Source: Tom's Guide US | Keywords: a, light, notebook, for, a, light, pocketbook | Themes: Business Notebooks
- 1. Averatec: Newcomer To The Notebook Market
- 2. A Brief Run-Down: The Low Voltage Version Of The Athlon-XP-M
- 3. A Brief Run-Down: The Low Voltage Version Of The Athlon-XP-M, Continued
- 4. Overview Of The Test Configuration
- 5. The Averatec 3150P From The Outside
- 6. ...from The Bottom And From The Inside
- 7. ...from The Bottom And From The Inside, Continued
- 8. Benchmarks Under Windows XP
- 9. Synthetic Benchmarks
- 10. SiSoft Sandra 2002, Continued
3. A Brief Run-Down: The Low Voltage Version Of The Athlon-XP-M, Continued
The machine automatically switches between the individual operating points as the processor load changes. Under Windows XP, you can still influence the CPU performance directly by picking a certain power scheme. The Powernow mechanism can also be deactivated.
| Windows XP Power Schemes | AC Power ( LV mobile Athlon XP 1600+) | DC Power( LV mobile Athlon XP 1600+) |
|---|---|---|
| Home/Office Desktop | None (1.40 GHz Always) | Adaptive (400 MHz <...>1.40 GHz) |
| Portable /Laptop | Adaptive (400 MHz <...>1.40 GHz) | Adaptive (400 MHz <...>1.40 GHz) |
| Presentation | Adaptive (400 MHz <...>1.40 GHz) | Degrade (400 MHz) |
| Always On | None (1.40 GHz Always) | None (1.40 GHz Always) |
| Minimal Power Management | Adaptive (400 MHz <...>1.40 GHz) | Adaptive (400 MHz <...>1.40 GHz) |
| Maximum Battery | Adaptive (400 <...>1.40 GHz) | Degrade (400 MHz MHz) |
Includes graphics: VIA ProsavageDDR KN266 chipset
- 3200 Series Battery...
A lot of ultra-portable devices sport chipsets with built-in graphics. They're a lot cheaper than dedicated graphics chips and thus help push down the price of the system. What's more, notebook cases are often so compact that designers tend to prefer an integrated solution. It also obviates the need to find more room to accommodate the video RAM, since the video RAM for integrated graphics solutions is "stolen" from the regular RAM. The marketing gurus have dubbed this technique SMA (shared-memory architecture) or UMA (unified-memory architecture).
The drawback is that these solutions are (generally) not the best performers in the world (especially when it comes to 3D applications), not to mention the fact that you actually "lose" part of your system memory.
Averatec settled on the ProsavageDDR KN266 from VIA for its chipset.
The Prosavage8 graphics core is integrated in the Northbridge (VT8372) of the ProsavageDDR KN266. The Prosavage8 supports AGP8x, up to 32 MB of frame buffer (SMA) and allows you to play back DVDs flicker-free, thanks to its DVD Motion Compensation (30 fps). You can select the size of the frame buffer in the notebook's BIOS (8 MB, 16 MB, 32 MB). The Northbridge's memory interface can handle up to 4 GB DDR266 SDRAM (bandwidth of 2,100 MB/s). Since it is a portable chipset for AMD CPUs, it also supports AMD's Powernow power-saving technology.
The Northbridge and Southbridge communicate via V-Link, a dedicated, 8 bit wide bus with a bandwidth of 266 MHz. The Southbridge in the notebook is a VT8233A, which has a 10/100 megabit interface and support for USB 2.0, among other things.
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