Wesley's Tool-Box

• CPU Considerations

Though in the coming months it may become different, 'Athlon' of today and 'Portable' are some sort of oxymoron. The T-bird Athlon's maximum power dissipation is already around 70W, comparable to an ordinary light bulb. Actual power consumption is higher than that. This is is a bit too much, even for a desktop system, considering high-end CPU's of half a decade ago usually consumed 1/10th of this. T-bird is arguably one of the fastest desktop PC CPU's, but it certainly shows this was done in a very 'brute force' manner. Some 'mobile' Duron notebooks have come out, but we know that it's just our usual Durons that've been underclocked and under-voltaged. Its power consumption is still more than twice that of a competing product. 'Palomino' revision of Athlons, which promise to consume far less energy while delivering more computing power, may change all this, but I couldn't sit around waiting for this chip, and I think it was relevant, considering the release of this CPU has been pushed back already somewhat.

You might be thinking at this point, 'then why don't you just use an Intel CPU, which consumes less power yet performing similar to AMD chips?' This was because my main systems were already using AMD platform, as apparent in my other articles. I needed to buy parts as I made money, using parts from my original system in the mean time. Going straight to Intel platform was not viable. Therefore, I decided to use the Duron as the CPU. They perform nicely and don't consume power as much as T-birds.

• On-board Video Sucks!

On to other things, I planned to use as much normal desktop components as possible to ensure best performance. However, to make the system portable, the casing had to be kept low-profile. One of the biggest thing that hinders this is the card in the expansion slot. Most of these could be replaced with external versions, but video card cannot. So the on-board video had to be considered. But this thought was thrown out almost immediately; I'd rather buy a notebook with Rage Mobility video chip than on-board video, and motherboards with on-board video for AMD platform was nearly non-existent in Korea at the time. The video card had to be kept in somehow, just as I chose a Duron for CPU despite the power consumption. Besides, if I wanted a unit with on-board video, there are already some low-profile systems, even a bare-bone one that I can equip with components of my choice, that utilize this sort of motherboards inside. I would have no point in making this. I had to find a video card that isn't so tall.

Another thing that had me rolling in my bed for another day was the hard disk. The big question was wheter I should use a 2.5" notebook hard disk or a normal 3.5" hard disk. This had to be thought of carefully because a 3.5" hard disk is about 1/4 of the size of a normal motherboard. You might think this isn't so large, but considering the fact that I have to cramp it in somewhere that won't interfere with a power supply, a CPU, or a video card meant that it would be a real tough job. Since you can fit 4 of those 2.5" hard disks into an area that a 3.5" counterpart takes up, it seemed to be a better solution. But there are obvious setbacks: they are expensive, slow, and small in capacity. I also needed a converter so I could plug it with a normal IDE cable. I decided that I would think of this one as I go along because a slight design change would make all the difference.

Don't be bored yet, guys. There are still more to come...

• Asking Too Much?

I had a dream. I dreamt there would be a portable computer that was just as good or better in terms of all areas of performance compared to a real desktop system. Sure, we've seen many state-of-the-art notebook computers that touts themselves as 'desktop replacements'. I do not doubt they would indeed be a desktop replacement in business sector, as the high-end spectrum of these machines sport components that challenge many mid-to-high performance desktop models, such as mobile 1GHz CPU.

However, there are shortcomings. Lots of them, actually. First of all, the prices go shooting up the stratosphere, in a much bigger proportion than a normal desktop version, as you add features, be it for usability or performance. Also, to make it compact, notebook computers sacrifice performance and it cannot outperform desktop counterpart even if similarly equipped. The most notable area of this would be 3D acceleration, as today's 3D enabled video chips require too much power compared to a 'normal' notebook video chip, which hindered the release of powerful 3D enabled notebook video chips. Yes, there has been releases of GeForce Go and mobile Radeon chips which claims to come close to their famed desktop counterparts, but notebook units that use these chips are still hard to find.

• Taking the Plunge

Besides, I would have never been fully comfortable even if I had given a 1GHz notebook computer with GeForce Go video chip. As my other articles profoundly show, I'm an overclocker who build my own system from ground up and push around the limits of what I've made. Pushing around a notebook computer, let alone 'making' a notebook is unlike anything desktop-ish. Notebook designs are not standardized, hence limiting customization and tweaking. You run on pretty much what you've initially bought, give or take a few options and many tweaking programs out there won't function well in a notebook system. You can't simply buy a notebook casing like you would with a middle-tower desktop, nor could you buy a notebook motherboard off the shelf.

Still, I wanted to carry my main system back and forth my dorm room and my home some 400km away(for those that are not metric-centric, it's 250 miles), which I do on a regular basis, and that huge chunk of a middle tower system with 17-inch monitor just won't cut it, not to mention risking bone fracture. All these thoughts hit me while I was rolling around my bed in early February, in the midst of the winter vacation. And so, I was set out to make things right. I wanted an Athlon system. Portable.