2. Waiting For Arrival

When a new chip is launched, you'd expect a product review on the day of its release and general availability a few weeks later. We usually receive test samples a considerable time before the release date of the actual product. NVIDIA announced its Geforce2 Go on November 13th, 2000. Still nobody has been able to get a notebook with that chip. Now ATI is striking back with its Mobility RADEON and there isn't any notebook around for testing either.

Unlike desktop components like processors, motherboards or graphics cards, it takes a lot longer to release a new notebook. A motherboard design for a new chipset takes 3 to 6 months. If the bus structure changes, as it did with the Pentium4, it can take up to 9 months. In the desktop graphics card business, the card manufacturer uses the reference design of the chipmaker to hit the time to market momentum. A few months later the graphics card maker will introduce its own design with some value-added features or a cost-down solution.

The design of a notebook can take 12 months and is much more complex than a motherboard or a graphics card design. In fact, it is almost like composing an opera. Long battery time, small size, lowest possible weight and a cooling solution that removes the heat produced by CPU, Chipset, Graphics and Memory must fit into a new and nice customized case.

Both the Geforce2 Go and the Mobility RADEON are supposed to be available within the next month. Why not now? The answer is Intel's roadmap. Soon there will be new notebook chipsets available with new CPUs. As it takes such a long time to design a new notebook, the manufacturer can wait a few months with the presentations of its next-generation product that includes both the new graphics chip as well as the new chipset. Furthermore, notebook ads shows the graphics chip listed below CPU, memory size, display size and hard disk drive (HDD), as it's one of the few things that can't be changed easily.

The two new mobile graphics chips are based on desktop graphics chip solutions. Some features were added while the clock and voltage were reduced. Lets take a look at the performance we expect from the upcoming 3D chips by simulating the new chips.