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Napa Officially Announced
Just to make it that bit more difficult to buy Christmas gifts companies do seem to enjoy announcing products that will be available early next year. The guilty party here is Intel, with the official announcement of its new mobile platform. The official name can’t be made known yet, so for now we’ll have to stick with the code name, which is Napa.
Just to put a dampener on the new laptop you’ve got for Christmas Intel claims that the new platform will be faster, use less power and just be better all round. Let’s take a close look at what Napa has to offer and if it will meet the high expectations – both the ones from Intel and the ones from expected buyers.
The new mobile processor has the codename Yonah, and it’s no secret that it will be dual-core and that it will be manufactured using a 65nm micron process. Yonah utilises a shared 2MB L2 cache which both cores have access to. Intel claims that this will reduce cache misses and cache under-utilization. The two cores can also share data more efficiently between them this way. A single core version will also be available, but Intel hinted, but did not confirm, that this will replace the Celeron brand of mobile processors.
The FSB (Front Side Bus) will also be increased from 533 to 667MHz, which should boost the performance as well. Intel has also tweaked the SSE/SSE2 functions and added several new SSE3 functions. The FPU (Floating Point Unit) has also been given an overhaul to improve its performance. As with previous generations of mobile processors Yonah will be available in full-fat, low voltage and ultra-low voltage flavours.
Intel has once again improved the power saving features of its mobile processors and Yonah has some interesting power saving features. First up is Enhanced Deeper Sleep, a better version of Deeper Sleep that turns off more parts of the system when it’s not being used. However, when in use, one of the cores can be switched off to save power if the extra CPU power isn’t needed. The information of the shared cache can also be moved to RAM during periods of inactivity or low usage, which again saves power by switching off parts of the cache.
The new processors and faster FSB requires a new chipset and for this Intel will use a mobile version of its existing desktop 945 chipset. The increased FSB also means support for faster memory and the 945 chipset works with DDR2 memory at speeds of 533 or 667MHz in a single or dual channel configuration for up to 4GB of RAM. A mobile version of Intel’s ICH7 will be paired to the 945 chipset and there will be a model that supports RAID 0 and 1 as well as Intel’s Matrix RAID. There is also support for SATA optical drives, something that haven’t been available in previous chipsets.
A new wireless card has also been designed for the new platform, the Intel PRO/Wireless 3945ABG which offers improved performance and reduce power drain. This is using the PCI Express bus and comes in a MiniCard form factor rather than Mini PCI which has been the standard to date. The new Intel cards also have better profile support for multiple wireless networks, so you can easily swap between different network settings. On the subject of networking, the onboard Ethernet controller of the Napa platform is now up to Gigabit speed and it too uses the PCI Express bus.
In might be the world’s largest supplier of graphics, but performance graphics has never been Intel’s strong point. A new graphics core has been developed for the Yonah platform in the shape of the Intel GMA950 which according to Intel offers up to twice the 3D performance of the previous generation. It is also more power efficient and ready for Windows Vista.
Intel has also improved the support for widescreen displays by adding the required resolutions in the drivers. More importantly the GMA950 also supports HD video playback and with a dual-core processor in your notebook there should be enough grunt to play HD video smoothly. According to Intel the Napa platform will be able to play back HD video content at 30fps, so there shouldn’t be any issues with stuttering video.
There is also support for an ambient light sensor, which will allow the screens backlight to adjust automatically to various light conditions. This can be disabled if this is a feature you don’t like, but it could save battery power.
Intel claims market wide uptake of the new Napa platform and at least on paper, Napa looks like a huge step forward in mobile processing power. If all the promises come through, Intel will have a very good mobile platform that should offer more performance and better battery life, the two things that every laptop user wants. However, you’ll have to wait until the early next year before you can actually buy one, which together with uncertainties about pricing are really the only downsides to the new Napa platform that we can currently see.
Its looking good. Pitty that it still supports ac'97 though! Use High Def.
EDIT: Found out that ich8m will drop support for ac'97 and pata tech. There will be a total of 4 sataII connections (up from 2 sata in this version), also usb ports will increase by 2 to 10 and will include port disabling technology also 800mhz memory will be supported. This chipset is codenamed Crestine and will be released with Merom (successor to yonah) in Q4 '06.
