New mobile CPU from transmeta, centrino killer?

[papasmurf]

<A HREF="http://www.efficeon.com" target="_new">http://www.efficeon.com</A>

Launched on october 14, it is transmetas replacement for their old curuso cpus. It integrates the northbridge into the cpu die and has a 1mb l2. It also has a piece of software that is supposedly capable of controlling transistor leakage to save more power. The first batch of these chips will be on .13 cores but in the second quarter of 2004 they will move to .09 micron! Initially the chips will run at a frequency of 1.3ghz but are expected to reach 2.2ghz in 6 months. This is definately something to look into. I hope toms gets some benchmarks soon.

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[gr00vy0ne]

I doubt the new Efficeon will challenge the Centrino that much. The 50-80% improvement in speed over the current TM5600 1Ghz model (which is equivalent of PIII-750) still falls short of a Pentium M 1Ghz (which is equivalent of P4-1.7Ghz). They're really going to have to push the clock speeds up while keeping the power low. The Efficeon is low power but not much less than the current Pentium M. Also, Transmeta's production ramp doesn't have good history. If they're delayed like before, Intel's delayed Dothan (with the hefty 2MB L2 cache) will still have time to make a difference.

<A HREF="http://www.siliconpopculture.com" target="_new">Silicon Pop Culture</A><P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by gr00vy0ne on 10/21/03 03:20 AM.</EM></FONT></P>

 

[papasmurf]

these are slightly faster than the banias per clock, and they should have their .09m process running by the time they have to worry about dothan, more cache helps in a lot of things but more clock speed is to be perfered, these are also significantly cooler than the banias and are a perfect fit for a subnotebook or a tablet pc as a result.

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