ATI’s Mobility X300 & X800 Arrive

What’s New

The first thing we noted on the X800 & X300 was that the Powerplay software has been updated to version 5.0. For those of you who do not know, Powerplay is a clock gating and lane switiching software application that helps conserve the battery for you. An example of DLCS, or Dynamic Lane Count Switching is when you have a notebook in AC mode (plugged in) it will run on all x16 PCIe lanes, but when in DC mode (battery) it runs on a single x1 PCIe lane. ATI claims that PowerPlay 5.0 has the ability to increase battery life by up to 30% on these PCI Express notebooks! Consumers always want more battery life out of their notebooks, so hopfully consumers will see a difference in battery life.

If you read our ATI R200 chipset article you may recall reading about HyperMemory. Well, here it is again on the next generation PCI Express notebook graphics!

HyperMemory support allows designers to implement a local frame buffer for the core instead of using shared memory from the system. This means faster data transfer and a better gaming experience for end users. If you cut the travel length for data and use dedicated memory for a specific deviece it makes sense that it would be quicker.

Time to take a closer look at the X300 and the X800 and see what they offer!