News Bits: ATI HD 2000 Notebook Graphics Cards, Apple takes 10% of Laptop Retail, Asus VX2S

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ATI launches HD 2000 series video card for notebooks

ATI today officially announced their new HD 2000 series graphics cards for both notebooks and desktops.

For notebooks, ATI is launching the 2300, 2400, 2400XT, 2600, and 2600XT cards with core speeds ranging from 450MHz to 700MHz. All use a 65nm manufacturing process except for the 2300, which is manufactured on a 90nm process. ATI claims that the mobile chips will use less than ten watts of power under some circumstances.

AMD's UVD (unified video decoder) technology plays back high-definition content efficiently enough that laptops can now play an entire HD DVD or Blu-Ray disc on a single charge. AMD claims the CPU load while watching an HD DVD is about 12%.

The mobile cards have the following specifications:

Card	Process	Core Clock	Memory Bus	Memory Clock
2300	90nm	450 - 480MHz	64 - 128-bit	450 - 550MHz
2400	65nm	350 - 450MHz	64-bit	400 - 500MHz
2400XT	65nm	500 - 600MHz	64-bit	600 - 700MHz
2600	65nm	400 - 500MHz	64 - 128-bit	550 - 600MHz
2600XT	65nm	600 - 700MHz	64 - 128-bit	700 - 750MHz

Read More (TGDaily.com)

 

Apple takes 10 percent of U.S. retail notebook sales in March

Apple's sales of its MacBook and MacBook Pro combined totaled almost ten percent of all notebook sales at U.S.-based stores during March, and Apple placed as one of the top five desktop manufacturers for the first time this year.

Apple placed fourth on NPD's list of top selling retail notebook vendors with a 9.9 percent market share. For comparison, Compaq had an 8.5 percent share and Gateway had a 13.0 percent share. Note that the list excludes Dell, which sells direct. Toshiba was number one with a 26.2 percent share and HP followed with 23.9 percent.

Read More (AppleInsider.com)

 

Asus Lamborghini VX2S with Santa Rosa Coming Soon

It looks like Asus is going to be updating their Lamborghini VX2 high end notebook to include Santa Rosa fairly soon. Which makes sense, you want to bring the latest and greatest to your premier series first. The basic specs on the upcoming VX2S will be:

• Chipset: Intel 965 Express chipset
• Processor: 2.4 GHz T7700 Core 2 Duo
• Memory: 2 GB 667 MHz DDR2
• Graphics: GeForce 8600M GT with 512 MB dedicated memory, 512MB Intel Turbo Memory
• Hard Drive: Hitachi 160 GB 5400 rpm sata HDD
• Wireless: Intel 4965AGM 802.11n Wireless, Bluetooth 2.0
• Ethernet: Intel 82566MM Gigabit Ethernet
• Screen: 15.4&quot; WSXGA+ monitor
• Camera: 1.3Mp rotating webcam
• Battery: 8 cell 5200mAh battery

You can see a review of the VX2S with benchmarks at this French website. The Asus Lambo VX2S is being discussed in the NBR forums here.

 

Gigabyte to push own-brand notebooks into niche markets

Gigabyte Technology is planning to expand its own-brand notebook sales by pushing products into niche markets. The products include 17-inch and larger notebook PCs.

Gigabyte's executive president, Richard Ma, said that the company will target niche markets instead of the mainstream because it is already taken over by brands such as HP, Dell, and Acer, and the ODM market is occupied by Quanta, Compal, Inventec, and others.

Read More (DigiTimes.com)

 

Thanks for the post!

128 bit for the HD2600XT? Ah come on my X700 has 128 bit. I really expected 256 bit. Still it seems that it is stronger then the 8600.

We will need to wait for a review.

 

Wow...never expected Apple to get to 10% like that. I'm definitely seeing more people use Macs, and its mostly girls. Seems like people are either loving the ad campaign, wanting something to match their ipods, or are just tired of Windows...

 

That's it. When I upgrade, I'm getting a Mac for work and an Asus for pleasure. Take that Mark and Webb!

 

The 2900 XT sounds impressive and for only around $400, I've been waiting for this card to come out.

 

Hope you don't mind me playing with your post a little .

 

is 128bit the new trend or something?
Is there any news on the date of actual release of the 2600 series?

 

Or just people who like the Mac and Mac OS X........ I think it is more than people liking an ad campaign, wanting something to match an iPod (the "iPod halo effect" has more to do with people getting a taste of how Apple products work with the iPod and being convinced to take a look at the Mac as a whole, not so much the aesthetics of a matching product) or even being tired of Windows.

I think it makes sense though; the MacBooks have been making a lot of money for Apple, and are playing as big a role in Apple's record profits as the iPods have been.

I think Apple has always appreciated the value of the portable lineup, and they've had success with it for a long time, going back to the original PowerBook.

And really, the portable line was the biggest reason for the Intel switch; Apple saw the writing on the wall with the PowerPC chip, which was getting far behind without any sort of portable option, and the future was clearly in Intel's Core Duo CPU's.

-Zadillo

 

Whats with this 64-128bit nonsense in ATIs lineup? I'm thinking that the X2600s are both fine at 128bit, because the nvidia competitor is 128bit as well, but the X2400XT is a sitting duck. The 8400MGT will blow it out of the water with the 128bit memory and similar clocks.

 

well...considering the bad reps Vista has been getting, and the ability of Macs to run both Mac OS X and Windows, it's no wonder Mac marketshare has been steadily increasing over the past year. expect a significant boost in Mac sales this holiday season when Leopard comes out.

 

I misread the title and thought it said that Apple was taking 10% off laptops. I got very excited. I am now supremely disappointed.

 

lol that's what I read too!
in anycase I'm quite excited to see these new ATI cards, great news Chazzy

 

Me too! But that'd never happen.

ATI's line up looks very interesting. Hope it shows up in notebooks soon. Can't let nVidia hog all the limelight.

 

Hmm, I don't know. A lot of people seem to think that there are price drops in store for the MacBook line tomorrow. I personally think they should just drop the specs slightly and make it so that at least one laptop hit the $1000 price point for education pricing. I know the current one is only $1050, but college students are poor (the rich ones would go for the black one or the MBP, so yea), and that extra digit in there is a pretty intimidating factor.

 

It's really odd that in the desktop models, you see 128-bit memory bus all the way until the 2900 series which jumps to whopping 512. Hopefully there will be a product for filling in the gap at 256-bit. I would think both AMD's 2600 and Nvidia's 8600 deserve a "promotion" to 256-bit.

 

Isn't the HD2300 the same card that came out about a month ago and proved to be a relabled x1450?

-edit-
Just to clarify and answer my own question - ATI has both a X2300 and a HD2300 mobile GPU. As far as I can tell from the specs on ATI's website they are both the same GPU core. (a relabled x1450, R500 series, 90nm, etc) The only differece I see is that the HD model has Full H.264 and VC-1 decoder support where the X version does not.