AMD and laptops

[codedivine]

Apart from Zacate/Ontario, AMD's outlook does not look pretty in laptops in the near term.

1. On the CPU side of things, Sandy Bridge looks to be setting entirely new records in power efficiency and performance.

2. For GPUs, AMD doesn't really have an answer to Optimus so far. Looking at the laptops announced at CES so far, most of the discrete-card-toting laptops seem to have gone for Nvidia options. SB has also shaken up the low level discrete card market.

What do you think? Do you think Llano has a chance? And will bulldozer make it to laptops any time soon?

 

[DarthShader]

Do you think Llano has a chance?

Sure, in lower cost, discrete-gpu-less market.

 

[Mize]

I think if AMD captures the lion's share of the mass-consumer end of the market (netbooks and <$699 laptops), they'll be quite pleased.

 

[Tchock]

I think AMD couldn't manage to come up with a seamless switchable graphics tech in time for CES, though it seems that it was hinted on one of the Thinkpads. The Alienware M17x Sandy Bridge will use a/two Barts (6900M) though, so I think they got the performance crown still.

Also notable is that Optimus for high-end chips is still not available even after SB's insanely low consumption, so some partners like HP (Envy 17) are sticking with the Radeons.

Llano is certainly at the mercy of GF's 32nm. And I won't expect any competition with a quad core SB. But for a dual core SB vs a high speed Llano (3+++Ghz here, if they can't hit that even with Turbo they're screwed) the cost implications could be very interesting (Intel + nVidia vs 1 DAAMIT chip)

But honestly, it's up to the OEMs to try to think out of the box regarding the machines they sell, and they have been utterly unimaginative regarding AMD systems, especially on laptops.

 

[Squilliam]

I thought that AMD had come out with their own version of Optimus? Anyway doesn't Sandy Bridge have a PCI-E output which renders Optimus less useful?