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Missing Mike ...

Yesterday was the last day of CeBIT 2001, the world's largest computer show, held in Hannover, Germany. I have to apologize for the fact that CeBIT has slowed things down a bit, but by now the 5-man CeBIT team of Tom's Hardware has finally returned and is getting back to its usual business.

For me personally, CeBIT is not just a newsworthy event, but most useful to keep up highly important contacts and to meet colleagues from all over the world. Unfortunately, one highly respected journalist was sadly missed this year. Forced by his medical condition, our colleague Mike Magee from The Register was absent from CeBIT for the fist time in 15 years. Mike is recuperating from a heart attack and awaiting a triple bypass operation. I would like to take the opportunity to send Mike my warmest regards and sympathies, joined by the vast majority of IT journalists all around the globe. We have missed you dearly and hope to have you back soon.

That's how we remember Mike. Jolly, irreverent, cynical, occasionally caustic, and permanently smoking. Well, Mike, you better give up those fags*!
*British (or rather 'proper English') slang for 'cigarettes'.

Some of you might be aware of the fact that there has been a recent disagreement between Mike and The Register and in the heat of the moment Mike started his own website, The Inquirer. I would like to assure you however, that both parties are currently working on a friendly solution and I personally hope to see Mike back at friendly terms with The Register soon. There is nothing more to tell about this situation. It's a personal issue between Mike and The Register, which doesn't belong into public.

AMD

For hardware journalists CeBIT's halls no. 13 and 9 were the most important. In the hall with the unlucky number 13 you can traditionally find CPU, chipset and motherboard makers. The AMD booth was one of the first I visited. While AMD didn't have any really big news, we still learned a saw quite a few interesting new things.

Thunderbird Faster Than Initially Expected

If you read our recent review of AMD's new Athlon 1300 and 1333 processor, you will certainly remember me mentioning the fact that Athlon's current Thunderbird core is reaching higher clock speeds than expected in the first place. Most Athlon 1333 samples tested around the globe were easily able to run at 1466 MHz without the requirement of a core voltage increase, showing that the current Thunderbird-core is at least good for this clock speed as well. AMD was just as surprised about those excellent yields and will therefore wait with the release of the Palomino-core until its higher clock speeds yields are required.

Latest Roadmap

The just mentioned fact and a few other things resulted in a change of AMD's roadmap:

The first Athlon processors with Palomino core will be seen in the mobile as well as the dual-processor arena. Palomino does not come with any major improvements over Thunderbird. Its main differences to Thunderbird will be the implementation of a thermal protection, reduced power consumption and thus heat dissipation as well as fine-tuned SMP (multi-processing) capabilities. Besides those well-known changes we will see some tweaks here and there, ensuring better and slightly faster operation than the current Thunderbirds. Palomino will still be manufactured using a .18 micron process, but with an advanced copper technology, which might be one of the reasons for Palomino's lower power consumption.

The Palomino-core looks a bit different than Thunderbird. The core is square, and it seems to have a larger surface area. This could possibly be a sign that this Palomino (picture taken from the dual processor display system) comes with more L2-cache than Thunderbird. The good news about Palomino is that it does not require a different socket. AMD wouldn't give us a clear answer regarding its core voltage, but it will most certainly stay within the limits of the voltage regulators of current SocketA motherboards. AMD is planning to launch Palomino at speeds beyond 1.5 GHz, since Thunderbird is obviously able to cover speeds up to 1466 MHz at least. The Palomino shown by AMD ran at 1533 MHz, but it seems more sensible to release it at 1.6 GHz later this year.

Mobile Duron and Athlon/Palomino

Finally AMD seems to be ready to introduce its Athlon/Duron processors to the mobile arena. The first mobile Duron processors are available now. The 600 MHz version costs a mere $75 and the Mobile Duron 700 MHz comes for $123. As you can see in the roadmap above, Mobile Athlon, using the Palomino core, will join Mobile Duron shortly. Later on this year the 'Morgan' core will replace the current Duron core, again first introduced to the mobile area. All of AMD's mobile processors will feature 'PowerNow!', which is AMD's own version of Intel's 'SpeedStep', running the processor at a lower clock to save power when the mobile device is operating on batteries. Different to SpeedStep however, PowerNow! comes with 4 or more different 'performance states', depending on the performance and the amount of energy saving that is required by the mobile user, making it more flexible than Intel's SpeedStep. AMD claims that PowerNow! is able to extend battery life up to 30%, while the different 'performance states' are able to deliver 'performance on demand'.

AMD showed us their mobile reference platform using the ALi MaGIK1 chipset. AMD considers VIA's KT133A chipset as an alternative for mobile devices as well. We were told that a SiS chipset would also be possible, but right now AMD doesn't seem to count on it.

AMD's mobile reference platform is perfect to test different notebook devices. You can easily spot the ALi chipset and the SO-DIMM memory modules in the background.

Athlon Finally Goes Dual

Well, not quite yet, but we are pretty close. Rumor has it that Dual-Athlon platforms will finally become available in May/June 2001. The picture below shows AMD's showcase dual CPU system with AMD760MP chipset.

