NVIDIA nForce3 Go120 and Transmeta Efficeon Preview

Conclusion

NVIDIA has some high expectations for their nForce3 Go120 chipset, which is directly tied to the success of the Transmeta Efficeon processor. Right now we are understandably skeptical for some of the mobile desktop plans that NVIDIA is touting and the performance that Transmeta is promoting. Their claim of a performance boost 50%+ over Transmeta’s Crusoe is definitely something that caught our interest.

The reason that Centrino and Pentium-M populate the mainstream mobile market is because of the ability to surpass the minimum performance needed to run Windows XP and still provide great battery life. There have been plenty of system vendors that have switched from Crusoe to Pentium-M because of this (i.e. HP/Compaq’s TC1000 Tablet PC).

When we talked with NVIDIA, one of their ideas to make their product (along with Transmeta’s Efficeon processor) more tempting is to focus on the real estate saved by nForce3 Go120 and Efficeon’s integrated northbridge. They pointed out that the use of an integrated northbridge (among other things) could allow OEMs to put a slim CD and or DVD drive in an ultraportable notebook. The suggestion of this for something like the Dell X300 or the IBM X31 is very tempting. However, ultraportable system designers are more keen on striping out every possible component that will not be practically needed while on the go. Since that addition typically falls outside this focus, we currently don’t see optical drives in ultraportable notebooks.

Traditionally, because optical drives aren’t in constant use; anything that can save space is usually taken full advantage of in ultraportable system designs that range from quasi-large PDAs to ultraportable notebooks. (NVIDIA is actually talking about Go120 based systems with dimensions as small as 3.3" x 6.1".) If space is saved by any means, it is more likely the extra space will be used to reduce the overall size of the system or increase the battery capacity.

With Dothan (Centrino's sucessor) on the horizon, the mobile industry isn’t without news to talk about. AMD shouldn’t be too far off from announcing mobile news, which we will share when the time comes. Meanwhile, if Transmeta’s Efficeon can provide the performance they are suggesting, Intel may see a competitive side of Transmeta that they haven’t had to deal with yet. But then again, this still depends on the performance and, just as important, a competitive price tag.