News Bits: Dell Confirms AMD PCs, $100 Laptop in Thailand, Merom Power Consumption

Dell confirms AMD-based computers

Dell is expanding its relationship with AMD by launching Dimension desktop computers featuring AMD processors next month. Dell also plans to announce a two-socket and multi-processor server using AMD Opterons by the end of the year.

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Thai children first to get $100 laptop

Over 500 children in Thailand are expected to receive the $100 laptop in October and November for 'quality testing and debugging'.

The One Laptop Per Child program hopes to send out 5 to 7 million laptops to Thailand, Nigeria, Brazil, and Argentina in 2007. Thailand is expected to buy 1 million in the first year. The $100 laptop uses a free Linux operating system and flash memory in place of a hard drive. It runs on electricity created by a hand or foot pump.

Other countries, including China and Egypt, have expressed interest in the program, but India has not decided to take part in the first round.

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Yonah could be better than Merom for notebooks for power consumption

Although the Intel Merom (Core 2 Duo) processor will bring performance improvements over the Yonah (Core Duo), it won't run cooler as many had hoped. Currently, the top-of-the-line Core Duo processor, the T2700, has a TDP of 31W at 2.33GHz. All of the Core 2 Duos will have a TDP of 34W, even the lowest-end T5500 (1.66GHz). The 1.66GHz Core Duo T2300E, in comparison, has a TDP of 27W.

In battery mode, the Core 2 Duo processors downclock to 1.0GHz and 0.75V. However, the TDP is still 20W. The Core Duo downclocks to 1.0GHz and 0.95V in comparison, yet the TDP is 13.1W.

Intel is going to try to counter the thermal problems with Low Voltage and Ultra Low Voltage models. Apparently, Merom's advantage over Yonah is in performance only and not power consumption.

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Acer could outpace Toshiba in global notebook ranking in 2006

Acer's total volume of notebook orders is expected to surpass 8 million units this year, ahead of Toshiba's 7-8 million. In comparison, HP and Dell each have full-year orders of 11-12 million notebooks. Acer will likely become the third-largest brand this year, pushing Toshiba back to fourth place.

Toshiba has kept its 3rd place spot since Q4 2002, when Acer was in 6th place. Taiwan notebook makers consider HP to be Acer's major competitor, not Dell. Acer still has the lead over HP in Europe, thanks to their pricing advantage and order-to-ship period.

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Dell reports 51% earnings drop

Dell experienced yet another tough quarter in Q2. Although they were able to slightly increase their sales, they had a sharp decline in net earnings. Compared to last year, profits dropped from $1.02 billion to $502 million. Dell said in a press release that although aggressive pricing in a slower market resulted in a record market share of 19.3%, it also resulted in lower operating income, which was lower than its May expectations on similar revenue.

CEO Kevin Rollins said he was disappointed with the quarter result, but commented that Dell is taking steps to correct the mistakes (to put it bluntly). "Key actions include accelerating cost initiatives, increasing investments in service and support, and better pricing management."

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Apple releases MacBook SMC firmware update

Apple recently released an SMC firmware update which could rid MacBooks of the "moo" noises. The new firmware update "adjusts firmware behavior" in the MacBook according to Apple; the fan was identified as the cause of the noises. The firmware update also helps reduce the MacBooks overall temperature.

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ASmobile - new brand for Asustek-manufactured notebooks

Digitimes is reporting that Asustek Computer will introduce the "ASmobile" brand for the clone (whitebox) notebook market shortly. All of Asustek's clone notebooks will utilize the new brand after that. Sources say it will be released in Q4 2006. Asustek predicts shipments of 100,000 - 200,000 units in 2006, and more in 2007.

The purpose of the brand is to show more flexibility. ASmobile-branded notebooks will feature a slim and light-weight design. They are not targeted to compete in price wars. Asustek is aiming to repeat the success of ASRock-branded motherboards. ASmobile notebooks will not target the low-price segment, but more toward "value-added applications", such as DIY and desktop replacement segments.

