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Zacate 11.6" laptop now available from HP

!!! i want one!

i cant wait to see offerings from asus and even acer with these chips. these will make atom netbooks obsolete. i think i know what im doing with a chunk of my tax money.
 
veri745 said:
I wasn't expecting to see actual products before Feb.
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No kidding, based on the leaked slide. Guess the cat was out of the bag.

I'm liking the specs. 3.5 pounds and 9.5 hours battery (maybe 6 hours in real life? 😵 ), plus comes with 7200RPM drive and capable of 8GB RAM and comes with 64-bit OS. All for $450! Wow! Kicks the butt of all my thin/light purchases previously. Now that's progress.
 
sawtx said:
I've been thinking of getting one when I saw HP started selling it. I've seen one review which showed the CPU is much faster than a dual core Atom, beat out the Asus 1215N at WoW using native res, and had some impressive battery life.

http://www.laptopmag.com/review/laptops/hp-pavilion-dm1.aspx#axzz1AgHnL4GM
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Thanks for the link.

I don't like how they only have "Category Average" in the performance charts - what the hell does that even mean? You need to actually click into the page with full comparisons to get meaningful data.
 
Not only now available, but free shipping and $25 off code slickdeals25 (thanks SD).
 
Zap said:
No kidding, based on the leaked slide. Guess the cat was out of the bag.

I'm liking the specs. 3.5 pounds and 9.5 hours battery (maybe 6 hours in real life? 😵 ), plus comes with 7200RPM drive and capable of 8GB RAM and comes with 64-bit OS. All for $450! Wow! Kicks the butt of all my thin/light purchases previously. Now that's progress.
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I wonder what the screen quality is like. With those specs and at that price, something's gotta give.
 
sawtx said:
I've been thinking of getting one when I saw HP started selling it. I've seen one review which showed the CPU is much faster than a dual core Atom, beat out the Asus 1215N at WoW using native res, and had some impressive battery life.

http://www.laptopmag.com/review/laptops/hp-pavilion-dm1.aspx#axzz1AgHnL4GM
Click to expand...

I must say, I'm disappointed by the 3D performance. To fall behind the Atom powered competition seems pretty poor, considering how CPU limited the Atom+ION combo is known to be.

I'm not sure what I was expecting exactly, but the way I see it, the GPU is worse than nVidia ION, and the CPU is slower than the Athlon Neo at the same clock (based on the CPU-based tests vs the Lenovo x100e), albeit not by too much I suppose.

This is not the pocket-sized gaming box I was hoping for. At least, I don't think so. . .would like to see some more detailed benchmarks on games I understand. Sometimes I wish the notebook review sites would just say "This laptop is as fast as a <$desktop chip$> with a <$Geforce N$> graphics card." I haven't a clue what 24fps in WoW translates to in anything I actually play.
 
WildW said:
I must say, I'm disappointed by the 3D performance. To fall behind the Atom powered competition seems pretty poor, considering how CPU limited the Atom+ION combo is known to be.

I'm not sure what I was expecting exactly, but the way I see it, the GPU is worse than nVidia ION, and the CPU is slower than the Athlon Neo at the same clock (based on the CPU-based tests vs the Lenovo x100e), albeit not by too much I suppose.

This is not the pocket-sized gaming box I was hoping for. At least, I don't think so. . .would like to see some more detailed benchmarks on games I understand. Sometimes I wish the notebook review sites would just say "This laptop is as fast as a <$desktop chip$> with a <$Geforce N$> graphics card." I haven't a clue what 24fps in WoW translates to in anything I actually play.
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I don't really think this was ever meant to be a chip/netbook for gameplaying, you would have to go with that small Alienware laptop for a small laptop for gaming. This would be for surfing the web and doing normal tasks, though it would probably be a good box for something like Onlive.

The thing I don't know about is how they benchmarked WoW as they have two very different results, it falls behind Ion in their autodetect test but is superior in their native resolution test and then to make matters worse they quote different numbers for recommended settings than what was in either benchmark. I would wait on someone else for gaming benches where they quote specific settings and compare more games, if you are thinking about using it as a game machine.