What looks like a K6 processor is the actual AMD762 north bridge. You can see the two Palomino Athlon's as well. The system ran at 1 GHz, which is a sign that AMD doesn't support dual processing at high speeds such as 1.5 GHz yet. We will see how it will come out once the chipset is ready. The motherboard is Tyan's upcoming dual-Athlon board, which was also shown at Tyan's booth in hall 9.

It is also important to note that dual-Athlon systems are supposed to use Palomino-Athlons. AMD did not exactly say that current Thunderbird-Athlons wouldn't work with the 760MP chipset, but they neither said that it would work. The official term goes like "multi-processing will only be validated with Palomino". We've heard that before from Intel, when Celeron was also 'not validated' and thus not supposed to run in dual configuration, alas it did. It is still bad news however, that owners of current Athlon processors won't get any support from AMD if they should like to stick their CPU into a dual-Athlon motherboard.

AMD760 (Single) Chipset Remains

Information from the majority of Taiwanese motherboard makers has recently made it sound as if AMD is planning to discontinue AMD760, the by far best performing DDR-chipset for Athlon. As a result many hardware journalists complained about this crazy move and even Tom's Hardware Germany posted a motherboard review of AMD760-motherboards with the title 'Stillbirth'. We asked AMD if there was indeed the plan to discontinue AMD760, which would leave the DDR-arena to the rather poor performing Athlon chipsets ALi MaGiK1 and VIA Apollo KT266. The AMD spokesman was genuinely surprised to hear this news and promised to find out why the Taiwanese guys are claiming AMD760 was about to disappear. It may be a fact that AMD has problem to deliver enough quantities of 760 chipsets, but the product will be continued.

Intel

Intel is still saving money and thus you could find only one Intel booth in hall 11, the networking hall. Well, after all Intel is a 'netbursting' company these days, so why having another booth in hall 13 with all those pathetic processor makers? Ah, yes, Intel still makes some microprocessors though. I guess Intel's CeBIT organizers must have forgotten this minor point. In the past Intel's hall 13 booth was the shiniest and largest, while they had one in hall 11 as well. Today one must do. That's the trade winds of our time.

In this networking booth (that is still lacking the nouvelle cuisine of past years, what a shame!) Intel showed an air-cooled Pentium 4 running at 2 GHz. This has to be taken as a sign that we've got to expect faster P4 processors very soon. It won't be long until Intel will release Pentium 4 1.7 GHz and 2 GHz seem to be possible with the P4-Willamette core as well, before 'Northwood' and Socket478 will replace the current Pentium 4 for Socket423.

Foster, Willamette's workstation/server brother, that will probably be christened 'Pentium 4 Xeon' is due out soon too. It's not quite clear how many versions Intel will release initially. 'Foster' will run in Socket603 (coming with 603 pins, would you have guessed it?) and might initially only be available without third-level cache, just as the normal Pentium 4 for the masses. However, it may be that we will see Foster with 512 kB L3-cache soon as well. Tyan and Supermicro were displaying Foster boards with the i860 chipset at their booths.

'Tualatin', the next Pentium III core, is still meant to be 'on track' as well. It's supposed to debut at 1.26 GHz in a few months from now, but that would mean Intel gets the current Pentium III core 'Coppermine' to 1.13 GHz. I doubt that Intel will risk another unsuccessful attempt at that speed and expect that Tualatin as well as 'Coppermine-T' will debut at 1.13 GHz. This new-generation P3 won't have any particularly noteworthy performance features, but it will require less power and produce less heat. At the same time it will require a modified chipset. Don't worry if you should fail to see the sense of this future release of an unexciting processor that requires new platforms. You are in good company. The only sense in Tualatin that I can see is that it is targeted to take the place of Celeron in the 'value' segment, while Pentium 4 is supposed to rule the performance systems.

VIA

I guess I am feeling a bit sorry for poor Richard, Shane and Andreas who where on duty at VIA's hall 13 booth for the entire CeBIT-week. Each journalist that came by asked the same question: "Why is Apollo KT266 soo slow?" Well, we learned that this is neither Richard's, nor Shane's or Andreas' fault.

In fact, I shouldn't even talk about it as long as we haven't even posted our first review of VIA's new DDR-chipset for Athlon. Now that the word is out, let me say that in some tests Apollo KT266 with DDR is currently even slower than Apollo KT133A with PC133 SDR. We will see if performance will finally improve, but we know that VIA is not able to explain it right now, leaving AMD760 as the only real performance chipset for Athlon and DDR.

African Cuisine

However, let me apologize. I shouldn't have started the VIA section with negative news. First of all it should be said that this year VIA's CeBIT booth was the largest booth that this company ever had at any show. It shows VIA's success and I would like to congratulate. I'd also like to thank VIA for giving us journalists a very special treat.

On Friday night we were taken out to a funky African restaurant and I learned what crocodile tail, zebra and antelope steak taste like. I refrained from trying the rattlesnake dish, but only because I wasn't able to eat all those different things on one evening, honestly! Anyway, good idea VIA! Thanks! Crocodile tail is actually pretty cool, while I am not as much of a fan of zebra.

OK, guess I've annoyed you enough, let's get back to the bizz news.

