ATi’s Radeon IGP320M Chipset A New Chance For Athlon Notebooks – THG.RU

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A New Chance For Athlon Notebooks” –>

Market Share vs. Market Awareness

The article first appeared in Tom’s Hard News Email Newsletter

Do you own a notebook with an AMD processor? Today AMD is supposed to have a market share of almost 40% in the US mobile market. This is definitely a respectable number. However, when you look around, it seems awfully hard to find the notebooks responsible for this number. The large OEMs especially don’t seem to carry a whole lot of AMD-based laptops. Toshiba, Dell, Gateway and Micron don’t offer any AMD-based notebooks at all, while Compaq, HP and Sony do indeed carry a small number of Mobile Athlon processor-based models, but all of them are of the low-end/ low-price consumer type. The message seems clear: if you require a notebook good enough for business or if you want your laptop to be of above-average performance, forget about Mobile Athlon.

Now, it might be fair to say that it is exactly those inexpensive consumer notebooks that sell well, or that sell in large numbers, thus explaining AMD’s 40% market share claim. However, it is very hard to earn merits with products of this kind. Look at the publications that do those run-of-the-mill kind of notebook reviews and you will find an utter lack of reviews of notebooks with AMD processors. I guess this is the reason why that 40% is so hard to believe. You hardly see evidence of a large number of Athlon-based notebooks in the press. I doubt that this 40% market share results in AMD earning 40% of the revenues in the mobile processor market.

AMD’s Old Image Problem

Now why would it be that only “El Cheapo” notebooks come with Mobile Athlon? I see two possible reasons. The first one is the good old term “positioning.” This “law” says that a high-end notebook has to come with the top-notch Intel mobile processor and cannot possibly carry an AMD CPU. Especially in the notebook market, Intel’s reputation and dominance is unbroken. Customers want “Intel Inside” and AMD hasn’t done a whole lot to make Mobile Athlon more popular; have you ever seen an AMD commercial presenting Mobile Athlon? Even the recent name change from “Mobile Athlon 4” to “Mobile Athlon XP” occurred almost unnoticed. The fact remains that a notebook with an AMD processor has to be inexpensive, as if to excuse the usage of the non-Intel microprocessor.

The other reason for the low-end curse on Mobile Athlon is the amount and quality of mobile chipsets available for it. There simply isn’t a proper low-power/high-performance mobile chipset available for the AMD processor. While Intel has i830M or i845M, AMD has nothing. While the Taiwanese chipset makers might have reached a reasonable reputation in the desktop market, OEMs have little faith in mobile (high-end) chipsets from VIA/SiS/ALi. Without a proper chipset, there ain’t a proper notebook. It’s as simple as that.

The Current Situation

Right now, most Athlon-based notebooks out there are based on VIA’s Apollo KN133 chipset. This chipset is like a time-travel back to the year 2000, when PC133 memory was still kinda hip and S3-graphics was still something people could remember. VIA’s Apollo KN133 “ProSavage” is a mobile chipset with integrated S3 3D-decelerator and PC133 interface. It makes sure that AMD’s great mobile Athlon 4, or now Athlon XP, processors are subject to a greatly reduced office application performance combined with pretty much non-existent 3D-graphics. Don’t get me wrong, KN133 is not a bad chipset (for its price), but people with the slightest interest in system performance or 3D-graphics wouldn’t possibly touch a desktop system based on this chipset. Yet, it is currently the ‘best’ chipset for Athlon-based notebooks. Go figure! VIA might have announced its next generation mobile Athlon chipset by the name ApolloKN266, but so far there isn’t any product that comes with it and I have strong doubts if the integrated 3D-graphics will be any better than KN133’s.

ATi To The Rescue

Now with the situation as described above, here comes ATi with its brand new mobile Athlon chipset, dubbed “Radeon IGP320M.” Again, we are facing an integrated 3D solution with pricing advantages, but possible performance disadvantages. After all, ATi is not going to change Athlon’s ‘positioning problem.’ AMD-based notebooks still need to be less expensive than those glorious ones with mobile Pentium 4. Still, ATi’s name should stand at least for one thing, 3D-performance.

On the first look, ATi seems like a complete newcomer to the core logic (chipset) market, but in reality ATi has been working on chipsets with integrated 3D-graphics since the acquisition of ArtX a few years ago. I have visited ATi’s headquarters in Toronto (Ontario, Canada) many times, and each time I was presented with a new prototype. It just took a bit long until ATi finally felt like launching the product. Theoretically, the result should be a very mature product.