I did end up ordering it with 4GB of RAM and used that $25 off coupon (thanks Zap), though it won't ship till the 21st.
 
core 2 duo + ion = suck (macbook air) so i'm not sure where you guys think anything less will be cool.

not everything can be accelerated by gpu. and then there is the heat issue. everyone is taking it easy (aka aggressive downclock) to prevent another nvidia gpu nightmare (hp ahem).

so while you might get speed - that doesn't mean speed will last. think turbo-boost. might last a benchmark - then clock itself down but several hours of gaming? better have a block of ice under the unit lol
 
Emulex said:
core 2 duo + ion = suck (macbook air) so i'm not sure where you guys think anything less will be cool.

not everything can be accelerated by gpu. and then there is the heat issue. everyone is taking it easy (aka aggressive downclock) to prevent another nvidia gpu nightmare (hp ahem).

so while you might get speed - that doesn't mean speed will last. think turbo-boost. might last a benchmark - then clock itself down but several hours of gaming? better have a block of ice under the unit lol
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If you read the review you would see they had absolutely no problem with temperatures so I don't know where that temperature rant came from.
 
Bateluer said:
Doesn't seem like a bad machine, but pricey though. I'll hold out until there's a few more models on the market.
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Pricey? I would have killed for that price on an 11.6" laptop with 6+ hours of battery life and decent graphics performance when I was in the market for a laptop at the beginning of 2010.

As it was, I ended up paying over $800 for an ASUS UL80Vt. I have been pleased with its performance and battery life, but for a $350+ discount, I would definitely buy the Zacate system if I needed a new lappy now.
 
Has there been any mention anywhere about overclocking opportunities with Zacate? You'd think that a chip that's only pulling 18W and that runs as cool as it does, there'd be some headroom to push them a bit faster. I know some of the Atom netbooks, mine included, have built in overclocking capabilities.
 
I think this is a good product, but I will admit I was hoping for something that hung with the core2duo-ish (pentium dual cores, you know conroe based or whatever) units while packing the punch of the ion graphics. Before your options were atom+ion, which had a shit cpu and probably more graphics power than was reasonable, those 1.2ish core units that came with the craptastic hd4500 GMA and the AMD solutions (nile? congo?) that was a better balance but worse in both cpu and graphics by a bit, in addition to having unexciting battery life.

The new one I would say is a step up since the battery life is under control, but I was greedy and hoped for something like the ion+core 11" netbook with great battery life that never was going to happen. Its still probably the best matchup in this space I think.
 
I still like where the Core i3 ultraportables sit, like my Acer 1830t, which was $550 after cashback/etc about 4-5 months ago.

-The integrated graphics can handle older non-FPS games like Civ IV just fine. Do you really need to play Crysis while waiting for a flight at the airport or whatever?

-The CPU is about 50% faster than that HP

-I've gotten 7 hrs from the battery (using office apps), more like 3.5 when gaming or watching movies though

-I dropped in a 64GB Crucial C300 SSD, and I can honestly say that Windows 7/Office 2010 is snappier on my 1.2 Ghz dual-core ultraportable than my 4 Ghz quad core desktop with its Velociraptor HDD

The Atom netbooks have about the same processing power as the newest smartphones, and 10.1" is too small for a useful keyboard. 11.6", 3 lbs is the sweet spot right now between portability, usability, performance, and price, IMHO.
 
WildW said:
I must say, I'm disappointed by the 3D performance. To fall behind the Atom powered competition seems pretty poor, considering how CPU limited the Atom+ION combo is known to be.

I'm not sure what I was expecting exactly, but the way I see it, the GPU is worse than nVidia ION.
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Could this be a driver issue?

Zacate has 90 Gigaflops of GPU whereas NG-Ion (GT218 downclocked to 475 Mhz) has 54 Gigaflops.
 
Computer Bottleneck said:
Could this be a driver issue?

Zacate has 90 Gigaflops of GPU whereas NG-Ion (GT218 downclocked to 475 Mhz) has 54 Gigaflops.
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I suspect it could just be the craptastic benchmarking on that site, the other big option is that it's a memory bandwith issue. Remember, the 2 Bobcat cores and that monster of an IGP are all sharing a single channel memory link. It's possible that the stronger CPU is taking up more of that link than the Atom is.

Also, remember that the GPU in there is stil a 5XXX series design using VLIW5. AMD has admitted that with VLIW5 they were seeing something like 65&#37; usage of the theoretical GFLOPS in real life scenerios. And, despite improvements, WoW still favors Nvidia hardware.

