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Directly competing with Intel's Core Duo, the new Turion X2's are supposed to pack quite a punch

Ramp up in processor production from both AMD and Intel has been healthy for the last several months, with a good amount of units being shipped from both companies. AMD has never been better, shipping solid quantities of processors throughout the channel.

On May 9th, AMD is poised to announce an enitre family of new Turion X2 64 processors. According to datasheets, AMD will be releasing seven different flavors of Turions with the entry-level unit starting at 1.6GHz and the flagship topping out at 2.2GHz with 2MB of L2 cache.

The new CPUs will also come in low-voltage flavors for the mobile market, in which the new CPUs will be directly competing with Intel's Core Duo mobile processors. Traditionally, Intel has been ahead of the game when it comes to the mobile market.  AMD, however, is hoping to gain more marketshare, similar in the way it has done with the desktop market. According to AMD, more Turion flavors will come after the initial seven are released in May.

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Good stuff from AMD
By psychobriggsy on 3/22/2006 2:19:20 PM , Rating: 2
They're making quite good progress on the power front.

The 25W dual-core Turion X2s (1.6GHz and 1.8GHz at launch) and the 35W Turion X2s (2.0GHz and 2.2GHz) should pack plenty of power, with 64-bit capability. With Merom expected to consume a little more power than Yonah, which is at 31W TDP currently, the fight should be quite fair, and come down to cost.

I don't think that many people would ever have thought that AMD would make 25W dual-core processors on 90nm at quite reasonable clock speeds!




RE: Good stuff from AMD
By Goty on 3/22/2006 3:09:52 PM , Rating: 2
Didn't I read somewhere (maybe it was here) that even the current Turion's can actually get better battery life than the Pentium-M processors under some conditions? If so, it really WILL be a good battle in the mobile market.

Y'know what they say, too: "Competition leads to innovation."


RE: Good stuff from AMD
By Samus on 3/22/2006 3:27:56 PM , Rating: 2
Well, in comparison of a Sempron to a Celeron M laptop, the Semprons consistently get better battery life because PowerNow clocks the processor more efficiently than Speedstep. However, the Celeron clock-for-clock usually edges the Sempron in performance, even with its measly cache, because the Dothan architecture still works pretty well on tiny cache sizes (unlike NetBurst architecture)


RE: Good stuff from AMD
By Araemo on 3/22/2006 3:33:54 PM , Rating: 2
Celeron-M's don't include speedstep.

Farking ripoff, if you ask me... but Intel has to give extra value to their Pentium M's somehow. ;P

Comparing a Sempron to a Pentium M is a fairer comparison, as long as overall system specs and price are similar. The celeron Ms are a joke.


RE: Good stuff from AMD
By Araemo on 3/22/2006 3:34:36 PM , Rating: 2
Mind you, I'm referring to the pentium-m based celeron-m's, I have no clue if the 'mobile celerons' based on netburst have speedstep.


RE: Good stuff from AMD
By stupid on 3/22/2006 3:55:17 PM , Rating: 2
From what I recall, when idling or doing very low processor intensive tasks like using Excel or Word, a Pentium M will have better battery life than a comparable Turion. However, the tables are turned when the CPU is doing a moderate amount of work like watching a DivX or DVD movie. In this situation the Turion would end up lasting longer than the Pentium M.

Under high load, like gaming, I really don't have any idea. I think difference in battery life at idle, and moderate load was between 10 - 20 minutes when favoring either CPU.


RE: Good stuff from AMD
By goldenratio on 3/23/2006 5:43:54 AM , Rating: 2
power consumption will be the biggest problem for Turion X2.
with current 90nm process & little Arichtecture modification, the Turion X2 power consumption will rise a lot. Battery life will be Turion X2's nightmare.


AM2
By latrosicarius on 3/22/2006 4:01:24 PM , Rating: 2
The AM2 socket will be out on June 6, I wonder if these Turions will work for this.




RE: AM2
By JackPack on 3/22/2006 4:31:46 PM , Rating: 2
Socket S1


RE: AM2
By sumyungai on 3/22/2006 5:10:18 PM , Rating: 2
Keep in mind, the article that showed current Turions fairing similar battery life is being compared to a Pentium M using DDR2. Imagine how the Turion battery life will perform once socket AM2 comes out with the Turion using low voltage DDR2 as well.


64 bit is important
By peternelson on 3/22/2006 8:35:43 PM , Rating: 2
True, Turions are cool.

In my opinion a strong USP for this chip is the 64 bit capability. With this they have a strong reason to buy it rather than coresolo/coreduo.

Intel will have a 64 bit competitor much later, whereas AMD have shipping 64 bit mobile now.

I think S1 socket may not be restricted to laptops, but also found in blade servers and SFF desktop/media pcs.




RE: 64 bit is important
By AlexWade on 3/22/2006 9:01:31 PM , Rating: 2
I was considering buying a new Core laptop, but it wasn't 64-bit. If the Turion has a good battary life, bye bye Core. That is the main selling point in a laptop.


RE: 64 bit is important
By Furen on 3/23/2006 1:06:27 AM , Rating: 2
I doubt we'll see this in blade servers, at least not in its current form. Socket S1 does not have pins for the HT links from the crossbar to other CPUs, so it would not work in a multi-socket environment. Also, considering that AMD can just make Socket F Opterons with this power envelope (if it desires to do so. Socket F HE Dual-cores will have a 65W power envelope, but only so Quad-cores fit the same TDP when they come out) there's not much point to introducing yet another socket to SIs... the same can be said about the desktop. Intel introduced Yonah onto servers because it had NOTHING even remotely similar to it for lower-power servers. Manufacturers segments markets for a reason (better profits) and undermining this segmentation is not very smart.


What socket do these use?
By broly8877 on 3/22/2006 7:09:51 PM , Rating: 2
Possible to pop these in a desktop board?




RE: What socket do these use?
By lazybum131 on 3/22/2006 8:17:07 PM , Rating: 2
Socket S1, there would need to be desktop boards specifically for S1 or adapters.


By oTAL (blog) on 3/22/2006 2:17:15 PM , Rating: 2
It's definetly time for more Turion options to start showing up... I prefer the AMD processors, but usually the intel platforms are better suited for most ppl who ask me for advice. It's time for more and better AMD platforms to appear...




By Anemone on 3/22/2006 8:16:38 PM , Rating: 2
AMD will be raising the bar. We all know what's coming but Merom isn't realistically going to be here till Nov at the earliest, so that leaves 6 months for AMD to demonstrate how it "should be done" I'm hoping. Nvidia chipsets, which is nice to see, and the potential for less heat producing SLI are all things that simply change the market potential for laptops in general.

Performance, heat, power consumption all remain to be seen, but if they turn out well and we have some solid product designs, this will help bring some much needed competition to the mobile arena. And while not immediately needed, the little "it is already 64 bit no need to wait for Merom" plug to the ads ought to be good for consumers.

Nice news indeed




May 9 is a ways away .. .
By DanaGoyette on 3/23/2006 4:16:53 PM , Rating: 2
... and it will take even longer for retail availability.

Dang, I want one now!




"If you look at the last five years, if you look at what major innovations have occurred in computing technology, every single one of them came from AMD. Not a single innovation came from Intel." -- AMD CEO Hector Ruiz in 2007









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