ATI Mobility Radeon X700 Showcase

The Mobility Radeon X700 has the same base feature set as ATI's desktop version of the GPU.  For a detailed look at the technology behind the X700, we highly recommend taking a look at our article covering the Radeon X700's launch from back in September...

Features of The Mobility Radeon X700 Just Like Its Desktop Counterpart

Like its desktop counterpart, the Mobility Radeon X700 is manufactured on TSMC's .11 micron process.  And like the Radeon X700, the MR X700 is an 8-pipeline GPU with 6 hardware vertex engines and support for GDDR3 memory (128-bit interface).  The Mobility Radeon X700 is also a native PCI Express GPU, linked to the northbridge through an electrical X16 connection that offers more than double the bandwidth of AGP8X.  The MR X700 does differ from the standard Radeon X700 in a couple of ways, however.  The Mobility Radeon X700's reference clock speeds are 350MHz core / 350MHz memory (Peak Fillrate=2.8GPixels/s | Peak Memory Bandwidth=9.6GB/s) . That's a core clock speed 50MHz lower than the base Radeon X700, and 70MHz lower than the X700 Pro.  But be aware that notebook OEMs have some flexibility in this area based on their design's thermal and power requirements. In fact, the Acer TravelMate 8100 we tested had its graphics memory clocked at 300MHz (600MHz DDR), 50MHz lower than ATI's reference clock speed.

The Mobility Radeon X700 also incorporates ATI's PowerPlay 5.0 power management technology. With PowerPlay 5.0 unused portions of the GPU can be shut down to conserve power, clock speeds can be dynamically adjusted, and the PCI Express lane width can be switched from X16 to X1 on-the-fly to conserve power when the maximum bandwidth afforded by a PCI Express X16 slot isn't needed.  In a typical usage scenario, ATI claims the Dynamic Lane Count Switching (DLCS) will result in a 30% power savings.

Another difference between the Mobility Radeon X700 and its desktop counterparts is its packaging. The Mobility Radeon X700 can be used as a discreet GPU with a separate bank of graphics memory, or it can be incorporated into a notebook design as a multi-chip module with its graphics memory connected directly to the GPU. An AXIOM-TV module that also incorporates ATI's Theater 550 is in the works as well, which should make it an excellent choice for notebooks running Microsoft's Windows XP Media Center Edition.