Just to note, Memory bandwith limitations can be very severe on IGPs. With my netbook, there are some games where switching between the stock 400mhz GPU speed and my 700mhz OC doesn't do much of anything, and I've got 800mhz DDR2 in dual channel. (Civ5, I'm looking at you)
 
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maniac5999 said:
I suspect it could just be the craptastic benchmarking on that site, the other big option is that it's a memory bandwith issue. Remember, the 2 Bobcat cores and that monster of an IGP are all sharing a single channel memory link. It's possible that the stronger CPU is taking up more of that link than the Atom is.

Also, remember that the GPU in there is stil a 5XXX series design using VLIW5. AMD has admitted that with VLIW5 they were seeing something like 65% usage of the theoretical GFLOPS in real life scenerios. And, despite improvements, WoW still favors Nvidia hardware.

Just to note, Memory bandwith limitations can be very severe on IGPs. With my netbook, there are some games where switching between the stock 400mhz GPU speed and my 700mhz OC doesn't do much of anything, and I've got 800mhz DDR2 in dual channel. (Civ5, I'm looking at you)
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Thanks for the explanation.

It will be interesting to see how the memory bandwidth factors in.

I know at least one of the Gigabyte Zacate Mini-ITX boards allows overclocking of the memory to 1800 Mhz (from 1333 Mhz).
 
PingSpike said:
I think this is a good product, but I will admit I was hoping for something that hung with the core2duo-ish (pentium dual cores, you know conroe based or whatever) units while packing the punch of the ion graphics. Before your options were atom+ion, which had a shit cpu and probably more graphics power than was reasonable, those 1.2ish core units that came with the craptastic hd4500 GMA and the AMD solutions (nile? congo?) that was a better balance but worse in both cpu and graphics by a bit, in addition to having unexciting battery life.

The new one I would say is a step up since the battery life is under control, but I was greedy and hoped for something like the ion+core 11" netbook with great battery life that never was going to happen. Its still probably the best matchup in this space I think.
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This. I think this is where my hopes/expectations were. I guess you just can't squeeze that down into 18W. It's early days yet - I'm looking forward to seeing some proper benchmarks for Zacate before writing it off.

Are there "regular" mobile chips coming too? (Llano?) Perhaps that will be more like what we were hoping for. If they can squeeze one down into an 11" or so, we could be in business.
 
WildW said:
Are there "regular" mobile chips coming too? (Llano?) Perhaps that will be more like what we were hoping for. If they can squeeze one down into an 11" or so, we could be in business.
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I doubt we'll see Llano in an 11.6" form factor, but it should have a great deal more graphics power behind it than Zacate. I'm thinking a 14" gamer.
 
WildW said:
This. I think this is where my hopes/expectations were. I guess you just can't squeeze that down into 18W. It's early days yet - I'm looking forward to seeing some proper benchmarks for Zacate before writing it off.

Are there "regular" mobile chips coming too? (Llano?) Perhaps that will be more like what we were hoping for. If they can squeeze one down into an 11" or so, we could be in business.
Click to expand...

There is a AMD Sabine Llano that is a 20 watt dual core.
 
maniac is right about the memory bandwidth in my experience. I don't know all the factors behind it, but I did some testing with my own hardware and you pretty much have to balance up the bandwidth to the core speed of the gpu because extra core speed without the bandwidth to drive it does almost nothing. When I was going to buy a hd3200 netbook awhile back I was trying to get a feel for its performance in RtCW which wasn't really benchmarked much on different hardware. I happened to have an old single core AMD machine and a x1300 and I dropped the memory speed on it down to what I thought the HD3200 would have in a netbook. The performance hit was pretty brutal even without touching the core speed, which wasn't much of a surprise. It was disappointing though when I got the netbook with an hd3200 and found the results were almost identical to my crappy simulated test, even though it was a different generation of hardware.

The x1300 (mine had onboard memory) is actually a decent low end board, but when you drop the memory bandwidth down it really kills it. There were a lot of x1300 parts that used system memory or something and I imagine they performed just as bad.

Anyway, to bring it back to the topic at hand...IGPs are always going to be hamstrung if they use system ram because even with dual channel (using two sticks of ram in the netbook had a noticable impact on 3dmark performance, something like 15-20&#37; IIRC) there just isn't the level of bandwidth needed to get the performance of even a low end desktop part. The only solution to this it would seem would be to integrate memory onto the IGP itself, which more or less makes it a discrete solution and kind of defeats the purpose anyway.
 
So this means that Fusion and indeed any APU is doomed to be awful unless we start seeing much much faster memory bandwidth?
 
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