January 14, 2004

By: Sandra Ade
Website: http://www.1st-in-batteries.com

ATI introduces POWERPLAY™ technology to improve battery life of notebook PCs

ATI Technologies Inc., the world’s number one notebook graphics vendor, today unveiled POWERPLAY™, a new technology that extends notebook battery life using a number of techniques, including scaling GPU (graphics processor unit) clock speeds and voltage settings. POWERPLAY technology will be featured in notebooks powered by ATI’s new MOBILITY™ RADEON™ 7500 graphics processor.

“Independent benchmark tests *1 concluded that the POWERPLAY-enabled MOBILITY RADEON 7500 can extend DVD playback by 25 percent or more compared to competing solutions,” said David Cummings, Group Product Manager, Mobile Business Unit, ATI Technologies Inc. “On a typical system, this will extend battery life by more than 30 minutes, making it possible, for example, to watch a full-length feature movie on an air flight without running out of battery power.

“Other scenarios, including reading email, using personal productivity applications or playing computer games, also benefit from ATI’s POWERPLAY innovations,” added Mr. Cummings. “With the anticipated future growth in wireless home and office networks, the increased notebook battery life provided by POWERPLAY is more important than ever.” MOBILITY RADEON 7500 processors with POWERPLAY technology save power while still delivering exceptional 3D performance.

Industry experts note that having power management technology in today’s mobile graphics processors is vital. “Power management is becoming increasingly critical as advanced 3D graphics processors advance into the notebook space. Without power management, the graphics processor can become the largest single consumer of power in the system, so it is critical to deploy power management technologies into these devices,” said Martin Reynolds, Vice President and Research Fellow, Gartner Dataquest.

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Author Notes:

Sandra Ade contributes and publishes news editorial to http://www.1st-in-batteries.com.  A great resource for batteries of all kinds including camcorder, laptop, cell phone and more.