The Specifications Of Radeon IGP320M

Radeon IGP320M is the mobile Athlon chipset out of ATi’s new IGP core logic range. Beside it, ATi also offers the Radeon IGP320 Athlon desktop chipset, the Radeon IGP 330/340 desktop Pentium 4 chipset and finally the Radeon IGP340M for mobile Pentium 4 systems.

Here is what all of ATi’s IGP chipsets have in common:

• Integrated AGP4x Graphics with 8-128 MB of adjustable frame buffer allocation size (from main memory)
• 3D engine is like “half a Radeon“, but without built-in T&L. It’s got one rendering pipeline with three texturing units. The GRX-subsystem runs at 160 MHz, so the maximum pixel fill rate (single texturing) is 160 Mpixel/s and the highest texel fill rate (multi texturing) is therefore 480 Mtexels/s.
• Graphics features include HyperZ (ATi’s z-occlusion culling), Hydravision (dual monitor support), PowerPlay (ATI’s power saving features).
• 64-bit SDRAM/DDR-SDRAM PC100/PC133/PC1600/PC2100 Synchronous/Asynchronous Memory Interface, up to 1 GB of memory
• Integrated DVD-playback enhancements (motion compensation, iDCT)
• Integrated video-out encoder
• Integrated Master Clock
• Integrated LVDS Interface
• Two Alternative Southbridge Interfaces, either ATi’s proprietary 266 MB/s A-Link interface for ATi’s IXP200/250 southbridges, or classic PCI interface (133 MB/s) for 3rd party southbridges (as e.g. from ALi or VIA).
• Optional IXP200 or IXP250 southbridges with up to 6 USB 2.0 ports, built-in 3Com Ethernet MAC, enhanced AC97 audio with SPDIF out.

In case of Radeon IGP320M, those features are teamed up with an AMD Mobile Athlon XP processor. Basically, we have an integrated mobile chipset with reasonable 3D-capabilities, DDR-memory support, and enhanced DVD-playback capabilities that can be used with the ATi southbridge or with any classic PCI-connected southbridge to save development costs and time. With the Mobile Athlon chipset situation as grave as it is right now, the Radeon IGP320M looks like an excellent solution to make Mobile Athlon XP systems a lot more attractive.

The Test Notebook

Our test sample was a prototype notebook from a manufacturer that does not want to be disclosed at this time, which is why I am unable to supply you with photographs of the outside of the laptop.

The unit is an all-in-one three-spindle laptop with a 15″ SVGA screen (1024×768) and a weight of 3230g (7.1 pounds). I am not allowed to show you pictures, but you can believe me that it is well-designed with a slight retro-look and it gives a sturdy impression (better quality impression than e.g. Dell notebooks).

Features:

• AMD Athlon XP 1600+ (1400 MHz) CPU, 266 MHz FSB
• DVD/CDRW combo drive
• Built-in floppy drive
• 512 MB of PC2100 memory
• 100/10 Mbit Ethernet
• 56k Modem
• 2 USB 1.1 ports
• S-video out
• CRT out
• Keyboard/mouse connector
• Parallel Interface
• 1394-connector
• IR-port
• 1 type II or type III PCMCIA card slot
• 14.8 V, 4 Ah (59.2 Wh) Li-Ion Battery (414 g/0.9 pounds)
• JBL Pro speakers

The notebook is an all-in-one type, so its 7.1 pounds are not exactly subtle. However, I consider it quite a cutie with its retro chrome looks and the easiest-to-use opening mechanism I have ever used. The display is sharp and crisp and the keyboard gives a quality impression too. This is not your usual run-of-the-mill cheap Athlon notebook. It’s a system that’s fun to use if you can live with the 7.1 pounds that are actually rather low for an all-in-one type.

The Innards Of The Test Notebook

Inside of this notebook, of course covered by a complex heat sink and fan combo (picture below), we find AMD’s new Mobile Athlon XP (“Thoroughbred,” .13 micron process) as well as ATi’s Radeon IGP320M (code name “U1”). In the bottom left corner you see the lower half of the chipset southbridge, which is an ALi 1535+, connected to the IGP via the PCI bus.

I actually tested the ‘Thoroughbred’ Athlon XP in a desktop system to see how it compares to the current Athlon XP processors based on the “Palomino” core. I am afraid that there is absolutely no performance difference! The new “Thoroughbred” is only running a lot cooler than “Palomino.”

