Athlon XP-M open for mass market? mathematically impossible.

[Runner30]

Hello, I'm Gil, it's my first post, hope I contribute to this forum.

Obviously the Athlon XP family has reached its saturation point in terms of optimization. Thus it makes the AXP 3200@400FSB the most stable and "successful" chip- the last one in family.

The cores were tested for performance under extreme conditions and those who didn't fail to perform undervolted were chosen and made into Athlon XP-M ( M for mobile) -- (The known "cherry picking" theory).Following Gauss curve - the number of those is severely limited.

Their flexibility was taken advantage of by AMD PowerNow utility allowing to make those chips super-low power consumers.

Eventually the ability to function under low voltage meant significally better overclocking results and the chip bacame the choise for enthusiast.

My question is as following-
The theory means that only a few out of mass production qualify to the elite "M" group and meant to a small Mobile market.
It's not like any other product - AMD can not suppply ANY demanded ammount of this product and will simply run out of them and won't be able to supply the demand for the Laptops.

The situation will change very soon IMO.

What do you think?

[dead_man311]

Id say there's a pertty good supply of mobile CPU's , newegg runs out here and there but there supply is back up and going with in days

Welcome To The Forum !

[c627627]

Hundreds of millions of users purchase already made systems and you're thinking they'll run out of chips because we're buying mobiles?

The answer to this question may illustrate this: If Dell alone dropped Intel and exclusively started selling AMD systems, what percentage of entire CPU sales AMD makes in a given period would that be?

Overclockers make a relatively insignificant percentage of world wide sales. It's all about retail sales of CPUs running at stock speeds therefore Gauss can put that in his pipe and smoke it. :)

Welcome to the forums! How much do mobile CPUs cost over there?

[Gautam]

I think what he means to say is that you can kiss your chances of getting a mobile Barton goodbye in the near future, as AMD won't be producing them anymore, which I'm expecting to be the case. They're already getting progressively worse, and it won't be long until they disappear. Socket 462 is an obsolete package; AMD is now focusing on mobile A64's; they can and will run out of mobile Bartons rather soon, I'd venture.

[c627627]

Remember, that's what we thought about T-Bred B's and as time went by we couldn't believe how the dates of production were being reported as newer and newer.

Athlon XP notebooks are listed as available everywhere, AMD will simply not switch to 'Athlon 64 notebooks only' in anytime that can be remotely described as "they can and will run out of mobile Bartons rather soon." Sorry to disagree with you there G man.

[Gautam]

Actually, I dunno... the process should in theory be getting better, but they keep clocking progressively worse. I'm not saying that desktop AXP's will be phased out(although in a year or so they will be) but the mobiles are a completely different story. Even if laptops continue to roll out, what's the point of AMD making mobile processors available to the public?

[7keys]

Originally posted by Gautam
what's the point of AMD making mobile processors available to the public?

Because they sell and that's what AMD does, sell cpu's.

[superamd]

I thought they dont make the xp-m they make regular bartons and take the best ones (closer to the center of silicon?) to be xp-m so then wouldnt the mobile chips be dependant on the amount of desktop chips made? If (im guessing)1 in 40 desktop bartons passes the test to be a mobile barton the 40,000 desktops would have to be made to create 1000 mobiles. So then the amount and quality of mobiles would be dependant on the demand for desktops. And we (overclockers) do not affect the total supply of chips made.

[c627627]

Originally posted by Gautam
Actually, I dunno... the process should in theory be getting better, but they keep clocking progressively worse.

Click here Gautam:
http://www.amd.com/us-en/Processors/ProductInformation/0,,30_118_1276_807,00.html

[Runner30]

Thanks for the replies!

posted by superamd:
I thought they dont make the xp-m they make regular bartons and take the best ones

The cores are Bartons exactly the same for mobiles and desktops but the chip they are put in are slightly different imo - those that affect ultiplier, FSB, powenow etc settings.

posted by c627627
How much do mobile CPUs cost over there?

630 NIS that would be $120+17% tax.
Not bad considering it saves me shipping over the ocean. :)

I can now my mistake - the numbers are just much bigger than I thought, so there's no problem with the supply.

Yet I have a path to develop my theory:

If there's discovered so much potential in those beasts,they hit 2300 sometimes 2400 with 1.65V sometimes less- without any effort,
Why wouldn't AMD pack some of them as Bartons 3200+ 3400+
Or even 3600+?

I see only one reason : they are hopelessly not selling.

[Gautam]

I see one reason: They get their asses kicked by A64 for not much more money. It's AMD's next product line; no sense in putting out all-new AXP 3600+'s to compete with A64 3200+'s...

Guess I was wrong. We'll see how much longer the mobile Bartons last.

[Sentential]

The 2800+ is a DTR. It is not a true moble. The reason why they are getting worse IMHO, is because the good binned stuff is gone. We are getting the typical batch of chips, unlike b4.

At this point its either hit or miss. Nothing is gaurnteed anymore

[dead_man311]

Ive seen the 2400's have sliped as of latly

the 2500's are still gonig pertty strong

[Runner30]

posted by Sentential:
We are getting the typical batch of chips, unlike b4.

I don't think you can get just ANY chip running stable at 1.45V.
Or you can?

Can someone try to check this issue?

You'll need a pre39 week B2500+,
Try to set it to 133(266)x14@1.45V.

I'm not sure it will run stable even at 1.6V.

So you probably do have to pick the best out of heap.

[OC Detective]

Thinking in terms of economics if a person has decided to buy a Barton to overclock then for AMD it is more sensible they buy the slightly more expensive yet unlocked mobile version. Gautam's point about them getting progressively worse could mean that AMD have realised this and are perhaps not being so stringent in the cherry picking to allow a greater supply of them.