Voodoo Envy M:855 Part 1 - Athlon 64 DTR and Mobility Radeon 9600 Pro
by Andrew Ku on November 4, 2003 5:45 PM EST- Posted in
- Laptops
Mobility Radeon 9600 Pro - OverDrive?
So with all the demand for Mobility Radeon 9600, it seems that design wins were in short supply about a month ago. Much has changed since then, as several large system vendors have picked up the product. It is interesting to note that in some cases, the NVIDIA GeForce FX Go5650 is being marketed toward the high-end mobile market; all the while the same company is targeting the ATI Mobility Radeon 9600 toward the mainstream mobile market.
The biggest difference between the Mobility Radeon 9600 (M10) and Mobility Radeon 9600 Pro (M10 Pro) is the employment of GDDR2-M and higher clock speeds on the latter. This is in addition to OverDrive, which marks the first time overclocking of any kind has been announced for the mainstream mobile market. Mobility Radeon 9600 Pro based notebooks seem to be popping up here and there, but we would make a note of caution to prospective buyers, as no current Mobility Radeon 9600 Pro based system has the ability to take advantage of this feature.
For OverDrive to be functional, there are several prerequisites: the BIOS for the graphic processor must have this feature enabled, the thermal diode to monitor temperature, and some sort of a logic circuit to retrieve and act upon the information from the thermal diode. This is in addition to the obvious thermal issues that this feature brings up. The decision to implement these features (and ultimately OverDrive) is left up to system vendors. We have been informed that we may see some laptops with the ability to enable OverDrive in quarter one or two of 2004. This is a feature we are still teething to see, particularly its effect on performance, as well as battery life.
Meanwhile, the Voodoo Envy M:855 we received uses a discrete Mobility Radeon 9600 Pro with 64MB of onboard Samsung MicroBGA 3.6ns DDR video memory. Obviously, the Envy M:855 cannot enable the OverDrive feature, as this is the case with all the current Mobility Radeon 9600 Pro based notebooks.
Voodoo Envy M:855's Mobility Radeon 9600 Pro
Click to enlarge.
Voodoo Envy M:855's Samsung 3.6ns MicroBGA DDR video memory
Apparently, there is even more confusion over what qualifies for the Pro postfix. Much of what we know now about Mobility Radeon 9600 Pro comes from our preview earlier in March. Within the last forty-eight hours, our talks with Voodoo have revealed some interesting developments. Voodoo tells us that ATI has two main perquisites for the Pro dubbing: 350MHz core clock and 128MB of video memory. It seems that the GDDR2-M requirement has been dropped. The regular Mobility Radeon 9600 has official clock speeds of 350MHz/300MHz, but these aren’t hard and fast guidelines, as it is up to system vendors to decide the appropriate clock speeds for their thermal budget.
While our Voodoo Envy M:855 came with only 64MB, it is of the Mobility Radeon 9600 Pro yield batch, and for that reason we call it such. This is in addition to the fact that these perquisites didn’t come to light until just now. The reason behind the chip's "M10" physical marking is because the chip is an engineering sample, otherwise it should be marked "Mobility Radeon 9600 Pro."
The clocks for the Mobility Radeon 9600 Pro on our M:855 sample were 351MHz core clock and 202MHz memory clock, which are only so odd in the fact that they are not divisible by 5MHz. Voodoo’s refresh of M:855 should come with 128MB of video memory and should have an excess of 250MHz in memory clock. We aren't sure if they are going to stick with the Samsung video memory, which is on our M:855 sample, or will switch to the integrated memory package. However, the Samsung 3.6ns MicroBGA DDR memory is rated at 275MHz, which should leave some head room to increase the memory clocks. Initially, it will be shipping with what we are sampling: Mobility Radeon 9600 Pro with 64MB of video memory. Both Voodoo and AnandTech have been receiving conflicting reports on the required memory clock for the Pro postfix. Once we get more solid information that indicates what is correct, we will report back.
For those that claim that their Mobility Radeon 9600 Pro doesn’t show up in the control panel or Window XP’s display settings, we have noticed that in Window XP’s display settings, the Mobility Radeon 9600 Pro will not be identified as such. Instead, it is often times identified as Mobility Radeon 9600 or M10.
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bgallemore - Tuesday, November 11, 2003 - link
Thanks for getting part 1 done so quickly. It is the only review I have found so far. While I am waiting for part 2... how about this for a request. A review of:1) Voodoo m:855 Athlon64
2) Alienware Area 51m P4 (EE if they will put one in it)
3) Dell Precision M60 w/128MB Quadro FX Go700
They are all about the similar prices and represent the best of thier worlds.
Madcat207 - Friday, November 7, 2003 - link
Rahul-I appoligise (to everybody actually) for my comments. I was upset that the review was lacking what i was hoping for, and i appoligise. In the future, i willl bite my tongue before accusing anybody of anything.
ssamurai26 - Friday, November 7, 2003 - link
Very well written well thought out response, thank you Voodoo.gordon151 - Thursday, November 6, 2003 - link
Poor starving college kids gets no love from VoodooPC. Keep wishing!EdvardGrieg - Thursday, November 6, 2003 - link
Thanks Rahul,I tried to mention the same type of things in my post. How about a new notebook for a poor-starving college student ;-)
~Aaron
voodoopc - Thursday, November 6, 2003 - link
Hi Guys,First let me start by saying - much respect goes out to the editors of Anandtech, as they have been very professional about this entire review process, and in no way did VoodooPC "pay" to get reviewed. Quite frankly that's a ridiculous suggestion and to the person who suggested this, please read this entire message before making your decision.