The Other Test Candidates

I decided to put the ATi prototype notebook up against a few very well-respected, mainstream notebooks. Compaq’s Presario 725CA was meant to demonstrate the state of current Athlon-powered laptops. It comes equipped with an Athlon 4 at 1300 MHz, VIA’s KN133 integrated chipset and PC133 SDRAM. The next candidate is a Dell Inspirion 8100 with Pentium III-M CPU at 1.2 GHz, i815 chipset and PC133 memory. This notebook used to be the performance master until only recently when the first Pentium 4 notebooks came to market. Exactly this is my last candidate, a Dell Latitude C840 Pentium 4 notebook, with P4-M at 1.6 GHz, i845MP chipset and PC2100 DDR-SDRAM memory. You can see, the Radeon IGP320M prototype has some stiff competition. Here are the details:

The Other Test Candidates, Continued

Compaq Presario 725CA

Compaq’s Presario 725CA is a nice unit with an appealing design. It lacks a 1394, IR and serial port, but it is clearly the most affordable notebook in this comparison.

Dell Inspirion 8100

Dell’s Inspirion 8100 is not the top-notch notebook that it was until three months ago. In fact, it has been replaced by the Inspirion 8200, which comes with a Pentium 4 processor. All Inspirion notebooks of the 8000 series have one thing in common. They are big and heavy and the housing gives a rather cheap impression compared to models from other leading brands. Still, this notebook is a workhorse and it certainly delivers great performance. It’s not pretty, but it works!

Dell Latitude C840

The Latitude C840 is based on the same chassis and molding parts as the Dell Inspirion 8xxx line, so it comes with the same low-quality look and feel as the Inspirion 8100. It’s just as much of a huge notebook and it doesn’t come any lighter than the Inspirion 8100 as well. Its design is maybe even less inspiring, but at the same time also less irritating. This Pentium 4 notebook delivers performance to the max and that’s what it’s for. It’s not there to impress the ladies; it’s supposed to get the work done. At this, it most certainly shines, as it is extremely fast.

The Benchmark Setup

You might have missed the hard drive in the listing above, but that has a reason. This article is not a notebook comparison per se, but a technology review. Thus I tried to test each notebook under as equal conditions as possible. For the benchmarks, I used the same hard drive in each notebook, so that hard drive performance would not impact the numbers. The drive used was the very fast IBM Travelstar 60, a 5400 RPM drive with a capacity of 60 GB. Right now it’s one of the fastest notebook hard drives available.

All tests were run under Windows XP Professional. The two Athlon notebooks had the latest CPU device driver installed to enable AMD’s PowerNow!, while the two Intel-based notebooks did not require any additional software for Intel’s SpeedStep. For the battery rundown tests I adjusted the screen brightness to 50%.

The Benchmark Results

Low Level Benchmarks

Before we go and have a look at the results of the application level benchmarks, it’s always a good idea to have a peep at the “raw” results. Sisoft’s Sandra is still the by far best software for this kind of thing.

Sandra CPU Performance

Those, really rather theoretical, numbers show that the most powerful CPU in this comparison should clearly be the Mobile Athlon XP 1600+. Of course, this depends heavily on the software.

Sandra Memory Performance

Those results are much more interesting than the CPU performance numbers, as they show how well (or how poorly) the memory interface of the chipset actually works. Here, Intel’s 845 chipset in the Latitude C840 is able to demonstrate the full capacity of DDR-SDRAM. Unfortunately ATi’s IGP320M reaches only about 56% of the i845MP score, although both are using PC2100 DDR-SDRAM. You can probably imagine that this low memory bandwidth will most likely have an impact on overall performance. VIA’s KN133 chipset, as found in Compaq’s Presario 725CA, is showing similar behavior. It reaches only 60% of the memory bandwidth of the i815 chipset found in the Inspirion 8100 notebook, while both are using PC133 SDRAM. An Athlon system suffering from a memory bandwidth of less than 600 MB/s is hardly able to supply impressive performance. The UMA (unified memory architecture) design of the two Athlon chipsets with the integrated graphics is costing them a significant amount of memory bandwidth. Even in 2D, the video part of the memory needs to be read out 60-85 times per second for screen refreshes, which of course generates arbitrary issues that impact system memory access.

PCMark 2002 Processor Score

PCMark 2002 is a relatively new low level benchmark from MadOnion and probably positioned against Sisoft’s Sandra. I am still experimenting with it. This CPU score is showing results that are similar to Sandra’s processor score. The Mobile Athlon XP 1600+ in the prototype notebook is beating the rest.

PCMark 2002 Memory Score

The Memory Results of PCMark 2002 show again the same behavior as Sandra’s memory bandwidth test. The two Athlon notebooks that are based on integrated chipsets are scoring about only 60% of their Intel-based counterparts with discrete graphics.

