X-bit labs

AMD to Offer New Mobile PC Technology "Turion".

Category: Mobile

by Anton Shilov

[ 01/07/2005 | 08:07 AM ]

After securing competitive positions in the desktops and servers, Advanced Micro Devices, the world’s second largest manufacturer of x86 microprocessors, who has been lagging behind Intel Corp.in mobiles, is preparing the onslaught to the mobile market with its new mobile 64-bit technology called Turion.

“AMD is announcing that it plans to introduce a new family of simultaneous 32- and 64-bit PC processors uniquely optimized for mobility, to be named AMD Turion 64 mobile technology,” a spokesperson for Advanced Micro Devices said.

AMD Turion 64 Mobile Technology is designed for thin-and-light notebooks that boast with ultimately low power consumption, size and weight. While users of thin-and-light notebooks are not that concerned about performance than owners of mainstream and full-size laptops, AMD still wants to offer them 64-bit capability, something that is not available on the Centrino platforms from the arch-rival Intel Corp..

“Turion 64 is uniquely optimized to deliver industry-leading AMD64 performance in thin and light notebook PCs that run fast with long battery life,” the spokesperson for AMD said.

At this time AMD does not discuss peculiarities of its Turion 64 Mobile Technology. Actual products are expected to ship this Summer, but at this time AMD does not comment on their performance and feature-set. Furthermore, it is unclear, whether AMD, like Intel Corp., proposes certain special components to form the Turion platform, or allows its notebook customers to brand notebooks as Turion whenever they use appropriate central processing unit.

“More details about these new products will be available in the first half of 2005 when systems are expected to become available,” the official added.

At this point it is unclear, which advantages, apart from 64-bit capability, possible Enhanced Virus Protection and relatively high performance AMD wants to offer.

AMD’s rival Intel Corp. is about to unveil its new generation Intel Centrino mobile platform code-named Sonoma, which is focused on bringing high-end multimedia and technology features, such as PCI Express, DDR2 memory, DirectX 9.0 graphics, high-definition audio, etc..