RAM | Reseller Advocate Magazine: Issue 52

By Chris Angelini

System builders know that much time and effort goes into choosing the right components for a white box PC. Even if your graphics cards are physically compatible with the motherboard, which accommodates those DDR-2 modules you ordered, there are still stability issues to overcome and performance considerations to think through.

It's tempting to look at whitebooks and think that they might be less problematic. After all, chassis, motherboard, and graphics are all right there with a handy little spec sheet telling you what will and won't work thermally. In reality, though, there's still plenty of technology to understand and a handful of components (some of which are not interoperable) you'll need to configure.


	Multi-Core Madness The CPU might look very similar, but Core Duo represents a drastic shift to mobile multi-core processing. Multimedia on the road will never be the same.

Cherry-Picking Processors

Take CPUs, for example. The processor is arguably the most defining attribute of a notebook's performance. And there's no processor quite so well known as Intel's Pentium M. Of course, you now refer to the chip as Core Duo, reflecting its new dual-core architecture, or the single-core Core Solo. But the guts are fundamentally very similar.

The principal competition to Core Duo is currently AMD's Turion 64, a variant of the Athlon 64 family. With 512KB/1MB of L2 cache, Socket 754, an 800 MHz HyperTransport link, and clock speeds up to 2.4 GHz, Turion is the first mainstream 64-bit mobile processor—which is good. The AMD64 design has proven highly flexible in enterprise and mainstream environments alike.

You'll obviously be choosing to go Core Duo or Turion 64 long before actually buying a whitebook chassis, making it important to understand the strengths of each. Performance comparisons between the two are actually less important than you might expect given current channel penetration. Although AMD's Turion 64 has been out for roughly a year, it faces an uphill battle against the incumbent Centrino initiative. Traction, at least in the channel, has been slow. A handful of distributors carry OEM processors, and we were able to find a couple of corresponding whitebook shells. However, it's a safe bet that availability will limit your reliance on Turion in the near-term.

Nevertheless, AMD maintains it is making marked progress in its mobile initiative, both with its own processors and partner whitebooks.

"Our ODM partners making thin-and-light whitebook chassis based on AMD Turion 64 mobile technology include Arima, ASUS, ECS, Mitac, MSI, Twinhead, and Uniwill. ODMs supporting full size solutions include AOpen, Arima, Clevo, FIC, Mitac, Quanta, and Uniwill," says Jake Whitman of AMD's public relations team.

The company is also selling dual-core Athlon 64 X2 chips to large system builders for desktop replacements. Those don't seem to be particularly accessible at the channel level, but AMD's Whitman claims dual-core processors designed specifically for thin-and-light systems will emerge in the first half of 2006. Such a technological push would make AMD the only company with a mobile chip that is both dual-core and 64-bit-enabled Core Duo, on the other hand, is already ramping up quickly thanks to a heavy channel emphasis on Intel's part. We confirmed availability at a number of distributors, and at least two vendors have demonstrated readiness with third-gen Centrino chassis.

Same As as
It Ever Was
Turion stems from an esteemed family of desktop and enterprise processors. Soon, it will also get the multi-core capabilities needed to do battle with Core Duo.

The processing architecture itself is quite compelling as a result of increased front -side bus throughput, a shared L2 cache, and distinct power optimization that helps maintain Intel's battery-friendly mobile image. A plethora of dual- and single-core models makes it easy for VARs to tailor a notebook for customers at every price level. At least today, you have the best opportunity to build the right whitebook for your customer using Intel's technology.

Graphics: Understanding the Value Add

Ready
for Vista
ATI's Mobility Radeon X1600 sports a full DX9 core and 256MB of memory built onto one package. Equipped whitebooks should be capable of handling Microsoft's Vista. The Mobility Radeon X1800 was announced just as we went to press.

The least expensive notebooks come with integrated graphics—something along the lines of Intel's GMA 950. That's fine for most mainstream users. But now ATI and NVIDIA are eager to show you how an upgraded graphics solution may help your customers in the future and your bottom line today.

"In 2005, the average user could get by with integrated graphics," says Ravi Kaushik, product marketing manager for mobile products at NVIDIA. "This year, new applications like Google Earth and Adobe Acrobat 3D will drive the need for better 3D and video performance, though."

That means you'll want to devote an increasing effort to notebooks with true graphics horsepower, not necessarily discrete solutions. Capable integrated cores can work, as well. ATI's Radeon Xpress 200M chipset, for example, is a DirectX 9.0 part with WDDM (Windows Driver Display Model) support, which is enough to at least qualify for basic Vista certification once that launches later this year.

You'll naturally want to offer graphics processors capable of surpassing the basic spec, though, which is why ATI and NVIDIA agree higher-end graphics chips offer the best possible opportunity for a great experience with Vista's Aeroglass 3D interface.

