News - Gateway launches AMD Athlon-powered LT-series netbook

[HEXUS]

Ready for another netbook? Well, here's an 11.6in offering that isn't packing an Intel Atom processor.

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[TAKTAK]

I'm actually interested in seeing how this one goes...

[kalniel]

This one does look like it might be very good - sensible spec, good display, battery. Will have to see what the build quality is like.

[Nikomus]

Screen res higher than 1024x600? No Atom? 2GB of RAM and Vista? Surely this isn't a netbook! We all know the only things you can vary in a netbook are the colour and MAYBE something to do with the HDD..... I thought the netbook specs were set in stone!

On a serious note if the CPU can perform this will be quite nice... a little less cramped than usual netbooks but still quite small.

[scaryjim]

I'll be interested to see how the price translates as / when it reaches the UK - if it can actually come in at £300 it makes a *very* interesting proposition...

[scaryjim]

On a serious note if the CPU can perform this will be quite nice...

Unfortunately, in the Hexus review of the HP dv2 the Single-core Athlon 1.6GHz fared (just) worse than the Atom in 7zip, due to the mutlithreaded nature of the program and the Atom's HT support. In single thread tasks it should be OK, but how many programs are genuinely single-threaded nowadays?

[malakai5]

Its nice that AMD have started to 'physically' enter the niche & ever growing netbook market, well their partners are starting to get the products out there - hopefully no 're-runs' of the Puma platform will happen. However I just feel that all these variations on platforms are all interim products, what with slow uptake of Yukon (Puma problems again), now this one. I'm dying to pick up one of these netbooks/ultra portable PC's & one derived from AMD. But their not quite there yet in terms of price/perfomance in general Intel included. I'm hoping the Congo platform might prove better but getting the balance all round is the sticking point here. I'll also be looking at Intel Pine Trail platform. Here's hoping some ones gonna hit it on the nail and get it right.

[kalniel]

Unfortunately, in the Hexus review of the HP dv2 the Single-core Athlon 1.6GHz fared (just) worse than the Atom in 7zip, due to the mutlithreaded nature of the program and the Atom's HT support. In single thread tasks it should be OK, but how many programs are genuinely single-threaded nowadays?

The vast majority of them.

[scaryjim]

I'm hoping the Congo platform might prove better...

I think this is what AMD partner's are thinking, tbh. Why design and make a Yukon notebook, if AMDs new platform will come along a few months later and be infinitely better? A dual-core Athlon with 3200M graphics is going to be so much better than a single-core plus X1270 (and is meant to be targetting the same power envelope) that money spent developing the latter may feel like a waste to many OEMs...

[scaryjim]

The vast majority of them.

Then clearly we should lobby Hexus to rerun the benchmark comparison with PiFast to see how the single-thread performance compares

Hear that, Tarinder / Parm?

[Scarlet Infidel]

I have been using a standard 10" atom netbook for nearly a year now. Its pretty good however I am coming to the conclusion that a slighly larger higher res screen would be worth the extra size. This screen sounds the perfect tradeoff.

My other desire is for at least 720p h.264 decoding which my current netbook struggles with. I dont think this will cope much better, let me know if im wrong. Im looking towards pinetrail and ion as being stronger in this area.

While the atom isnt that fast it is actually quite low down on things that id like to change, it runs Windows 7 ok generally.

[kalniel]

Then clearly we should lobby Hexus to rerun the benchmark comparison with PiFast to see how the single-thread performance compares

Hear that, Tarinder / Parm?

Isn't that what the other (non Zip) benchmarks are for?

[R3MF]

this netbook should have been Conesus system.

Neo X2
780G DX10 northbridge
710 southbridge

then it would be very tempting rather than a also-ran

[scaryjim]

this netbook should have been Conesus system.

Neo X2
780G DX10 northbridge
710 southbridge

then it would be very tempting rather than a also-ran

Except that would be the Congo platform that hasn't been released yet, so I'm not sure how you expect people to sell it...

Isn't that what the other (non Zip) benchmarks are for?

Hmm, I hadn't noticed that the video benchmarks weren't being GPU accelerated. That certainly gives a slightly better picture, but even then it's only when you get onto software decoding a 720p clip that the Athlon makes a noticable difference. It's certainly not the huge leap ahead of the Atom that I think many people were expecting.

[R3MF]

true enough, but until they can provide something decisively better than atom it is nothing but an oversized netbook.

[scaryjim]

I think the point is that the X12(5|7)0 graphics chipset is *considerably* better than 945G, and the single core Athlon Neo *is* (just) better than the Atom (particularly with relation to single threaded applications). So far Hexus haven't tested a Yukon platform's gaming capabilities (the dv2 they reviewed had a discreet 3400-series card), but that might be the telling stroke. If it could manage even 15fps at its native res that would make a number of games playable (particularly rts / rpg / turn-based startegy games) - something the 945 chipset can't do. Of course, When Congo does come out that will be a huige step-increase in graphics power again...

My other desire is for at least 720p h.264 decoding which my current netbook struggles with. I dont think this will cope much better, let me know if im wrong. Im looking towards pinetrail and ion as being stronger in this area.

The X1250 graphics core supports hardware accelrated decoding through Avivo. Whether it can accelerate h.264, I couldn't say for sure, but the Athlon Neo is also much better at handling software decode anyway (have a read of the Hexus dv2 review - they software decode a 720p clip and it's smooth on a Neo 1.6GHz...). Given that the 11.6" display on this supports 720p natively, I'd say that may well cope much better.