I believe they will drop lower power parts later on. But realistically a 1.2GHz chip will not power most laptops.
It depends on the use of the laptop. It will be insufficient for people who use a laptop as a desktop (should have gotten a desktop instead IMNSHO, but...) Those who use a laptop solely as a laptop don't need much processor power but need a long battery life, a reasonable size, weight, and cost. How much power do you need to use a word processor, Web browser, e-mail client, music player, or a spreadsheet? My laptop's ancient Mobile P4-M does just fine while hard-throttled at 1.2 GHz. I'm sure a modern 1.2 GHz chip is significantly faster than the old P4-M.
As you said only the sub-notebook will get those.
Unfortunately, yes. What I don't understand is why the low-voltage chips don't see wider usage. Intel has the 13.1-15 W Core Duo LV series that runs on up to about 1.86 GHz, which is much faster than the 1.07-1.20 GHz ULV versions. I have seen only one notebook that even uses the LV chips- the Lenovo ThinkPad X60s. All of the rest of the "thin and light" computers use the regular 31-35 W chips. This makes their battery life no better than my big old laptop and run just as hot or hotter, too.
The current Turions are at 31-35W at 90nm so if you lok at the Windsor to Brisbane, Brisbane is about 27% better (65W/89W) so the 2.1Hz model shold clip the 20W range and the 2.4GHz will replace the 2.0GHz model at 35W.
The increase in clock speeds while holding TDPs steady is good, but I hope that AMD doesn't just raise the entire line's clock speeds to keep the same TDP values. I'd buy a Turion 64 X2 1.6 GHz unit with a TDP in the low 20s over a 2.0 GHz one with a 30 W TDP in a heartbeat.
I'm using a 1.6GHz Turion to write this and it's plenty fast. I can imagine what an 800MHz increase will do.
It will make it approximately 50% faster. But even as you say, a 1.6 GHz Turion is plenty powerful. Which is why I'd like to see them keep some lower-clockspeed chips with a low TDP for those of us that like smaller notebooks that don't roast our thighs and have a good battery life.
BTW, if someone wants to make ANY CPU POST about a forum rather than a CPU, there is nothing I can do. I don't believe in walking on egg shells, I'd RATHER fight about it.
I generally like to keep it technical and that generally only happens when the partisans are quiet. Anything to keep them quiet is good, even if it means letting some stuff slide. Ideally, the mods would pounce on junk and kill the flames before they hit the dynamite shack, but there are literally thousands of posts for them to wade through.
Well, not really but don't try to find out.
I don't try to start fights. I will very occasionally call out the most egregious errors of an extremely hard-core fanboy, but mostly just to get the whole truth out there for the benefit of some members who might not know what's really going on.
Anyway, this is a good sign as Ed StrollinHo from Overclockers was just complaining about them not being around.
A lot of us are wondering where they were. It's been what, 6 months since the first 65 nm desktop parts shipped? I know that AMD has a limited 65 nm fab capacity and plenty of 90, but laptop parts pretty much ONLY benefit from process shrinks as the TDPs are pretty well capped. Maybe they found that they'd do better financially in doing Brisbanes over 65 nm Turions- I don't know. Call up Dr. Ruiz if you want a reason
I just wish they were in a positon to release the mobile K10 now and get rid of 90nm Turions.
The 90 nm Turions will be gotten rid of once the 65 nm ones ship. But I'd expect the K10 to go to the laptops last. Laptops are very sensitive to power draw and not as sensitive to performance while desktops don't care about power draw but performance is a must. The K10 is also a more complicated chip with more transistors than the K8 duals are, so at equivalent clocks and power states, they will draw more power. Sure, there are neat power-saving features in the K10 that will do well on notebooks (2 power planes, independently-clocked cores and IMC) but these will certainly require a chipset refresh as well. Notebook chipsets generally lag behind desktop chipsets as well, and probably for the same thermal and packaging issues that slow the CPU transition too.
I am eagerly awaiting the next round of notebooks to ship as mine's on its last legs. I'm in the market for a smaller one- ~12"- so the low TDPs are foremost on my mind. The rest of 2007 should be interesting from both manufacturers, as well as putting current models on enough of a sale for me to buy at a deep discount.