In the middle of all of the Titanium hoopla, I forgot to post a note about this press release in which ATI announces (“ATI unveils MOBILITY RADEON: world’s highest performance, most feature-rich graphics processor for the notebook PC“) a notebook version of their Radeon chipset called the Mobility Radeon. Here’s the main beef of the press release:
Industry reviewers have praised ATI’s RADEON graphics processor for the technological advances it has brought to desktop computer graphics and multimedia. MOBILITY RADEON now brings those advances to the notebook PC platform. These advances include ATI’s HYPER-Z compression hardware technology, which improves performance by boosting effective memory bandwidth by more than 20 per cent; PIXEL TAPESTRY architecture, a highly-optimized 32-bit color rendering engine that supports three-way multi-texturing and new 3D effects without compromising speed; Dual DAC (Digital-to-Analog Converter) for cost-effective, independent, multi-monitor support at maximum resolutions; and VIDEO IMMERSION, which provides industry-leading video playback with adaptive de-interlacing, processing of full-frame rate, full-screen DVD and integrated motion compensation.
Combined with ATI’s recently announced TV WONDER USB EDITION external tuner, MOBILITY RADEON delivers new levels of multimedia functionality in a notebook PC, providing mobile ALL-IN-WONDER capability in a single package, and eliminating the need for OEM customers to deal with multiple hardware and software vendors for development and support. Deploying MOBILITY RADEON, the notebook PC platform can perform all the tasks a desktop computer can, including video editing, display TV viewing windows, running the latest video power games, and operating smooth DVD replay, among an extensive range of the industry’s latest applications.
In addition, MOBILITY RADEON further refines ATI’s already unparalleled power management technology, producing the industry’s lowest power consumption levels-as low as half a watt, including 8 MB of memory-in typical 2D, 3D and DVD modes. At the same time, ATI also continues to pioneer the industry’s advances in multi-display support. MOBILITY RADEON supports resolutions up to QXGA (Quad Extended Graphics Array) standard (2048 X 1536 pixels), an industry first, bringing a new level of display resolution and configuration flexibility to the mobile market.
Hyper-Z? Pixel Tapestry? Aside from its spectacular marketing department, the big question for PowerBook-philes is whether or not Apple will use the Mobility Radeon in their future notebook products. nVidia is making strong headway into the Mac market by stealing Apple away from ATI, and we wouldn’t be surprised if Apple just passed up ATI’s offerings and married nVidia’s GeForce2 Go for the Titanium speedbump.
ATI or nVidia? What do you think? Throw down in the reader feedback thread below.
