ATI Mobility Radeon X700 Showcase

Mobile Graphics technology is advancing at a fevered pace. In a little over a year, the once dominant Mobility Radeon 9600 was eclipsed by the Mobility Radeon 9700. Then, the MR 9700 was surpassed by the Mobility Radeon 9800, which itself was recently eclipsed by the Mobility Radeon X800.  ATI's mobile GPUs went from 4, to 8, to 12 pixel pipelines, they now have essentially the same feature sets as their desktop equivalents, and they have frame buffers as large as 256MB. And these are only the high-end mobile products to come from ATI. They also released a few mid-ranges mobile GPUs, namely the Mobility Radeon X600 and X300.  In addition, NVIDIA also released their own group of mobile GPUs this past year that were significantly faster and more advanced than their predecessors. The fact of the matter is that laptop / notebook sales are skyrocketing at the moment, and NVIDIA and ATI are both looking to capitalize on the opportunity.

Today on HotHardware, we're going to evaluate yet another new mobile GPU built by the folks at ATI, the Mobility Radeon X700. As you've probably inferred from its name, the Mobility Radeon X700 isn't the successor to the MR X800, but rather its a mid-to-high end GPU that caters to a somewhat different audience. The Mobility Radeon X700 is targeted at consumers who demand convenient portability, as well as high performance.

Specifications & Features of The Mobility Radeon X700 Full-Featured Mobile Graphics

Technology Features •_8 parallel pixel pipelines •_Six programmable vertex shader pipelines •_0.11 micron fabrication process •_128-bit dual-channel DDR1/DDR2/GDDR3 memory support •_PCI Express x16 lane native support SMARTSHADER HD •_Support for Microsoft DirectX 9.0 programmable vertex and pixel shaders in hardware •_DirectX 9.0 Vertex Shaders - Vertex programs up to 65,280 instructions with flow control - Single cycle trigonometric operations (SIN & COS) •_Direct X 9.0 Extended Pixel Shaders - Up to 1,536 instructions and 16 textures per rendering pass - 2nd generation F-buffer technology accelerates multi-pass pixel shader programs with unlimited instructions - 32 temporary and constant registers - Facing register for two-sided lighting - 128-bit, 64-bit & 32-bit per pixel floating point color formats - Multiple Render Target (MRT) support •_Complete feature set also supported in OpenGL(R) via extensions SMOOTHVISION HD •_2x/4x/6x Anti-Aliasing modes •_Temporal Anti-Aliasing •_2x/4x/8x/16x Anisotropic Filtering modes 3Dc •_High quality 4:1 Normal Map Compression •_Works with any two-channel data format HYPER Z HD •_3-level Hierarchical Z-Buffer with Early Z Test •_Lossless Z-Buffer Compression (up to 48:1) •_Fast Z-Buffer Clear •_Z Cache optimized for real-time shadow rendering •_Optimized for performance at high display resolutions VIDEOSHADER HD •_Seamless integration of pixel shaders with video in real time •_FULLSTREAM video de-blocking technology for Real, DivX, and WMV9 formats •_VIDEOSOAP noise removal filtering for captured video •_MPEG1/2/4 decode and encode acceleration - DXVA Support - Hardware Motion Compensation, iDCT, DCT and color space conversion •_All-format DTV/HDTV decoding •_YPrPb component output for direct drive of HDTV displays •_Adaptive Per-Pixel De-Interlacing and Frame HYPERMEMORY •_Uses the high-speed bi-directional data transfer capabilities of PCI Express to store and access graphics data in system memory, leading to less dependence on dedicated graphics memory and a lower overall notebook cost

POWERPLAY 5.0 •_ATI's fifth-generation POWERPLAY power management technology provides users with the optimal balance between performance and power consumption •_Multiple power-saving settings offer increased control and flexibility •_POWER-ON-DEMAND – constantly monitors system activity, dynamically adjusting clocks and voltage based on user scenario •_LOW POWER LCD – enables lower LCD refresh rate for longer battery life •_VARI-BRIGHT technology optimizes notebook panel brightness for more power savings VPU RECOVER II •_Automatically activated if the graphics processor hangs, triggering the driver to reset the VPU, avoiding system "crash" Visual Display Flexibility •_Flexible and easy-to-use interface for multiple display settings •_LCD-EE display engine allows for support of the latest high resolution and wide-screen notebook displays such as WXGA (1920x1200) and QXGA (2048x1536) •_165 MHz integrated TMDS transmitter, for support of DVI Digital Flat Panels at up to UXGA resolution (1600x1200) •_230MHz integrated, Dual Channel LVDS •_Integrated TV-Out Encoder •_Dual RAMDACs at speeds of 400MHz •_Integrated HDTV encoder, supporting component output (YPbPr) for both North American and •_Japanese D-link connectors Multiple Variants For Ultimate Design Flexibility •_Support for multiple mobile form factors: - Discrete - On-chip 64MB DDR - On-chip 128MB DDR AXIOM (Advanced eXpress I/O Module) is a flexible approach to PCI Express modules and provides a reliable, innovative solution on notebook PCs offering: •_Proven, robust connector •_Standard form factors •_Customization for optimal fit with industrial design •_Standard interconnect for graphics and other peripheral designs •_Full support for ATI FLEXFIT technology

To test the Mobility Radeon X700, we used a very attractive Acer TravelMate 8100 notebook powered by ATI's latest mobile GPU. Unlike the bulky and ultra-heavy laptops we used to test the Mobility Radeon 9700 and Mobility Radeon 9800 last year, the Acer TravelMate 8100 is a "performance thin" model that won't break a shoulder when carrying it through an airport. The Dell XPS and Eurocomm notebooks powered by the MR9700 and MR9800 were what you'd call "desktop replacement" notebooks.  They had large screens, desktop processors adapted for mobile use, and weighed in at a hefty 12-14 lbs.  Acer's TravelMate 8100, however, sports a 15.4" WSXGA+ screen and a speedy - yet efficient - 2.0GHz Pentium M 760. The TravelMate 8100 also has 1GB of DDR2 RAM and a fast 100GB hard drive. Plus, because this machine is powered by Intel's new Mobile i915 Express chipset, the X700 interfaces through a PCI Express X16 link, rather than AGP.  Not only does the PCI Express X16 link offer far more bandwidth than AGP8X, but it makes a new feature built into the GPU possible...