Asus Z80K: Athlon 64 DTR Notebook
Introduction
Centrino based notebooks are the mobile computing industry's current bread and butter. There is really no denying the huge market share that Intel has claimed in the notebook arena. Centrino is synonymous with mobility and power efficiency, and it is generally regarded as the present gold standard when it comes to mainstream mobile computing. So where does this leave AMD? While both companies hold their own in the desktop market, the North American notebook market is dominated by Intel.
Until the Turion 64 is widely available, there just aren't any strong AMD products that compete directly against Intel's low power Centrino platform. Of course, there are still a few DTRs (Desktop Replacement Notebooks) that utilize AMD 64-bit processors, that compete directly against Pentium 4 powered notebooks, but these larger systems aren't quite as popular as their lower-powered, lighter-weight counterparts.
We will have to wait and see if AMD's new Turion 64 mobile platform will become as popular as Centrino. Until then, there are plenty of AMD Athlon 64 based DTRs available, like the Asus Z80K we'll be looking at today, that compete well against similar Intel powered notebooks.
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| Processor •_Designed for AMD Mobile Athlon 64 Processors: up to 3700 1MB L2 Cache and Mobile Sempron Processors: up to 3200 128K L2 Cache Chipset •_NVIDIA nForce3 Go150 aka Crush K8M Memory •_Two 200-pin SODIMM sockets •_Supports DDR 333 Unbuffered Non-ECC memory •_Supports maximum memory capacity up to 1GB Graphic • ATI Mobility Radeon 9700 ATA •_2 x DMA 133/100/66 •_User configurable Hard Drive •_Toshiba SD-R6372 DVD+-RW (4x +- R/2x +- RW/16x CD-R/10x CD-RW) Communications •_Marvell Yukon Gigabit Ethernet •_Asus (802.11b/g) Wireless Lan •_56K v.92 Fax/modem Display •_15.0" SXGA+ TFT LCD (native 1400 x 1050) Audio Dimension and Weight |
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Measuring in at 12.9" x 10.6" x 1.65", and weighing in at about 8.0 pounds, the Asus Z80K is another notebook not designed for true everyday mobility. The overall design makes it more portable than a desktop replacement notebook with a 15.4" display but not by much. It is heavy and can be considered somewhat bulky, which makes a lot of sense considering Asus has classified this notebook as their "High-end Mobile Gaming Rig." This is one of those notebooks that's not really designed to be used during everyday transport from location A to location B. Gamers, performance junkies or perhaps professionals that just need to take their work home from the 9 to 5 and don't mind the size and weight of the Z80K, should consider this type of notebook.
