Dan, Re: "Even better for Intel, that has been shipping mobile systems that ran at 2/3's speed on battery all these years."
Except that Intel doesn't try to hide the frequency that their processors run at when in SpeedStep. Last time I checked, the Athlon could run as slowly as 300MHz. But, after searching their site for a while, I failed to locate a clue about how fast they can run when at 1.2V. Soon, AMD will only have Quanti numbers, and no one will know at all what the frequency is. Then, AMD can lie, lie, lie their way through any kind of claim. Here's Intel's numbers, though.
developer.intel.com
Re: "Intel's speedstep has to be rebooted to change speeds, and their speedstepII pale, limited, copy of PowerNow doesn't work and had to be disabled on Dell (and other) notebooks."
Wrong again. Here is something that you might find interesting.
intel.com
Q: What is Enhanced SpeedStep™ technology?
A: Intel Enhanced SpeedStep technology provides desktop class performance with all the benefits of mobility. This is accomplished with two dynamically switching performance modes. Maximum Performance mode provides desktop-class performance when you are connected to AC power, while Battery Optimized mode delivers maximum battery life. For example, when a system is unplugged, the mobile Pentium III processor 750MHz core automatically drops to 600 MHz from the peak frequency of 750 MHz. At the same time, the operating voltage of the processor drops to 1.35 volts from 1.6 volts. In addition, Intel SpeedStep technology software allows for automatic or user controlled performance mode switching. The software supports all the major operating systems including Microsoft's Window* 95, Windows 98, Windows NT 4.0, Windows 2000, and Windows XP through a common code base.
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