Consumer Electronics Show 2005: AT's Coverage
by Anand Lal Shimpi on January 10, 2005 3:49 AM EST- Posted in
- Trade Shows
Intel's Sonoma Platform
Intel's Sonoma Platform, the codename for the soon to be released Centrino update, was also talked about quite a bit at Intel and the show.
Sonoma incorporates the following:
- Intel's Alviso chipset (mobile 915 chipset)
- 533MHz FSB Pentium-M processors
With the new chipset comes improved integrated graphics (thanks to the 915G's integrated graphics core), dual channel DDR1/DDR2 support, 533MHz FSB support, PCI Express support and HD Audio support.
The chipset offers both PCI Express x16 and x1 support for graphics and peripherals, identical to the desktop 915.
The inclusion of dual channel DDR1/DDR2 support is tremendous for performance as the previous generation 855GME chipset was still only a single channel platform for Centrino. Intel stated that going forward the split between DDR1 and DDR2 Sonoma designs is about 50/50, given that the power requirements of mobile DDR2 and mobile DDR1 are quite similar. The platform supports up to DDR2-533, but we'd expect that fewer companies would use the speed just yet. We asked some memory manufacturers and they seemed to think that a 50/50 split between DDR1 and DDR2 Sonoma platforms (based on their shipments of DDR2 to Intel's customers) would be definitely possible by this summer.
Intel will also be releasing a smaller form factor version of the Alviso chipset with a much smaller package for use in very tiny ultra portable laptops. The smaller version of the chipset will lack a PCI Express x16 interface to reduce pin count and may only be single channel.
None of the Sonoma platforms on display were too impressive, but we did see units from ASUS and ECS among the usual suspects.
ASUS' Sonoma platform
ECS had a large footprint but cool-looking Sonoma notebook:
Reasonably thin considering its footprint
...and interestingly textured
Battery life is expected to be similar to current Centrino designs.
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thraxes - Monday, January 10, 2005 - link
bhtooefr - Monday, January 10, 2005 - link
Me like the Shuttle set-top...Now, can we just get more ordinary P-M boards?
Chuckles - Monday, January 10, 2005 - link
Was VIA demoing their processors and boards?miketheidiot - Monday, January 10, 2005 - link
efficeon looked good, to bad transmeta might be going belly up.linuxOwnzIfUrLeet - Monday, January 10, 2005 - link
"we had a 46" samsung and gave it right back, viewing from the side looks dark"Do you know anything about plasma vs DLP?
DLP's only life problem is you'll have to buy a new bulb.
plasma's problem is that it will continue to go darker and darker until the gas runs out of energy.
You don't like the dark of dlp you aint gonna like the dark of plasma.
#############################################
Plasma - can't change the gas- no refills - no recharging. Continue to get darker picture.
Dlp - change a bulb.
Plasma - spend lots of money know and throw away soon.
Today, I can get a 76" dlp for $1400 with <2cm display thickness.
Illissius - Monday, January 10, 2005 - link
"The Radeon X800 will be available in the first week of February"That's odd. What's this, then?
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?desc...
Ardan - Monday, January 10, 2005 - link
Thanks for that link :D. I thought those MGE cases looked great as well and made me interested in what they have been making lately.KristopherKubicki - Monday, January 10, 2005 - link
danidentity: http://www.xgbox.com/Kristopher
Houdani - Monday, January 10, 2005 - link
Was the second image on the very last page messed up for anyone else? I could only see the top 10% of the image and the rest was blacked out. The image is supposed to show the MGE cases. The text just above the image is..."MGE also demonstrated a more sleek lineup of cases, a welcome change from the overly busy gaming cases that we've seen far too much of lately:"
snorre - Monday, January 10, 2005 - link
"The entire Sound Storm division at NVIDIA has been shut down and thus NVIDIA's Intel solution will have HD Audio support, but we will not see the return of Dolby Digital Encoding support or NVIDIA's Sound Storm DSP."I don't believe this for a second. Can someone please confirm or deny this claim? Thanks!