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[p][B]Battery recalls could cost Sony $430m[/B] [p]Although Dell is suffering from bad press over the 4.1 million laptop battery recall, it looks like Sony, the maker of the batteries, will take the financial burden.[/p] [p]The recalled batteries could cost Sony close to $430 million according to speculation from analysts. The range of the costs will depend on whether or not the PC makers complain about gear supplied by Sony. Customers of Sony include HP, Apple, and Lenovo. The US Consumer Product Safety Commission is investigating other non-Dell products which use Sony batteries.[/p] [p]Dell doesn't expect to see any financial impact from the battery recall, but it could be hit with slower sales in the coming months. It has been spending millions to repair its image and boost sales.[/p] [p][URL=http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2006/08/16/sony_recall_cost/]Read More[/URL][/p][/p]

 

Merom power consumption... This is not good news at all. I'll be interested in knowing if anyone, especially vendors, have conducted or will conduct tests to either prove or disprove this bit. Because if performance increase comes at the cost of more power and more heat, for some users it will no longer be worth to have Merom in a notebook now.

C.

 

And Core Duo is already very hot!

Can someone who has a Merom test the CPU temperature?

I wasn't concerned about Core Duo's performance at all, instead I was concerned about the heat it generates--turion X2 is considerably cooler.

If Merom improves the performance at the cost of more heat, then that's bad news ...

I want a dual core but very portable notebook, but I just can't find any 12'' or 13'' Turion X2 laptop :S

 

you will either have to wait for the acer 1000 (forget the exact model number) or the go for the ms-1058.

 

I find it interesting that Bill Gates won't support the 100$ notebook project by giving free Windows (not that it is better than Linux by any measure, actually, its the reverse) but he claims to do a lot of charity work through his foundation, which got a LOT more money from Buffet recently.

I would think that it would be good marketing for Microsoft.

 

If I remember correctly, there were several websites who did reviews on the new core duo platform stated that the battery and overall performance including heat dissipation and all was a huge improvement over the Pentium M.

Now i have a Pentium M, a 9300i, and have had no heating problems whatsoever. Other than a potential battery explosion extravaganza, i dont foresee any problems whatsoever. Surely the core duo cant be that bad since its such a huge improvement over the old Pentium Ms.

I also remember those websites stating that the AMD mobile X2 battery performance was worse off than the core duo. So going the X2 route will not solve the problem for now.

My question is how bad are the heating problems with core duo laptops?

 

In all of the Core Duo laptops I've tested, I haven't had any heating issues - all of them ran quite cool, much like my current Pentium M 1.86GHz. The heat output with the Duo is of course a bit higher than the Pentium M, but that is understandable.

 

On HP DV2000, a Core Duo give about 3 hours battery life and a Turion X2 gives about 2 hours and a half. The difference is not that big (but not small either, its like a 20% battery life difference). But Turion X2 does run much cooler than Core Duos.

So, although Turion X2 has shorter battery life, it does run cooler than Core Duos.

 

If I remember correctely, the project managers did not allowed payed software in this program, even for free.

 

I don't recall hearing about a pattern of problems with Core Duo laptops. However, there is at least one high-profile laptop (the Macbook) which uses a Core Duo and has developed a reputation for heat problems.

It also seems to me that Core Duos are being put in a large number of surprisingly low-priced laptops nowadays (well under $1000 US). Perhaps some of these cheaper laptops are not so well designed for heat dissipation and are giving the Core Duo a bad reputation? Conversely, perhaps the rise of pricey laptops which serve as primary gaming systems is responsible? Any laptop which runs are top speed for hours will surely heat up, but laptops with high-powered (perhaps overclocked?) graphics cards and fast hard drives probably get extra hot. This type of laptop almost always has a Core Duo processor nowadays, of course.

 

Note that the heat problems of the MacBook seemed to actually be caused by other things; this news roundup actually includes the bit about the new firmware Apple just released for the MacBooks, which adjusts fan behavior; people who have applied the firmware update are reporting a drop of 10-15 degrees C in temperature....... so the problem really did not seem to be with the Core Duo processor itself.