Application Level Benchmarks

Let’s now move across to the ‘real McCoy,’ the application level benchmarks. We are starting with BAPCo’s Sysmark 2002, a benchmark that still leaves some open questions about its methodology, but for now it is the standard benchmark for system evaluation. I still continue to say that it is definitely hilarious to give office application performance the same weight as Internet content creation performance, since all of us are using software for word processing, spreadsheets or Internet browsing, while only a minority is creating Internet content every day (and an even smaller minority good Internet content, but that’s a different story …). Still BAPCo generates the overall result of Sysmark from office productivity and content creation in a 50:50 fashion, which is why we do not publish this useless and misleading overall result.

BAPCo SYSmark 2002 Results

Let’s start with the more important office productivity score. Here you can see the huge impact of the low memory bandwidth of the Athlon-based notebooks. In a reasonably configured desktop system, an Athlon 1300 is well able to beat Pentium III 1.2 GHz, and an Athlon XP 1600+ beats Pentium 4 1.6 GHz as well. The score of the Presario 725CA is indeed pretty low, while the prototype ATi IGP320M notebook is at least able to come into second place. Make sure, however, that those numbers don’t fool you! Each of those four notebooks has plenty of performance to give you a perfectly fluid impression while you work with them. I used the Presario notebook for a few days and had no complaints about its office performance.

The less important Internet content creation run of Sysmark 2002 shows different results. It seems as if it was tuned for Intel’s “Northwood” Pentium 4. Especially the Flash 5 part appears a bit mysterious to me. Anyway, neither Pentium III, nor AMD’s Athlon’s have the slightest chance to reach the incredibly high Pentium 4 scores. The Radeon IGP320M prototype notebook, however, still scores very well. Again, both Athlon notebooks are slowed down by their low memory bandwidth.

3D Benchmarks

Now, since each of the four notebooks claims to have 3D features, we were of course obliged to test that. Due to the fact that none of the test candidates comes with vertex or pixel shaders and only two have integrated T&L, our choice of benchmarks was somewhat restricted. We simply used Mad Onion’s 3DMark 2001SE and Quake 3.

3DMark 2001 SE Results

I don’t really know how VIA has the nerve to call its KN133 “ProSavage” a 3D-chipset. Here’s the marketing blurb: “Delivers rich AGP4X graphics capabilities for demanding software…” Well, I’ll let you decide about that. A score of 319 in 3DMark 2001SE speaks its own language. To give you the full picture, I may add that the benchmark doesn’t even run properly. Basically, an owner of a Presario 725 does NOT play 3D. Period!

It comes as no surprise that the two notebooks with discrete graphics chipsets are beating the crap out of the other two, but the 1500 score of the Radeon IGP320M prototype notebook is rather respectable. This notebook lets you play 3D-games indeed, and after all it does not always have to be 1024x768x32. A lower screen resolution and especially color depth will allow fluid game play.

The fill rate numbers show the truth, because it’s still fill rate that limits today’s notebook 3D-graphics. The 39 Mpixels/s score of VIA’s “ProSavage” chipset is rather humorous, as it is less than what the first Voodoo chip was able to deliver more than 5 years ago (45 Mpixels/s, in case anyone still remembers). Radeon IGP320M is clearly limited by its UMA-based video memory interface, because its theoretical fill rate is 160 Mpixels/s. At 1024x768x32, this fill rate cannot be achieved due to lack of memory bandwidth.

Quake 3 Arena

The picture we see here is not much different than the 3DMark results. Compaq’s Presario notebook with VIA’s KN133 chipset is simply not fit to run 3D-games. The two high-end notebook graphics chips ATi Mobility Radeon 7500 and NVIDIA GeForce4Go 440 in the Dell notebooks are of course leaving everything else far behind. For people who want to have full 3D-gaming capabilities on their notebooks, these solutions are the right choice. However, ATi’s integrated 3D-solution Radeon IGP320M is still scoring well enough to play Quake 3 Arena at this screen resolution and color depth, and if the frame rate should be too low for you, you can always switch to 16-bit color, or reduce the screen resolution a bit. Radeon IGP might not be a full-blown 3D gaming solution, but it certainly allows 3D gaming at a pretty reasonable level.

Battery Rundown Tests

This is a review about notebook technology, so it is of highest importance to see how good the power saving features of those notebooks are. I used Batterymark, because it is today’s standard, even though I am not sure about its relevance. Additionally, I also ran a DVD-playback battery rundown test, as many of us use our notebooks as a simple DVD player, at one occasion or another. Often we do not have AC power available to us at that time.

