AMD Turion

[leedog2007]

do you think it can compete with centrino?

 

[Amaroque]

So far, it looks good.

But until there are some current real world benchmarks (not a year old A64 comparison), it's too early to give an objective opinion. What will be interesting is power consumption compared to a Dothan.

 

[leedog2007]

It appears the Turion comsumes more (3 to 13) than the Centrino, but that is according to Intel's numbers.

 

[Vette73]

Originally posted by: leedog2007
It appears the Turion comsumes more (3 to 13) than the Centrino, but that is according to Intel's numbers.

But that is ONLY how much the CPU eats up. Also the AMD chip has the memory controller on the CPU the intel one still have to power up the memory controller on the board. So with that they are probable not far off each other.

 

[leedog2007]

so lets call that 1-2W, so their roughly even if the lower consuming Turion can match the centrino.

 

[Rock Hydra]

As I posted in the article comments. If the Turion is more like the A64, then it will be a more balanced performing chip than the Pentium M.

 

[Bateluer]

I think it will vary, AMD is much more lax with Turion than Intel is with Centrino. You'll see Turion notebooks with different chipsets and LAN controllers.

 

[gobucks]

i like the turion. It looks promising, and if they can actually ADVERTISE, then they could have a winner on their hands. Of course, knowing AMD, they'll probably stick to plastering logos on Lance armstrong and taking out an occasional magazine ad, rather than TV/Radio, which actually gets results, in which case they'll be relegated to a few models of HP and emachines notebooks, and that's it. I hope AMD can avoid this fate, but every time AMD comes up with a great product, they self-destruct, gaining virtually no marketshare during the huge stretch when they are in the lead, then losing marketshare and money when Intel gets their act together, so I'm not gonna get my hopes up.

Anyways, I think AMD has its work cut out for it. Next gen PM chips will be even better, with better platform technologies, improved floating point performance, x86-64 (eventually), and a much better dual core solution than the initial pentium D that is due out this year (PD is kind of a hack job, with 2 separate cores fused together, likely being little better than a dual processor solution, whereas Yonah (PM) and dual core A64s will have shared cache and other interconnects to enable them to perform better than dual processors). The dual core fight will definitely be one to watch.

 

[n7]

Unfortunately, i don't think the Turion is a Centrino killer.

Intel has done a remarkable job of converting their masses from believing MHz is god to believing Centrino is god.

I think the Turion will likely outperform the Pentium-M on average, but in terms of battery life & efficiency, i think the Pentium-M is still gonna be king.

 

[fbrdphreak]

Check out this thread for pretty much any Turion info you might want.

Right now it looks like Turion is basically a Mobile A64 that is binned to run at the lower voltages. If you look at benchmarks comparing Mobile A64's to Centrino, you should have a really good idea of the performance between the two. Battery life is looking to be comparable. What I'm interested to see is how much power Turion uses at its minimum clock speed. The 533MHz FSB Dothans use almost 11W at 800MHz; if Turion can meet or beat this we have a potential heir to the throne here. Turion should also be priced lower: the CPU's are priced MUCH more competitively and with an open array of chipset & wifi manufacturers, OEM's have a great opportunity to sell Turion notebooks @ a lower MSRP than Centrino notebooks. My $0.02

 

[Rock Hydra]

Out of this my concern is the chipset platform and how well that's going to translate into combination of performance and function.

 

[fbrdphreak]

Check out this this news post to see two of the three currently announced Turion chipsets. ATI's existing Radeon XPress 200M also supports Turion.
I'm hoping that existing socket 754 motherboards might also support Turion. Can we say killer OCing????

 

[Accord99]

Originally posted by: fbrdphreak
The 533MHz FSB Dothans use almost 11W at 800MHz; if Turion can meet or beat this we have a potential heir to the throne here.

Which I doubt, since the 2GHz Dothan has been measured at 16W power consumption running Prime95. Nor is that value all that important since either processor would have stepped up to a higher clock level. The idle power is important and there are Dothan notebooks that don't use much more than 11W at idle total.

 

[fbrdphreak]

Um, thanks for restating exactly what I said. :roll:

 

[Accord99]

Originally posted by: fbrdphreak
Um, thanks for restating exactly what I said. :roll:

Dothan B doesn't use 11W at 800MHz, considering the ULV 1.1GHz has a TDP of 5W with a higher voltage and the 755 Dothan has been measured at 16W power consumption.

 

[fbrdphreak]

Originally posted by: Accord99

Originally posted by: fbrdphreak
Um, thanks for restating exactly what I said. :roll:

Dothan B doesn't use 11W at 800MHz, considering the ULV 1.1GHz has a TDP of 5W with a higher voltage and the 755 Dothan has been measured at 16W power consumption.

Open this PDF
Go to page 60
Read Chart that says "Core Frequency & Voltage" --> 800MHz
"Thermal Design Power" --> 10.8W
Thanks for playing

Edit: Link Fixed

 

[Accord99]

Originally posted by: fbrdphreak
Go to page 60
Read Chart that says "Core Frequency & Voltage" --> 800MHz
"Thermal Design Power" --> 10.8W
Thanks for playing

Edit: Link Fixed

It's a cautious design specification, much like how the 730-760 all have a TDP of 27W even though none of them come close to it. Or much like the Winchester's have a min P-state TDP of 21W even though they shouldn't use much more than 30W at full power.