 

Strange. I thought someone already proved the Core 2 Duo to have ~10% better battery life than Core Duo. It's an article at Tomshardware if I remember correctly.

 

Most of the reviews I have seen for the Core 2 Duo have had the same battery life as the Core Duo, give or take a few minutes.

 

Core Duo's don't run that hot..the T2300 in my E1405 hovers at 40C when browsing the web, watching dvds, MSN and listening to music.

 

maybe I should just get a Yonah and get it done with?

 

I'm a little confused about the Merom power consumption thing. I remember seeing benchmarks between Yonah and merom CPU's. In every benchmark the Merom did better INCLUDING battery benchmarks. It was only by 5-10 mins in each test. How do you explain this?

Also I thought the $100 notebooks were supposed to have a pull string. Instead of a hand crank.

 

Dell earnings dropped because its in a price war and no longer hold a spec sheet advantage over its competitors .

For example Toshiba 17" offers a 7900GTX for less then a Dell XPS , they have a model with 7900GS that competes with the inspiron e1705 , before that the e1705 was the best buy , now its not alone and more models are due in .

Dell should get there act togther and simply improve their notebook , they can lower prices and cut costs but If I'd rather spend some 500$ more on an improved model with a better screen , better style , better build etc .

 

The point here is not how hot Core Duos get, but how much hot ter Core 2 Duos will be and what their power management will look like. I, too, had seen benchmarks of slightly improved battery life with Merom, and this news thoroughly baffles me. Not that the source is entirely reliable, mind you, but still, it worries me.

C.

 

I just read the defenition of TDP, and I was wondering:

Since a processor with "x" Watts TDP dessipates the heat produced by "x" Watts of power, if Merom could operate, let's say "n" Watts below the "x", wouldn't it run much cooler? If it did, would "x-n" be the TDP?

Lol, I don't know if you guys can understand what I'm trying to say. Sorry if you can't - just no flaming please =)

--Amol.

And yes,I'm confused (=

 

Bearing in mind the tests people have done so far with the Merm and the Yonah, in my opinion it is acceptable to say that both CPUs have similar battery life. 5-10 mins extra really does not make a world of difference.

I disagree with the 1 child per laptop programme. Those "under-develouped countries could have spent the money on "Proper" education. Laptops may be fun for children, but they cannot learn as much as they can from a teacher from a laptop.

 

Amol: TDP is an upper bound only. It doesn't define how much heat a cpu dissipates, it states that if your heatsink can handle that amount of heat, you are safe.

They could say it had a TDP of 800W, and it would still technically be correct. You'd be safe with a heatsink that could manage dissipating 800W on your Core 2 Duo.

I think most of us have seen tests where a Merom-based notebook had similar (or a few minutes better) battery life than a Yonah. So what gives?

I think it's simply Intel playing it safe.
Let's assemble a few facts here.

Historically, they have always given a "fake" TDP.
When AMD reports a TDP for their CPU's, it is *at least* the maximum amount of heat the CPU can dissipate under full load. Sometimes it's higher still (because it's convenient to put the same TDP rating on the entire line of processors, even though the slower ones *could* get away with a lower TDP)

Intel has always given a TDP that is "the highest amount of heat you can expect to dissipate under *normal* operation".
With Intel's definition, it is possible to dissipate more heat than the TDP. Even by as much as 15%.

Next fact, some Core Duo notebooks have had heat problems, while others haven't. Some have gotten insanely hot, even. One obvious reason could be that the TDP reported by Intel is just too low. Notebook manufacturers can get away with a cheap fan that just lives up to the reported TDP, but can't keep up with the *real* heat dissipated by the CPU.
Result: Overheating. (And one obvious fix: Firmware update to make the fan run more aggressively)

Others have put in a better fan/heatsink to begin with, and have had no problems.

But clearly Intel's policy of reporting too low TDP's has backfired on them (they're just lucky most people blame Apple rather than Intel for this)

And so, what does Intel do? They can't really raise the TDP for Core Duo (because that'd cause confusion, and it would be the same as admitting they were wrong, which they don't like doing).