Sager is a great company, and they have an excellent relationship with Clevo, their ODM.
I give companies like Sager major respect - because their volumes are overwhelming, and their products are for the most part really good. Companies like Sager will purchase the notebooks directly from Taiwan/China and install a processor, hard drive, and memory here in North America. This saves them a ton of money, and it's certainly a cheaper alternative for many people. Voodoo doesn't profess to be the most inexpensive PC company in the world, and as such we cater to a smaller niche than Sager or Prostar. Even though we don't "fabricate" the components, we do assemble the notebooks from the ground up in North America (we're the only company who does this). We also make major thermal modifications to many of our notebook platforms - and we include things like Upgrade Assurance, our performance is also higher than our competition (or we like to think so :-) )
I would also like to point out that it's really hard to do a head to head comparison on various notebooks, simply because the specs are usually almost always different. There are many things to consider, like Thermal Overhead, Chipset Termination, MB Layout, etc.
So for example, if you compare the Sager 5680 with a Voodoo m:855 you'll notice a number of differences. The Voodoo has unreal battery life (in our tests - not sure about Anandtechs tests yet), where as the Sager doesn't due to the fact that it's using a desktop processor from Intel. The thermals in the Voodoo allow our system to remain cooler, and as such our thermal overhead will allow for some pretty awesome upgrades in the future. Our notebook is lighter, and it uses a 1400X1050 Display that's suited for gaming (low response time). The Sager has one of the nicest looking screens on the planet (1600X1200 WVA) - it's amazing, but it also kills the battery life, increases the weight, and the response time is slower.
My point is, all notebooks are not created equal. What is important to understand is every user is unique - and as such as user needs to choose a notebook that suits their needs.
In my opinion, the best CPU(s) on the planet for notebooks are either the Pentium M or the Athlon 64 for Notebooks. The Athlon 64 allows you to truly get desktop performance and still maintain some of the mobility you may be looking for.
FYI MADCAT it is true that VoodooPC was the first to introduce M10 to North America (and even Europe!) with our m:460 notebook. If you have any doubt you should email someone in the mobility side of ATI for verification before you drop a judgement.
We have since made changes to that product and we're planning to release a newer version soon. This doesn't make us "special" - because there are many reasons why we were the first to release M10. I can't get into too much detail, but what I can say is that NVIDIA had the majority of design wins at the beginning.
Anyways, just some thoughts - please know that Anandtech was our first choice for an online review because of their integrity and committment to unbiased honest journalism. Unfortunately I cannot say the same for the vast majority of online sights, so please continue to support these guys.
Who knows, maybe in PART 2 they'll say our notebook blows, and the battery life is not all that we profess - if so we're going back to the drawing board. :-)
If anyone has any questions on our products or our company please feel free to drop me a line anytime.
(I'm now preparing to duck, waiting for someone to flame me)
Rahul Sood
President & CTO
VoodooPC
(888)708-6636
gordon151 - Thursday, November 6, 2003 - link
"the only people reviewed were those who could pay enough to get reviewed..."Or maybe the people who just send them systems that they can review. I'm sure you envision Anandtech editors as people who snap their fingers and systems fly in their laps ;P.
Anyhow I wanted to see a comparable DPR 3.2Ghz P4 notebook review, but eh I'm not going to go cry about not seeing it in the review as they more or less just couldn't get one.
EdvardGrieg - Thursday, November 6, 2003 - link
I don't think it is fair to say that only the people that paid enough got reviewed...not all manufactures have the surplus to send out reviews, and Anand is one of the few good 3rd party review sites. Ever read Cnet? Now there is a site to take with a grain of salt <rolls eyes>Anyway, as far as not showing the ATi performance relative to the other laptops I would imagine that that is because the 8600 performed above all those other laptops, and as such it would be redundant to show the ATi beating all of them time and again.
rehlers - Wednesday, November 5, 2003 - link
I find it frustrating that I have yet to see a review done with the nVidia 5650 using the latest drivers. Sure, Dell is slow in releasing "official" drivers, but it took me all of 2 minutes to find an INF file patch to make the 52.16 drivers work on my Inspiron 8600, I'm sure the Anandtech staff could have found them as well. I realize the ATI 9600 is faster than the nVidia 5650, but I would like to see the latest drivers on one compared to the latest drivers on the other.Madcat207 - Wednesday, November 5, 2003 - link
"Well, seeing as this is the first 9600 based production notebook they have in the lab in the moment, its kinda hard to bench it against any others. WHEN they review the Sager, I'm sure they will have the Voodoo benchie in there. "Funny, i have had my Sager 5680 with a 9600Pro for more than a month now. This Voodoo system is in no way the first to have that chip....
Anyway, in no way am i a troll.. i call it as i see it. as i see it, the only people reviewed were those who could pay enough to get reviewed...