A few tidbits from ATI PR

[Joe DeFuria]

http://www.driverheaven.net/display.php?page=chris_interview

Not a bad read, though you have to get past some of the PR cheerleading of course.

A few interesting tid-bits...fairly predictable, but nice to see them "in print" nonetheless:

RS300M notebooks will be available on the market this fall. In 2004, ATI will be announcing a DX9 integrated chipset, the successor to RS300.

Well, our next mobile product is M11, which isn’t too far off, which will deliver some exciting improvements over the current generation of chips. I almost fell on the floor when they told me what the next mobile chip after M11 had inside it. But you’ll have to wait until next year to find out…J.

(I assume M11 is the notebook version of the RV360...)

And how long have we been waiting for something like this:

But with new technologies available in the future, it may soon be possible for a user to simply add and remove graphics cards in a few seconds using a slot in the side of their notebook.

please...please...please....please....
[/url]

 

[RussSchultz]

But with new technologies available in the future, it may soon be possible for a user to simply add and remove graphics cards in a few seconds using a slot in the side of their notebook.

Ummm, its possible with today's technology.

Its just not a feature that's worth the expense.

 

[Joe DeFuria]

Its just not a feature that's worth the expense.

That depends entirely on the demographic.

For businesses (traditional notebook customer), absolutely not worth it.

But notebooks as I'm sure you know are becoming more and more pervasive, and being chosen over desktops as home PCs, and certainly for students.

 

[KimB]

Well, I agree with Joe here. There is a market for it. In particular, any laptop that is a "desktop replacement" could go quite well with a slot-upgradeable graphics solution.

What it would require, though, is no simple thing.

1. For the laptop market, one would need a compact, removable interface with enough bandwidth to handle the graphics card. This may not be possible until 3GIO (I think it's called PCI-X now? Anyway...).

2. For the best upgradeability, one would need a card that is similar to the PCMCIA cards in size and portability.

Anyway, in the end, I think that if the market isn't big enough, even though a market may well exist, the R&D will be too exhorbinant to make it feasible. And I think there will be significant R&D.

On a more personal note, if I went laptop (which I haven't yet due to money reasons...), I'd go for a highly-portable solution. I'd like to see some, say, lower-power processors coupled with larger keyboards and displays (for some middle ground in battery life...hopefully greater than six hours).

 

[Lezmaka]

This may not be possible until 3GIO (I think it's called PCI-X now? Anyway...).

The replacement is called PCI Express, but there is an extension of PCI called PCI-X which is usually used in servers/workstations.

 

[zurich]

Dell has been doing this for a while with their inspirons. Read their forums.. people with i8000s have upgraded from Rage Mobilities all the way up to Radeon 9000M/GF4Gos. (this applies for i8000 to i8200s)

Ofcourse, this all changed with the i8500 and the GF4go Ti 4200 form factor :?

edit: no word yet on how long Dell will stick with their current form factor, the previous one lasted for over 2 years.

 

[KimB]

The replacement is called PCI Express, but there is an extension of PCI called PCI-X which is usually used in servers/workstations.

Right, I knew it was one of those two, thanks.

 

[hkultala]

http://www.driverheaven.net/display.php?page=chris_interview

Not a bad read, though you have to get past some of the PR cheerleading of course.

A few interesting tid-bits...fairly predictable, but nice to see them "in print" nonetheless:

RS300M notebooks will be available on the market this fall. In 2004, ATI will be announcing a DX9 integrated chipset, the successor to RS300.

Well, our next mobile product is M11, which isn’t too far off, which will deliver some exciting improvements over the current generation of chips. I almost fell on the floor when they told me what the next mobile chip after M11 had inside it. But you’ll have to wait until next year to find out…J.

(I assume M11 is the notebook version of the RV360...)

There was also comment

"M11 will arrive on the market in the next 6 months or so, and will provide users with a big jump in performance over M10.""

RV360 is expected to be just RV350 with a bit higher clocks and DDR2-memory.

those do not seem "exciting improvements" and will not give
"big jump in performance"

so either
a) RV360 is more than we think
b) M11 is not based on RV360 but some more advanced chip
c) he is just talking PR rubbish and M11 will not be as fast as he says

 

[ZoinKs!]

And the products we have coming next year in the mobile space are probably the most surprising – people expect great products from ATI, but what we have coming in the first half of 04 is simply breathtaking...
I almost fell on the floor when they told me what the next mobile chip after M11 had inside it.

Looks like he's talking about m12 here. He clearly thinks it'll be the next big thing. Maybe it'll include dx 9.1 support, but a mobile Loki by June of next year sounds too ambitious.