Instead, they do it with their next-gen CPU's. Merom might dissipate the same amount of heat, but it gets a higher TDP, because Intel doesn't want to be the cause of overheating laptops again.

The bottom line is, we have seen tests that show better performance *at the same level of battery life*
We also know that TDP is unrelated to power consumption.

First, aren't they given as charity? I didn't know the countries had to buy them on their own. Second, just where would they get "proper" education from? How many qualified teachers do they have? How many functioning schools? How many children can afford to go to school? And so on. Proper education isn't trivial to achieve in 3rd world countries.
(That's not a defense of the programme though. I'm not convinced it'll have much effect. I'm just saying they can't "just" spend the money on education instead and expect to get results either)

 

Well, the fact that the Macbook runs cooler when you turn the fans up is hardly a convincing argument that the Core Duo is not a hot running chip! One would also have to argue that the fans on the Macbook were turned down too far in the first place, which is hard to argue without assuming one's conclusion. After all, if it is not possible to turn the fans down too far, then this further suggests that the Core Duo runs hot... though of course there are surely other factors at play as well (the compact size of the Macbook, the heat generated by other components, and so on).

Meanwhile, peoples' perceptions of the Core Duo are still likely to be influenced by hearing about laptops like the Macbook.

 

Macbooks run hot because of the extra-thin chassis, poor cooling solution, and (I hear) heatsink not properly aligned with the CPU it's supposed to cool. Quite simply, Apple chose to have a thin and hot laptop, cool-looking but not cool.

C.

 

And if Intel had reported a higher, more accurate TDP for their processors, Apple would not have designed the Macbooks like that. Basically, Apple were told that the CPU's didn't need much cooling at all. (That's what the TDP means). So they designed a notebook to take advantage of that.

Apple made the design choice, yes, but they did so within the parameters Intel said were acceptable. If Intel reports a TDP that makes it possible to produce overheating notebooks, then Intel's TDP is wrong. And presumably that is what they are trying to fix now.

 

Perhaps...but is it beyond the ability of Apple engineers to test their own products and determine this themselves? Most other manufacturers seemed to have gotten it right. You can't really blame Intel for what other companies choose to do with their chips and the first generatin of Macbooks was bound to have some problems since switching from IBM to Intel was such a huge change.

 

Again, the problem was not really the fundamental design of the MacBook OR the processors themselves. It was clearly a problem with how the fans were set to work. As I mentioned earlier, with the simple firmware upgrade just released, MacBook owners are reporting 10-15 degree C drops in temp across the board, thanks to the improvements in fan behavior, and they are now running much cooler generally.

So again, I really don't think there's a fundamental problem with the Core Duo, and the problem with the MacBook had more to do with other things that were correctable.

 

The firmware update just made the fan to blow harder (it is not a bug fix), trust me. MacBooks get hot due to the sleek design.

There are core duo laptops whose fans never turn on under normal usage. (like XPS M1210 w/ an integrated GPU, but people generally complain that it is too thick--it is designed to dissipate heat from a dedicate GPU)

Also, I don't totally agree with Jalf. It is not totally Intel's fault. Apple definitely did lots of testing after they designed MacBook and they just figured out that sleek looking is more important than running cool. (And they are right, considering the amount of people attracted to MacBook).

The MacBook overheating problem became famous simply because more people switched to Apple. I own a PowerBook G4, it gets very hot at the bottom too. Occasionally, it also refuses to turn back on due to overheating. (It usually happens after I close the lid to make it sleep, and it goes into a very hot state and refuse to power back on.) But we were the minority who use apple PowerBooks, so we just lived with it ...

One time, I used my PowerBook on the carpet, and guess what, Kernal Panic duo to overheating. This never happans to my HP when I use it on the carpet. (Of course the HP has bulky design and the fan is just f***ing to loud). My solution is whenever I want to use my Apple on a carpet, I put the power adapter under it to raise its back a bit, and it works pretty well.

 

Apparently, yes...
I'm not particularly defending Apple here. They screwed up. But the way they screwed up was in assuming that Intel's specs were accurate. Naive, perhaps, but it's still something one *should* be able to rely on.

