Athlon 64 for notebooks - Not Quite Desktop, Not Quite Mobile

There has been some confusion, as a result of Athlon 64 designation for mobile products. Voodoo’s M:855 are shipping with AMD Athlon 64 DTR (desktop replacement) 3200+. This is not the same as the desktop versions, as the DTR version has a few gate improvements, which is supposed to provide for better thermal and power characteristics compared to its desktop big brother.

The DTR version of Athlon 64 (pictured below) is clearly not intended for anything other than desktop replacement notebooks, as that is the reason behind the appropriate naming. The thermal and power characteristics are very close to what we have seen on the desktop Athlon 64 parts, and DTR, for its name sake, only features minimal improvements in this department.

Voodoo Envy M:855 - Athlon 64 DTR 3200+

The physical markings on the DTR CPU should be the same as the desktop version, but they clearly will be marketed as two different products. From our recent talks with AMD and our own use of the Voodoo Envy M:855, we gather that Windows XP and processor identification tools should show the DTR versions the same as the desktop versions.

We should clearly note that AMD has upcoming Athlon 64 mobile processors for systems of the thin and light variety, but this is an entirely different product, which should have further announcements in the near future.

Voodoo Envy M:855 – Hexing up a Storm Mobility Radeon 9600 Pro - OverDrive?
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  • Madcat207 - Tuesday, November 4, 2003 - link

    No offence, but bad review.

    The Voodoo was put up against no real competition, so of course it won. Why did anandtech not bother with getting a Sager 5680 or 8890 to compare with, since those are P4 machines with real 9600 pros....
  • TheInvincibleMustard - Tuesday, November 4, 2003 - link

    1) Is it hard to have the product in question (ie, the one being reviewed) highlighted in some way on the graphs? It can't be that hard to do the bar in red or whatever. Granted, when comparing the M10 to the Go5650, there's not as much sense, but when comparing 10 or so CPU's it'd sure be nice to quickly identify what stands where.

    2) Should the X2 performance scores with 4xAA/8xAF be taken with a grain of salt? Why does the M10 increase approx 25% going from 1024x768 to 1280x1024 ... ?
  • Adul - Tuesday, November 4, 2003 - link

    The battery life performance will come in part 2 of this review.
  • AlexWade - Tuesday, November 4, 2003 - link

    Deat AT:

    What is the battery life on this notebook? I but notebooks based on battery life, not performence.

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