.com/assets/12699.jpg[/img][br][/br]([URL=http://www.notebookreview.com/assets/12698.jpg]view large image[/URL]) [p]Alienware's latest and greatest gaming notebook, the Aurora m9700 has been reviewed by HotHardware. It features the fastest AMD Turion processor, dual Nvidia GeForce Go7900GS video cards, up to two hard drives in a RAID configuration, a 17" WUXGA display. Even with all its high-powered components, it still manages a surprising two hours of battery life. [p][URL=http://www.hothardware.com/viewarticle.aspx?articleid=825&amp;cid=10]Alienware m9700 Review[/URL] [p] [p][B]Asus A7J 17-inch Core Duo notebook review[/B] [p][img]http://www.notebookreview.com/assets/12700.jpg[/img] [p]PC Perspective reviewed Asus' 17" A7J multimedia notebook. It features an Intel Core Duo T2300 processor, 256MB ATI X1600 graphics, 1GB of RAM, 100GB Hard drive, and an 8X Dual Layer DVD Burner. It tips the scales at nine pounds and carries a pricetag of about $1,700. Although the unit has some design quirks, it still gets a recommendation from PC Perspective. [p][URL=http://pcper.com/article.php?aid=254&amp;type=expert&amp;pid=1]Asus A7J Review[/URL] [p] [p] [p]Looking for something to do? Forum member ikovac is looking for experience input for his post graduation studies concerning notebooks, internal components, and causes of failures. Have a look [URL=http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=56889]here[/URL]. [p][B]Interesting Links[/B] [p][URL=http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20060601-6964.html]World of Warcraft passes 50% market share[/URL] [p][URL=http://theinquirer.net/?article=32143]Firefox 1.5.0.4 released[/URL] [p][URL=http://arstechnica.com/reviews/os/vistab2.ars]A tour of Windows Vista Beta 2[/URL] [p][URL=http://dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=2645]ATI RD600 Details[/URL] [/p][/I][/p][/p][/p][/p][/p][/p][/p][/p][/p][/p][/p][/p][/p][/p][/p][/p][/p][/p][/p][/p][/p][/p][/p][/p]

 

So in the future no nVidia chipsets? Assuming this actually happens

 

well, it seemed like amd designed a chipset with nvidia graphics for the turion x2 (according to the msi roadmap). i wonder if that will change.

 

this one is an Arima W830-DAx. looks like AW is using Arima now..

 

If the merger indeed happens, does that mean we'd see ATI notebook GPUs for AMD only?

AMD = ATI
Intel = NVIDIA?

Most interesting.

 

Well Intel already has a video card/chipset division... and it does good business with all the machines that have onboard Intel video...

Amd doesn't have anything like this, so they rely on 3rd party video chipsets on all AMD compatible (also 3rd party) motherboards.

So for an Intel low end machine, you can have an Intel CPU, Intel Motherboard, running Intel onboard graphics.
AMD doesn't make motherboards, but if they can produce an onboard video chipset that works in hand with their processors, it will be good for them; AMD cpu, 3rd party mobo, AMD onboard video.

Having the same company making more parts of the puzzle inevitably means better compatibility, reliability and stability

 

Yes, and smart tactics on their part too. With ATI obviously having the edge on integrated graphics compared to Intel's GMA series, people would definitely pay more attention to AMD with the merger. On top of that, if the the acquisition indeed happens, we'd finally be seeing mroe AMD notebooks with dedicated graphics. Kudos to that.

 

I'm actually opposed to the merger. Yes, it's a good thing for AMD to get it's own graphics chipset division, but taking over a company like this is bad news. Sorry, but I just seem to prefer a lot of nVidia stuff, even though ATI isn't bad. A takeover of ATI could cause reduced competition with nVidia, which slows down the advancement of technology and results in higher prices. An AMD/ATI merger would take out a critical component of the graphics card wars and it'd have Intel start stepping up their game on their graphics systems. This would leave nVidia somewhere in the middle, unless Intel takes them over.

I'm just not seeing where the advantage is in this merger, from a consumer point of view. I want to see competition. There's always been AMD vs. Intel and ATI vs. Nvidia. I don't want to see any one of those 4 companies get taken away. They need to be competiting head to head.

 

There is also the fact that for the desktop sector nVidia's chipsets have had the larger hold on the market for the past years compared to others (ati, via). If a merger happens, we will have a situation simillar to intel's. One dominant chipset, and in this case the one with the lesser experience. Since I am guessing AMD at that point will not be sharing as much info with nVidia for the chipset development, that is if nVidia even continues to make chipsets.

 

Am "envious" of the Envy but at a premimum of ~$1,700 over a Sager 5760 config'd as close as possible to what I want it becomes a big "OUCH!!!" just for the sexy looks -- although I would love to show up in a boutique coffee caffe w/ the red finished one....

 

Looks like the Clevo to me.

 

clevo makes the malx, the 19" sli. for now, i believe only arima makes a 17" sli.