"Inside AMD's next-generation mobile architecture: Griffin and Puma" - Ars Technica

"In 2008, AMD's next-generation mobile platform—codenamed "Puma"—will meet Intel head-on in the mobile market. Ars takes an in-depth look at what AMD will pit against the successor to Santa Rosa." - link

The CPU, codenamed "Griffin", is a K8-based dual core, not based on the quad core "Barcelona" architecture coming for servers and desktops. So there's pretty much no hope of matching Intel's "Penryn" in performance.

Seems like AMD is aiming for low power consumption and low cost. It's a gamble that could work if Puma is significantly more power thrifty than Montevina. And if CPU performances isn't too far behind, hybrid graphics would attract the more 'casual' gamer that doesn't want to sacrifice battery life for gaming.

 

Let me see if I get this right.. They support 14 USB 2.0 for a laptop??

 

Well the current AMD M690 and Intel 965 chipsets already support 10 USB 2.0, so what's four more?

 

It doesnt mean they have to use them all.

 

No ****?

*filler*

 

The more the merrier... We ll have the intel 80 core in our computer in the 5 years time

 

Does anyone know if the new Griffin processors will run in my F3T (which already has a k8 core)?

 

They fail. End of story. The current Athlon X2 CPUs can barely keep up with the Merom/Santa Rosa CPUs, much less the next generation 45nm Penryn processors, which reportedly offer 20-30% performance increase. Plus, those should have lower heat and power consumption.

AMD is screwed.

 

I wouldn't say that, but they are somehwat behind. It all depends on how there new architecture will do. Barcelona is expected to be released sometime in Q3 or Q4, and the mobile varient shouldn't be far behind. If it can offer good performance, and low power consumption, then AMD is still in the game.

 

Well, early testing is showing that K10 is 10% slower clock per clock vs Conroe (I think so, anyways. It was a Xeon proc, not sure what core it had), not to mention the 45nm Penryn units that are supposed to offer much better performance. So once again, it appears that AMD will need to rely on cost, but even there, they may not get far, with Intels dual cores starting at well under $100 (the E2140 is $80) and quads coming in at $260.

 

I know this sounds kinda crazy, but reusing the k8 core can actually be a win for AMD.

Here is what we know about Griffin(processor) and Puma(platform), they are probably not going to beat intel in terms of performance-per-watt if so, not by much, they are definitely not going to beat intel in terms of performance, however, they might offer longer battery life compared to intel based platform, and they will definitely be a lot cheaper than intel based notebooks.

If AMD's prices matches Griffin's relative performance to intel's penryn that is, if AMD prices their best Griffin lower or equal to the price for the slowest penryn, then we can see sub $300 dual core AMD notebooks. (I know this is a big 'if' but how can AMD justify charging competitive prices for their processor if their processor isn't competitive?)

Here's where it gets interesting, one of the features of Puma is the ability to switch from ATI dedicated GPU to integrated GPU on the fly. (PowerXPress) This means that we could see really cheap notebooks (~$500) with really good graphics and low power consumption all at the same time.

price, graphics, and battery life, it's a killer combo.

BTW, this is a classic case of McDonald's vs. El Bulli ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Restaurant_(magazine)_Top_50)