X-bit labs

ATI Updates Mobile Lineup with Performance Mainstream VPU.

Category: Mobile

by Anton Shilov

[ 01/19/2005 | 08:03 PM ]

ATI Technologies unveiled Wednesday its new visual processing units that brings unprecedented performance to thin-and-light notebooks – the MOBILITY RADEON X700. Numerous notebook makers adopted the novelty immediately.

ATI MOBILITY RADEON X700 is based on the RADEON X800 architecture, but is made using 0.11 micron process technology and, unlike desktop RADEON X800 partsl, feature 128-bit memory bus. The new mobile visual processing unit sports 8 pixel and 6 vertex pipelines and operates at 350MHz. The MOBILITY RADEON X700 is intended for notebooks with PCI Express x16 interconnection and will be available in various form-factors, including MCM, AXIOM and, if a customer demands, in NVIDIA-developed MXM form-factor.

The latest performance-mainstream mobile chips from ATI Technologies naturally support all the capabilities found in the RADEON X700 and RADEON X800 visual processing units for desktops, such as Shade Model 2.0b, 3Dc and other. Besides, the newcomer sports ATI’s HYPERMEMORY technology that allows VPU to use system memory as a buffer for graphics data.

ATI remained tight-lipped over thermal envelope of the MOBILITY RADEON X700, but said the chip features POWERPLAY technology designed to reduce power consumption. Additionally, 0.11 micron process technology and relatively low 350MHz/700MHz clock-speeds for core/memory are likely to allow the MOBILITY RADEON X700 to easily fit into very thin and light notebooks featuring Intel's recently unveiled Sonoma platform.

ATI MOBILITY RADEON X700 technology will be adopted by many of the industry’s top OEM and ODM designers including Acer, Arima, Asus, Alienware, BenQ, Clevo, Compal, ECS, Eurocom, Fujitsu, Fujitsu-Siemens, Gateway Inc, Inventec, Lenovo, LG, Medion, MSI, Samsung, Sony, Targa, Toshiba and Uniwill .