Notebook PC battle lines change in 2003

Although AMD is expected to introduce notebook CPUs based on its "Hammer" technology in 2003, the current X86 cock crowing on the dunghill is the Intel Corporation, which has a range of chips for practically every sector of the market.

It's even inventing sectors of the market -- and capitalising on the rise and rise of the "desknote" by recommending cheap and cheerful desktop Celeron CPUs for notebooks late next year.

If Intel is the cock of the notebook north, and AMD is a bit player, Transmeta and Via are in the shade of the hill, with market shares that we find hard to even quantify.

And it's all change on the Intel roadmap early in the new year, meaning that if you sell or if you're buying notebooks with Intel chips inside, you'll have to tread carefully, or you'll step into a nightmare, to garble WB Yeats.

Why? Well Intel has more notebook options than you can shake a stick at, some of which rely on the introduction of its Banias chip in the first quarter of 2003 - which probably means March.

Banias and Dothan chip chop
Slated as a "performance" notebook processor, Intel is forced to drop the familiar old Megahertz Myth for this new chip, allegedly built from the ground up.

The Megahertz Myth is that the faster the frequency of a chip inside a PC, the better your notebook is. Unfortunately for people buying notebooks, hardware sites don't in general take as much notice of comparisons between chips in portable machines as they do of desktop CPUs.

During 2003, Intel wants to gradually displace its current flagship mobile chip, the Intel Pentium 4M, and get rid of that pesky but extremely useful Pentium III-M.

The "Banias" chip, its codename for a .13µ (micron) processor uses a different chipset from both its other notebook processors, has support for 802.11b and dual band "wi-fi" and will be displaced in the third quarter of next year by a chip using a 90 nanometer .09µ (micron) process which is codenamed Dothan.

Until it makes those chips so, the Banias processor will not fly along at very high frequencies, but Dothan will scale much better and Intel reckons this type of architecture will be good for 18 months stability, no major changes are needed in its chipset infrastructure to do the process shuffle.

The most recent roadmaps we've seen show that Banias will top out at 1.60GHz at launch, use a 400MHz front side bus, and have 1MB of cache on board. By Q2 it will have inched to 1.70GHz, and it won't be until the fourth quarter that we'll see its successor Dothan exceed 1.80GHz - and with an astounding 2MB of cache on board. Other clock speeds for Banias will include 1.50GHz, 1.40GHz and 1.30GHz at launch, while there will be a low voltage 1.10GHz and an ultra low voltage 900MHz Banias chip.

Look. You aint' gonna get something for nothing. You will have to pay more for notebooks using Banias chips, and don't expect an answer to your question about why megahertz is important for the Pentium 4M but not for this new chip. It's 'cos it's better? OK?

As well as being the "performance" notebook chip, Intel is touting its wireless 802.11x Calexico kits with these chips. Cnet recently suggested that it might encounter delays with these in the US because of wireless regulatory laws. If the USA is a problem, how much more so the UK and "the rest of Europe" as the Brits call our co-EU members, particularly given the problems Chipzilla has already had this year with 802.11x.

Banias will support its own integrated graphics using the 855GM chipset and will also offer the 855PM for Banias first, which will use third party graphics chipsets. Yes, you've got it, it wants a chunk of the integrated graphics market too.

Don't ask Intel why we won't see Banias and Dothan chips in desktops. It knows the answer, but it won't say. The answer is the more product lines there are, the more segmentation there is, the more types of machines there are, the more the gravy train doesn't get derailed. OK?

We might see them in "Blade" servers in times to come, we'd venture...

OK, so what about the Pentium 4M chip chop?
In what has to be one of the neatest sleight of hand moves Intel has made for three years, not only will the chip giant sell its brand new shiny Banias "performance" notebook CPUs, but it will also push its Pentium 4M notebook chips to higher speeds and invoke several marchitecture buzz words to fox and outwit us all.

By the fourth quarter of 2003, Intel will be pushing a Pentium 4M faster than 3.06GHz, using the 90 nanometer process that it calls "Prescott" and with 1MB of level two cache, and then it will invoke the "hyperthreading mantra" to launch an HT notebook either in that quarter or early in 2004.

By then, we'll have Pentium 4M notebook chips available at speeds of 2.4GHz, 2.66GHz, 2.80GHz and 3.06GHz - the first, the 2.40GHz is expected to launch early next year.

In June 2003, it's expecting to launch he 852GME chipset and with some "portability" processors to match that, using the P4 design.

Will Intel introduce hyperthreading early for the Pentium 4M mobile chips? Well, if it wants to..

OK, OK. So what about these pesky Pentium III-Ms
They live on, is the answer, at least until the second quarter of next year, and perhaps longer. The current highest speed of the Mobile Intel Pentium III Processor M - to give it its proper name, is 1.33GHz, on a 130 nanometer process, with 512K cache and at the most a 133MHz system bus (which Intel calls the portable system bus).

On the low voltage level, the PIII-M tops out at 1GHz, and on the ultra low voltage level the 933MHz.

Alright. OK. But what the heck about Celeron notebook chips
I thought you'd never ask. By Q2 of 2003 these should fly along at 2.20GHz and be aimed at value notebooks costing around $1,500.

In Q3 Intel will have 2.40GHz Celeron chips and by Q4 over 2.40GHz. These Celerons are .13 micron babies with 400MHz cores, 128K of level two cache and a core voltage at 1.525 volts.

These are not, not mobile Celerons. They are desktop Celerons aimed at the desknote market. Intel will call them transportable notebooks - i.e., they're thick, they're heavy - but they'll be stinking cheap.

Another interesting sleight of hand on Chipzilla's behalf.

Prices, prices....
On the 12th of January the Pentium III-M will cost $241 and the 933MHz Pentium III-M $198, the 933MHz Pentium III-M ULV $209, and that's the price of the 900MHz ULV as well.

In March, the first 1.10GHz low voltage Banias will cost $262, while the 900MHz ultra low voltage Banias will cost $241. This is interesting, eh? It means Intel is trying to topple its Pentium III-M low voltage chips just as soon as it can.

Intel is pricing its notebook chips $15 over desktop CPUs, is separating its mobile notebook intros from the desktop pricing, and if it starts playing the Hyperthreading card with the Pentium 4M, it will add $15 compared to non-HT notebook chips, and a cool $30 over non HT 533MHz front side bus desktops.