next generation Thinkpads/desktops to use AMD chips??

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chubes · #1 Post by **chubes** » Sun Feb 26, 2006 11:03 pm

I was in Office Depot two weeks ago talking to an employee over at the lenovo booth. Saw two Thinkpads, a Z60t and a T43.

Something really worth mentioning/discussing, he stated that the next R series, desktops, and possibly other laptop models will contain AMD chips instead of Intel. I asked him where he got this information and he told me the Lenovo representatives told him during one of their training sessions.

Has anyone else heard this, or have any information?

#2 Post by **K. Eng** » Mon Feb 27, 2006 5:27 pm

Possible for the R and G series, extremely unlikely for the T, X, and Z series.

AMD simply doesn't have anything that can compete with Intel's Core Duo, and it won't be cost or power effective for AMD to release a dual core notebook chip until they get their 65nm process running in volume. At the moment, they aren't scheduled to do so until the beginning of 2007.

croooowe · #3 Post by **croooowe** » Tue Feb 28, 2006 5:51 pm

Not sure about the Think lines containing AMD but the Lenovo branded desktops announced during the Olympics are AMD based.

ThinkPad R · #4 Post by **ThinkPad R** » Mon Mar 20, 2006 10:39 am

impossible. i hate AMD.

christopher_wolf · #5 Post by **christopher_wolf** » Mon Mar 20, 2006 1:07 pm

Before I actually get an AMD based laptop; I would like to see their Performance/Watt go up. In this regard, Intel is still far ahead. Inded, there are certain AMD laptops out there that can almost get battery life close to my Thinkpad, but they have significantly larger battery apcks and border on desktop replacement machines. It wouldn't be bad, but then again I don't want to have to worry too much about battery life.

It would be nice if there were some PPC based Thinkpads; IBM tried this way back too. Perhaps the new Cell processor will also have a feature in laptops, it is already expected to have significant advantages.

#6 Post by **K. Eng** » Mon Mar 20, 2006 4:57 pm

I doubt that Cell will find its way into notebooks anytime soon. Cell does poorly compared to x86 and x64 chips in single threaded (vast majority) of code. There was a huge debate on this at Ars Technica, with the consensus being that the general purpose cores in the Cell have poor performance because of their extra long pipelines, weak execution resources, and comparatively weak branch predictors.

Where I can see Cell is as an add-on for scientific applications.

christopher_wolf wrote:It would be nice if there were some PPC based Thinkpads; IBM tried this way back too. Perhaps the new Cell processor will also have a feature in laptops, it is already expected to have significant advantages.

christopher_wolf · #7 Post by **christopher_wolf** » Mon Mar 20, 2006 8:22 pm

K. Eng wrote:I doubt that Cell will find its way into notebooks anytime soon. Cell does poorly compared to x86 and x64 chips in single threaded (vast majority) of code. There was a huge debate on this at Ars Technica, with the consensus being that the general purpose cores in the Cell have poor performance because of their extra long pipelines, weak execution resources, and comparatively weak branch predictors.

Where I can see Cell is as an add-on for scientific applications.

christopher_wolf wrote:It would be nice if there were some PPC based Thinkpads; IBM tried this way back too. Perhaps the new Cell processor will also have a feature in laptops, it is already expected to have significant advantages.

Good thing to point out K. Eng; I wasn't thinking of it as a primary processor in a T4X Series machine; rather, I was thinking of it for something like an ultra-poratble/handheld tablet that could be used much like a PDA but with more flexiblity and a large amount of raw basic connectivity with other machines.

IBM hasn't had something like that for a long, long time. I guess that I am thinking of something along the lines of the old IBM Thinkpad T700 Tablet Series or the Apple Newton.

simms · #8 Post by **simms** » Mon Apr 10, 2006 10:35 pm

I believe the Turion 64 Duo Cores can compete with the Duals now offered by Intel...

christopher_wolf · #9 Post by **christopher_wolf** » Tue Apr 11, 2006 12:42 am

It would still have to be able to do that whilst being power efficient; so far, the only way I have gotten a Turion to last almost as long as my Thinkpad is to put a huge battery pack on it.

They will get there, the question is whether or not they can catch up with Intel in terms of performance per watt and market share in the mobile computing sector.

next generation Thinkpads/desktops to use AMD chips??

next generation Thinkpads/desktops to use AMD chips??

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