AMD lets the cat out of the bag

AMD IS ANNOUNCING the new brand for Puma/Griffin, Turion X2 Ultra, along with a few new CPUs that bear the name. There are also a bunch of new logos to go along with it.

OOXML means incompatibility and blurry logos
There are three new CPUs so far, the ZM-86 (2.4GHz/2M), ZM-82 (2.2GHz/1M), and ZM-80 (2.1GHz/1M), all are dual core and will be put under the Turion X2 Ultra brand. These will be followed by non-Ultra variants, and those sit atop the Athlons X2, which in turn look down on Semprons.

If we recall the Turion naming scheme, the second letter is the power efficiency.These obviously rank an 'M' on that scale, which is more efficient than the lower letters.

The CPUs themselves are the Griffin core we told you about months ago coupled with a mobile version of the 780G chipset. The two together were called Puma, but now are Turion X2 Ultra platform. The CPU is in the SLG2 638 pin package, and the package itself is lidless. The 780M runs at 500MHz, the same as the as the desktop variant. It is also HT3.0 capable, but since it is coupled with the Griffin CPU, that is pretty much a given.

Notebooks based on the new chips are aimed at the consumer and SMB markets, but not enterprise. The markets they are going after are the DTR and Thin & Light, defined as four pounds and over. The sub four-pound market is not targeted this time around.

The chipset does DX10.1, supports Hybrid Crossfire and Power on the broken OS, and has full HD video support. It gives nothing up to the 780G except a few watts. There are Me II and Linux drivers now, with XP following this summer.

Some other bits that the Puma platform brings is called Varibright, a marketing term for a light sensor that dims the screen with ambient light levels. Macs have had this for ages, and it will probably be everywhere in the near future.

The other thing that is new to the AMD mobile family is DASH1.1 manageability. This won't sway many people from Vpro, but it is a start for AMD notebooks. Last up is 802.11n, something that has been on AMD notebooks for a long time, but it is now the 'standard' even if the official standard is not fully baked.

In the end, the Ultra is a step up from the older Turions, a big step. The up-side is that it will win in just about every benchmark out there against it's older cousin. It will also stomp Intel's upcoming G45 in gaming and GPU-intensive tasks, likely in video applications as well. The down-side is where CPU or battery life is concerned, they will lose just as badly. Pick your poison.

The Turion Ultra parts should be more than good enough for consumers and SMB buyers. Large enterprise won't be swayed, but AMD isn't going there yet. It is a large step forward, but it won't challenge Montevina for business purchasing agents. µ