Batterymark Scores

I was surprised and impressed to see the Radeon IGP320M notebook outscore the rest, because it does not have the biggest battery in the test (60 Wh). This score proves two things. AMD’s Mobile Athlon XP is indeed a very good product in terms of power saving features. Additionally, Radeon IGP320M seems to play a good role in the power saving, as well.

Dell’s Latitude C840 comes in second, even though its battery has 10% more capacity than the prototype notebook. Both laptops have the same screen size and thus the backlight of both should drain similar amounts of power. It might well be that the integrated nature of Radeon IGP320M is the power saver. The extra NVIDIA GeForce4Go graphics chip in the Dell Latitude will certainly have its power requirements.

Dell’s Inspirion 8100 clearly suffers from the fact that it’s based on the i815 chipset. This chipset is unable to support the full Enhanced SpeedStep of Pentium III-M. Would Dell have used Intel’s 830 chipset, the numbers would certainly be a lot better.

Compaq’s Presario notebook benefits from its smaller screen of course, but the 141 minutes score is still very respectable, showing that even the ‘old’ Mobile Athlon 4 processor was already a good power saver.

DVD Playback Battery Rundown Test

Those results may surprise you, which is why I added the processor usage below as well.

When you look at the DVD playback numbers, you always have to keep the processor usage numbers in mind as well, because those numbers explain why there is a difference between DVD playback battery life and Batterymark. In Batterymark, the processor is idle most of the time and thus in the lowest power state the design allows. DVD-playback requires the CPU to do some work all of the time. In the case of Compaq’s Presario, AMD’s PowerNow! allows the Athlon 4 to run at only 500 MHz, but then 71% processor usage is required to do the DVD-playback. This costs a lot more power than the idling under Batterymark. The opposite is true for Dell’s Inspirion 8100. Due to i815’s lack of enhanced SpeedStep support, the Pentium III-M is wasting a lot of power running Batterymark. The 16% processor usage for DVD-playback requires just the same power as the idling under Batterymark. However, when you consider the fact that the Inspirion 8100 comes with the same size battery, but even a larger screen than the Presario 725, you can see that Dell’s Pentium III-M notebook is still faring a huge amount better than Compaq’s Athlon 4 notebook.

Again, ATi’s prototype notebook wins the competition with a refreshing 2.5 hours. Dell’s Latitude C840 is a bit disappointing, which could be due Pentium 4-M or to GeForce4Go. One of the two has to be blamed for the fact that DVD-playback costs 24.5% of processor usage and thus a lot more power than Batterymark.

Impact Of Allocated Frame Buffer Size On 3D Performance

Radeon IGP320M is a chipset that uses a part of main memory for its integrated graphics core. The BIOS of our test notebook allowed us to adjust the amount of memory that would be allocated by the graphics subsystem. While all other benchmarks were executed at the highest setting of 128 MB to achieve maximum performance, I wanted to see how smaller frame buffer sizes impact the 3D performance of Radeon IGP.

Frame buffer size does not exactly have a huge influence on 3DMark 2001 SE scores. Only 16 MB doesn’t seem to be a good choice. From 32 MB upwards, the performance increase is marginal. However, the impact of the frame buffer size does of course depend on the 3D-application. Some games may indeed benefit a lot from a large frame buffer, other may hardly care at all. In any event, you can of course reduce the frame buffer size to 16 MB for the times when you don’t play any 3D-games on your notebook, to subsequently increase the amount of system main memory.

Conclusion – Radeon IGP320M Is The Chipset Of Choice For Mobile Athlon XP

We have seen the scores of ATi’s new integrated chipset for AMD’s Mobile Athlon XP Radeon IGP320M, and those scores look commendable indeed. Of course I admit that ATi did not have a particularly tough fight in this area, as the competition from VIA can hardly be taken seriously.

Radeon IGP320M is definitely taking Athlon notebooks to a new level in terms of performance as well as power saving, and thus has to be seen as the best platform for low to mid-range notebooks based on AMD’s Mobile Athlon XP processor. The prototype notebook I tested in my lab was working flawlessly and I would not mind using it as my own notebook any time. I am sure that the engineers who developed this notebook will recognize the pictures. Let me commend you on a job well done. This notebook is of very appealing design.

Bottom line is that Radeon IGP320M is a good Mobile Athlon XP chipset, but it still lacks the memory performance to give Athlon the performance numbers it deserves. It is rather sad to see that no notebook OEM is interested in offering an Athlon notebook with discrete graphics, since that could finally demonstrate the full potential of Mobile Athlon. As for now, Athlon notebooks need good integrated chipsets and that is what ATi delivered. Kudos!