Napa Officially Announced
Just to make it that bit more difficult to buy Christmas gifts companies do seem to enjoy announcing products that will be available early next year. The guilty party here is Intel, with the official announcement of its new mobile platform. The official name can’t be made known yet, so for now we’ll have to stick with the code name, which is Napa.
Just to put a dampener on the new laptop you’ve got for Christmas Intel claims that the new platform will be faster, use less power and just be better all round. Let’s take a close look at what Napa has to offer and if it will meet the high expectations – both the ones from Intel and the ones from expected buyers.
The new mobile processor has the codename Yonah, and it’s no secret that it will be dual-core and that it will be manufactured using a 65nm micron process. Yonah utilises a shared 2MB L2 cache which both cores have access to. Intel claims that this will reduce cache misses and cache under-utilization. The two cores can also share data more efficiently between them this way. A single core version will also be available, but Intel hinted, but did not confirm, that this will replace the Celeron brand of mobile processors.
The FSB (Front Side Bus) will also be increased from 533 to 667MHz, which should boost the performance as well. Intel has also tweaked the SSE/SSE2 functions and added several new SSE3 functions. The FPU (Floating Point Unit) has also been given an overhaul to improve its performance. As with previous generations of mobile processors Yonah will be available in full-fat, low voltage and ultra-low voltage flavours.
Intel has once again improved the power saving features of its mobile processors and Yonah has some interesting power saving features. First up is Enhanced Deeper Sleep, a better version of Deeper Sleep that turns off more parts of the system when it’s not being used. However, when in use, one of the cores can be switched off to save power if the extra CPU power isn’t needed. The information of the shared cache can also be moved to RAM during periods of inactivity or low usage, which again saves power by switching off parts of the cache.
The new processors and faster FSB requires a new chipset and for this Intel will use a mobile version of its existing desktop 945 chipset. The increased FSB also means support for faster memory and the 945 chipset works with DDR2 memory at speeds of 533 or 667MHz in a single or dual channel configuration for up to 4GB of RAM. A mobile version of Intel’s ICH7 will be paired to the 945 chipset and there will be a model that supports RAID 0 and 1 as well as Intel’s Matrix RAID. There is also support for SATA optical drives, something that haven’t been available in previous chipsets.
A new wireless card has also been designed for the new platform, the Intel PRO/Wireless 3945ABG which offers improved performance and reduce power drain. This is using the PCI Express bus and comes in a MiniCard form factor rather than Mini PCI which has been the standard to date. The new Intel cards also have better profile support for multiple wireless networks, so you can easily swap between different network settings. On the subject of networking, the onboard Ethernet controller of the Napa platform is now up to Gigabit speed and it too uses the PCI Express bus.
In might be the world’s largest supplier of graphics, but performance graphics has never been Intel’s strong point. A new graphics core has been developed for the Yonah platform in the shape of the Intel GMA950 which according to Intel offers up to twice the 3D performance of the previous generation. It is also more power efficient and ready for Windows Vista.
Intel has also improved the support for widescreen displays by adding the required resolutions in the drivers. More importantly the GMA950 also supports HD video playback and with a dual-core processor in your notebook there should be enough grunt to play HD video smoothly. According to Intel the Napa platform will be able to play back HD video content at 30fps, so there shouldn’t be any issues with stuttering video.
There is also support for an ambient light sensor, which will allow the screens backlight to adjust automatically to various light conditions. This can be disabled if this is a feature you don’t like, but it could save battery power.
Intel claims market wide uptake of the new Napa platform and at least on paper, Napa looks like a huge step forward in mobile processing power. If all the promises come through, Intel will have a very good mobile platform that should offer more performance and better battery life, the two things that every laptop user wants. However, you’ll have to wait until the early next year before you can actually buy one, which together with uncertainties about pricing are really the only downsides to the new Napa platform that we can currently see.
Its looking good. Pitty that it still supports ac'97 though! Use High Def.
EDIT: Found out that ich8m will drop support for ac'97 and pata tech. There will be a total of 4 sataII connections (up from 2 sata in this version), also usb ports will increase by 2 to 10 and will include port disabling technology also 800mhz memory will be supported. This chipset is codenamed Crestine and will be released with Merom (successor to yonah) in Q4 '06.