ITX - VIA's New Motherboard Form Factor

After myriads of motherboard form factors that were all introduced by Intel, VIA has now kicked off a form factor of their own, called 'ITX'. This very small-footprint motherboard design is meant to be used in set top boxes and book size PCs and might therefore not be too interesting to the ones of you who build up their own systems. OEMs might want to have a look at it though, as it enables the construction of very small and highly integrated value PCs.

The board measures only 215x191 mm2 and comes with VIA's Apollo PLE133 chipset, including integrated AGP graphics (surprisingly enough Trident's Blade3D and not VIA-S3) and audio. Its Socket370 should typically host VIA's new C3 processor. The ITX-form factor is designed for onboard TV-out and IEEE1394. It has only got one PCI and one ACR slot. The other connectors are: 3 audio jacks, four USB-ports, one optional parallel port, keyboard/mouse ports (PS2), two TV-out ports, one optional S/PDIF out, one 1394 port. Modem and Ethernet are realized with an ACR-card for the ACR-slot.

VIA claims that this motherboard design enables systems at price points of $200-500.

VIA's New C3 Processor

Finally Samuel 2 is out and VIA decided to change its name from 'CyrixIII' to a mere 'C3'. This new CPU features 128 kB L1 and 64 kB on-die and full-speed L2-cache. The die is manufactured using a .15-micron process and extremely tiny with only 52 mm2, which is just about half the size of an AMD Duron-die. The tiny fellow runs at only 1.5 V core-voltage and has an extremely low power consumption as well as heat dissipation, making cooling fans obsolete. We haven't tested the new C3 yet, but VIA claims it is able to compete well against Celeron in office and Internet applications.

Initially VIA will supply the C3 at 733 MHz, but 750 and 800 MHz are already waiting on the doorstep. The C3 733 will cost a mere $54 in 1k quantities and thus be very attractive for low-cost solutions. While the performance-hungry of you might not be exactly amazed about this announcement, other markets are highly welcoming this chip. VIA has become extremely successful in the Asian market, particularly in India, where the brand 'Intel' is almost unknown. The market in China and India consists of no less than 2 billion people, so you can see that VIA's strategy is quite clever.

Reincarnation Of The WebPad

You may remember Comdex 1998, when I raged about the smart idea behind Cyrix's WebPad. The idea was simple. A little pad with a TFT touch screen and wireless connection to the Internet could be taken everywhere in your house, enabling you to browse the web, read news or do shopping from the comfort of your couch. A docking station with keyboard would allow using the WebPad for office work and recharging the batteries of the little fellow.

We have come a long way since 1998 and VIA has taken over Cyrix's idea. They presented their new version of a WebPad at CeBIT. It comes with full-blown PC specs, using a C3-processor with integrated north brigde and integrated graphics, 64 MB SDRAM, a 800x600 TFT touch screen and 802.11b wireless networking. A VIA technician demonstrated the WebPad, displaying a movie running off the server, but you can use it perfectly for all kind of web browsing as well, or emailing once you use the additional wireless keyboard.

I can't help it, but I still love the idea. The only complaint I have is that the unit was still a bit on the heavy side, making it rather clumsy. It is a step in the right direction though and as I was walking around hall 13 I saw a myriad of custom WebPad designs from almost each larger Taiwanese motherboard maker.

Asetek

The Danish super-cooling supplier Asetek could be found in hall 2, displaying a 'vapochilled' Pentium 4 system running at 2 GHz. The Asus P4T-motherboard used in this system allows a PCI clock divider of 4 and AGP clock divider of 2, thus allowing this system to offer a PCI clock of 33 and an AGP-clock of 66 MHz, while the front side bus of the Pentium 4 2 GHz ran at 133 MHz (533 MHz quad pumped). Even the RDRAM clock remained within spec at 400 MHz. We will review this new contender for the THG PowerBox very soon.

The Rest

NVIDIA finally released the first official GeForce3 drivers on the first day of CeBIT and I have to apologize that we haven't posted our GeForce3 benchmarking article yet, but CeBIT came in between. It's almost finished and will go up very shortly. Hall 9, the multi media hall was full of GeForce3-stuff, as all the major graphics cards makers are now offering their GeForce3 solutions.

Kyro2 4500 is also under testing in our labs right now. Videologic and Hercules/Guillemot were showing their Kyro2-solutions at CeBIT. The manufacturer of this 3D-chip seems to be afraid of us, which is why STMicroelectronics never supplied us with a review sample. We have got a sample now and following my old tradition, I will make sure to scrutinize Kyro2 to find what STMicroelectronics was trying to hide from us.

Two new things seemed ubiquitous at CeBIT2001. Wireless networking products using 802.11 could be found virtually everywhere. Intel's lower-end BlueTooth-technology was not seen as much. Right now the 11 Mbit/s fast 802.11-devices are still rather expensive, but I am sure that prices will come down soon. It's a very attractive technology as it enables wireless networking all around a building.

The other thing that could be found almost at every hardware maker's booth, especially from Taiwan, was PDAs. In the second half of 2001 we can expect a tough price battle and a huge amount of different hand held devices to choose from.

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