It has been a long time since ATI, graphics product group of Advanced Micro Devices, released a high-performance graphics chip for mobile computers. But the wait seems to be over as ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3850 is apparently approaching the market.

Diamond Multimedia, a producer of multimedia components, and Smooth Creations, a maker of custom computers with custom design, have announced Smooth Creations “Broodling” notebook that includes, among other things, ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3850 graphics card, which has not been announced yet. It is highly likely that inclusion of the product into a laptop means imminent official announcement and availability of ATI’s new mobile flagship graphics processing unit (GPU).

The Smooth Creations Broodling notebook is powered by quad-core Intel Core 2 processor Extreme Edition 9770, Diamond Mobile Viper Radeon HD 3850 graphics card, 4GB of dual-channel DDR2 memory from GSkill and is equipped with Western Digital Caviar SE16 hard drive, DVD burner and so on. Pricing of the system is unclear, but it should vary since consumers may install other components, for example, change processor or graphics adapter.

Specifications of ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3850 graphics card were not announced, however, the desktop version of the model 3850 features 320 unified shader processors (SPs), 16 texture units (TUs), 16 render back ends (RBEs) and 256-bit memory controller. ATI Radeon HD 3850 clocks GPU at 668MHz and sports 256MB GDDR3 memory at 1656MHz. ATI Radeon HD 3000-series GPUs support a breed of advanced technologies, including DirectX 10.1 feature-set, Avivo HD and UVD (universal video decoding) video engines for decoding and post-processing of high-definition videos.

The Broodling notebook from Smooth Creations comes not only with formidable performance inside, but also with rather scary custom design on the outside.

“We’ve been developing these custom painted cases for years and this notebook is testament of Smooth Creations commitment to bring a completely outside of the desktop approach as a notebook solution,” said Jim Saling, president and chief executive of Smooth Creations.

In addition, Diamond Multimedia and Smooth Creations said that dual-processor notebooks were also in the works.

“Today, Smooth Creations decided to merge and unite gamers, enthusiasts, and professionals with a single solution Mobile platform that is scalable, robust, and powerful. The next round of high performance notebooks could very possible be a Skulltrail Notebook. And we are already working on that,” said Mario Gastelum, lead engineer at Diamond Multimedia.