Oh yes I can. Because it is Intel who *tells* other companies what they can do with the chips.
That is exactly the *reason* they report TDP values. It is literally Intel saying "You guys don't need a big heatsink, because the chip won't dissipate more than these couple of watts.
Just like Intel states the required physical dimensions of the heatsink, or tells motherboard manufacturers what kind of voltages the CPU needs, how the pin layout works or the dozens and dozens of other specs.

When Intel reports invalid specs, it is Intel's fault.
And if another company doesn't doublecheck that their product works, even when they follow the given specs, then it's also their fault for being **** naive...

You mean the problem wouldn't have been solved with 1) a bigger heat sink, or 2) a cooler-running CPU? It could *only* be solved by turning the fan speed up?

Sorry, but you're getting a few things mixed up, such as the symptom, the cause and the cure.

Turning the fan speed up was Apple's solution for the problem. But the fundamental problem is still that the CPU generated more heat than they'd expected. What they had expected was the TDP value given by Intel.

Too low fan speed was *not* the problem. The problem was too high temperatures on the CPU. Raising the fan speed is one obvious way to fix it, but it's not the only one.

You still fail to understand what TDP *MEANS*.
It is not a value Intel gives so that consumers can go "my CPU is cooler than your CPU". It's not just some "nice to know" thing for consumers looking for the best notebook.

It is part of the specs for the CPU, part of the requirements for any manufacturer using the CPU. Motherboard manufacturers, heatsink manufacturers and notebook manufacturers all have to follow the TDP specs. They have to provide a cooling solution that can handle at least the amount of watts specified in the TDP.

Apple didn't choose that "screw the TDP, we want something that looks sleek", because no sane manufacturer would ever ignore the TDP.
What they decided was that "Hey, with such a low TDP, it's actually possible to make a sleek design like this". If they'd been given a higher TDP, they would have *had* to take it into consideration.

Intel is really saying "We guarantee the cpu will be stable if you provide a cooling solution able to handle the TDP". But it turns out it isn't stable after all. True, Apple should have spotted this when testing, but Intel should have reported accurate specs to begin with. They shouldn't have guaranteed things that weren't true.

 

There are some things everyone should know about Intel's TDP numbers. First, that is not an actual measured number for an individual machine - your mileage may vary. Second, it is the Average Thermal Dissipation, not the maximum. AMD TDP is the maximum. So, the consumer or anyone on this site cannot really compare AMD and Intel TDP numbers. Manufacturers also use TDP as a window for system builders. They build one system that can handle a range of CPUs, so TDP stated is often for the fastest processor expected to launch.

Merom includes more transistors and doubles Yonah's cache, and the manufacturing process is identitical, so of course it is going to use a little more power (power = heat in this case). Merom also includes a higher TDP, because Intel likely will clock it higher than Yonah, so they want manufacturers to give them the space in systems for that. I do believe Merom does have some ability to turn off unused parts of cache that the yonah did not have.

In opposition to Chaz, I also think notebooks are running too hot these days. There is a very big difference between a pentium M running full speed and a core duo running full speed. Today's machines also have more memory. The chipset uses more power too. Hard drives too. Even graphics cards are getting insane. I would not be surprised if the typical Merom notebook will have to dissipate 40% more heat than a pentium M of 3 years ago. Yes, cooling technology has improved, but you can just look at the wattage rating on your battery or your power supply to see that power requirement have jumped considerabley over the past 3 years.

The good news is that Intel's 45nm process and AMD's 65nm process are on the horizon. This change in manufacturing technology due next year could reduce the cpu power requirement by 30%. Hopefully Intel and AMD will start prioritize on power requirements, now that hardware has caught up with consumer software demands.

 

That is a very good point - Intel and AMD calculate TDP differently. I forget how Intel does it, but it's something like at 75% load and a few other factors.

How is what you said in opposition to what I said? Looks like you made a different point than I did.

 

sorry chaz, that should read: "i think notebooks are running too hot these days". pluck the errant "also" that makes my sentence a contradiction. by the way, it was only a few years ago that you could actually use a laptop on your lap (without requiring a heatshield).