Montevina notebooks - watch your configuration

THE LONG AWAITED Intel Montevina notebooks are finally shipping - full HD graphics with improved 3-D fits well with FSB1066 and DDR3-1066 memory, all feeding a 3+ GHz dual core CPU or, soon 2.5+ GHz quad core, the first on a laptop. At least, high-end setups have the DDR3 here, and it does help in some cases.

Interestingly, DDR3 - despite its slightly high latency on standard modules - does help quite a bit in integrated 3-D graphics performance, as it provides a lot more spare bandwidth for the IGP to do its work without fighting with the CPU FSB data transfers.

So, a dual-channel DDR3-1066 memory subsystem in a Montevina, with two CL6 DIMMs, would provide twice the theoretical bandwidth than the CPUs FSB can take, giving quite a headroom to the IGP. Even a dual-channel DDR2-667 CL4 setup would still be somewhat above FSB's peak capacity. Not to mention that some extreme Montevina notebooks will offer the capability to go FSB1333 and matching mobile DDR3-1333 SO-DIMM memory too.

Again, for the integrated 3-D performance, the memory configuration will substantially affect what you get.

We took a look at some sample Montevina notebooks the other day - we won't mention the vendor name, but let's say they were configured for the press and the channel. Usually, that would mean a set-up fine tuned for the best benchmark results, more so than those you'd find in the shops?

Unfortunately... not. Two of the notebooks I opened had – horror of horrors – only one DIMM inside! Worse, this was DDR2-667 CL5 memory. Basically, a situation in which the delivery configuration starved even the CPU FSB, not to mention the 3-D IGP competing for that same memory.

Let's say you are a typical (not exactly technical) press hack for one of the "generic" IT papers, and you get one of those for a so called review.

Fine, you run 3Dmark06 or Vantage or Quake 4 or whatever, without knowing that the memory system inside is at... oh let's say one third of its optimal performance. What kind of score would you get? We'll hazard a guess at 'far from optimal'.

What happens then? If the hack in question doesn't open the system and discover the half-hearted memory, very literally, he might just blame the platform for "not delivering what it promises".

Worse is that, I suspect, lots of sales configurations will end up the same way. Again, sometimes the saving of using one DIMM only has higher priority than configuring the system to its full potential or maximising the benchmark scores.

So, my dear prospective Montevina (or Santa Rosa or Puma) buyers, make sure the memory is filled properly - in any case, with Vista, you may end up requiring 4 GB, i.e. two modules, just to avoid disk swapping in Microsoft Word... hah.

And yeah, you'll optimise your integrated 3-D along the way. µ