"Vista will mark the first time where even mainstream customers need to think about 3D performance," points out Jennifer Barron, PR manager at ATI. "Although there are still aspects of the graphics specification that need to be ironed out, it's a safe bet that faster GPUs will yield a better Vista experience."

In other words, selling premium graphics is no longer just about gaming.

Desktop-Like Performance
It may take a while for NVIDIA's fastest mobile graphics processor to hit notebooks, but when it does, expect frame rates comparable to desktop accelerators.

NVIDIA's Kaushik adds, "Vista's 3D enhanced Aeroglass interface will make discrete GPUs and more powerful IGPs a must-have for users wanting to get the full Vista experience. NVIDIA's new GeForce Go 7 series GPUs and our new GeForce 6100 IGPs were built to meet this enhanced need for graphics and video."

Both vendors are currently peddling fully compliant DirectX 9 chips with plenty of Vista potential. Intel also claims that its GMA 950 integrated architecture is Vista-ready. Temper your enthusiasm over that one, though, because Microsoft is planning platform-wide requirements for the next-gen operating systems, and it's a tad too early to do a Vista victory dance.

A Dynamic Storage Landscape

Capacity is one of the most glaring shortcomings of notebook hard drives. Part of the problem can be blamed on a smaller form factor and part on recording technology.

"A while back we hit a wall in our effort to shrink the bits stored on magnetic platters," says Michael Hall, Seagate spokesperson. "Moving beyond 120GB in a 2.5" device would have required another platter and two more heads, negatively impacting power draw."

The Future
of Storage
Seagate claims perpendicular recording will enable mobile hard drives with up to 500GB of capacity in the next five years.

Seagate recently began its transition from longitudinal magnetic recording technology, which Hall says has been around for the past 50 years, to perpendicular recording. The change effectively reorients data bits, enabling greater capacities in the same 2.5" packages. All of Seagate's mobile drives are making the switch, but first to market is the new 160GB model.

As you might expect, offering customers greater capacities is important now more than ever. According to Seagate's research, 38% of notebooks wielded 80GB or more last year. In 2006, that number is expected to hit 57%, and by 2007 a full 85% of notebook drives will exceed 80GB.

There's also an important distinction to be made in picking the proper rotational speed. Seagate, along with all of the other hard drive vendors, offers 4,200, 5,400, and 7,200 RPM products, each with different levels of performance and power draw.

"A 7,200 RPM drive is apropos when performance is top priority," Hall says. "They do consume more power but most closely resemble the performance you'd see on the desktop. Our Momentus 5400.3 series is a solid compromise between performance, capacity, and lower power draw. In fact, fine tuning of each power mode gives the 5,400 RPM lineup a similar power profile to most 4,200 RPM drives. The 4,200 RPM products are best suited to low-end applications."

What about the move to SATA? While buzz focuses on bigger drives and faster RPMs, the SATA shift is dragging in whitebooks. Doesn't that market stand to gain more from the simplified interface and value-added extras?

According to Seagate's Hall, "Notebooks generally lag desktops by about a year. A report by IDC showed roughly 12% of desktop drives in 2005 were SATA. This year we'll see 40% and by 2007 you can expect a full 80% transition from legacy PATA."

Clearly we're just not there yet on the notebook side, which should actually make things easy for VARs looking to minimize inventory. It's a safe bet you'll be going with PATA technology, likely in the 5,400 RPM range. Capacity will will vary by order, but somewhere between 60GB and 100GB could be a real sweet spot.

Memory: Optimizing for Value

The memory side is similarly rife with disparate technologies, speeds, and feeds. The players you've come to know don't necessarily fall into the same rank and file when it comes to notebook memory, either. Mark Tekunoff, technical resource manager at Kingston, explains that supply of DDR2 memory is currently tight, which makes it even more important to use modules from a reliable source.


	Doing SO-DIMM Business The right memory allows your whitebook systems to reach their maximum performance potential.

"We were the first ones out of the gate with 667 MHz SO-DIMMs because we recognized early on how important it would be to supply the mobile chipsets from ATI and Intel."

If you're thinking it might be easier to save money with a slightly slower speed grade, you might want to reconsider. Intel's latest Centrino platform employs processors on a 667 MHz bus. With two cores sharing that one pipeline, bandwidth is critical, and DDR2-667 runs synchronously. Moreover, if you're relying on an integrated chipset such as Intel's 945GM or ATI's Radeon Xpress 200M, graphics performance will rely in part on system memory speed. Combine those two factors and you're looking at a strong case for the fastest modules possible, not to mention a strong selling point on which competitors might not pick up.

You might also pick up an advantage by populating two memory slots. Most modern mobile platforms feature dual-channel architectures. And although whitebooks generally only feature two SO-DIMM slots, filling them both gives you a 128-bit data path, whereas leaving one open for expansion cuts the configuration down to 64-bits. Small performance tweaks like these yield substantial value and exemplify why whitebooks are such a rewarding alternative to OEM machines.