3DMarks per Watt?

[Mariner]

I would have thought that ATI would be 'cherry-picking' the R420 cores which could run at the lowest voltage. This is what AMD did with their 'mobile' AthlonXPs, I believe which is why they tend to be good overclockers in conventional systems. In the case of these Mobile Athlons, they should actually be considered better chips than the standard ones. If this was the case it wouldn't necessarily indicate that they were struggling to find cores which are 16-pipe capable.

All speculation, of course.

 

[Bjorn]

I would have thought that ATI would be 'cherry-picking' the R420 cores which could run at the lowest voltage. This is what AMD did with their 'mobile' AthlonXPs, I believe which is why they tend to be good overclockers in conventional systems. In the case of these Mobile Athlons, they should actually be considered better chips than the standard ones. If this was the case it wouldn't necessarily indicate that they were struggling to find cores which are 16-pipe capable.

All speculation, of course.

But the Athlon XP doesn't involve any crippling of the chip like we have here with 8 pipes removed. You're talking about picking out the best 16 pipe chips, disable 8 pipes and selling them as 8 pipe mobile versions. Though who knows, maybe that's better if the RAM shortage is really as bad as i seems. Depends on how much money they'll make on the mobile 9800 i guess.

 

[Dave Baumann]

This is going to be fiary low volume and probably high margin (relatively).

 

[Mariner]

But the Athlon XP doesn't involve any crippling of the chip like we have here with 8 pipes removed. You're talking about picking out the best 16 pipe chips, disable 8 pipes and selling them as 8 pipe mobile versions. Though who knows, maybe that's better if the RAM shortage is really as bad as i seems. Depends on how much money they'll make on the mobile 9800 i guess.

I agree with what Dave says below. I expect that these mobile chips will be considerably higher-margin than desktop chips (after all, high-end laptops are bloody expensive). Therefore, it would make financial sense, if nothing else to be able to charge more for the same chip.

I've no idea, however, what level of yields ATI are managing for 16-pipe capable chips. I do find it surprising the number of X800 Pro VIVO cards which can apparently be successfully modified to be 16-pipe capable considering the shortage of X800XT PE's.

 

[Bjorn]

I agree with what Dave says below. I expect that these mobile chips will be considerably higher-margin than desktop chips (after all, high-end laptops are bloody expensive). Therefore, it would make financial sense, if nothing else to be able to charge more for the same chip.

The X800 XT isn't exactly cheap either though, but yes, it would make sense if they have higher margins on the mobile 9800 then on the X800 XT.

 

[London Geezer]

Does anyone here really care how much power his computer uses?

One day, maybe not too far away, u'll see why people started to get worried today. Hopefully something will have been done by then to ensure we won't need nuclear reactors at home to power our computers.