CES VEGAS: AMD to reveal Yukon Platform for Ultrathin Notebooks

By Davey Winder
Wednesday, 07 January 2009 15:22

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The annual technology orgy that is the Consumer Electronics Show kicks off in Las Vegas this week, and foreplay has already begun with AMD announcing that the much hyped Yukon platform has found a hardware home.

Everyone loves the Consumer Electronics Show in Vegas, the biggest technology event of the year. Not least as it pretty much guarantees some kick-ass geeky announcements, such as the long awaited Yukon platform from AMD.

In fact, there has not been this much excitement surrounding an AMD announcement since it revealed the world’s first teraFLOPS graphics card back in June 2008.

So what is all the fuss about and what is Yukon then? Well it is based upon the new AMD Athlon Neo processor together with ATI Radeon X1250 integrated graphics and is officially known as the Platform for Ultrathin Notebooks.

I think I preferred Yukon to be honest, although I can foresee some journalistic fun with the PUN acronym over the next few days.

But I digress, PUN is designed to bring true HD entertainment into the world of thin and light notebooks, as evidenced by the launch at CES of the new HP Pavilion dv2 Entertainment Notebook PC ultrathin notebook. Jeez, can we please just call them netbooks, no matter what Psion says?

The HP Pavilion dv2 is less than an inch thick and weighs in at under four pounds, features a 12.1 inch BrightView display, close to full sized keyboard and even comes with an optional Blu-ray drive.

The Yukon platform enables smooth 1080p HD playback and delivers what AMD calls a "robust casual gaming experience with realistic 3D graphics" courtesy of the optional ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3410 Premium graphics.

“Before today, there was a compromise associated with selecting a highly portable notebook, forcing consumers to choose either the full PC experience of an ultraportable at a high price or the limited PC experience of a mininotebook at a low price,” said Chris Cloran, corporate vice president, client division, AMD.

“In introducing the AMD ultrathin notebook platform, AMD enables balanced PC performance, including the option of advanced graphics and video for true HD entertainment, all in an affordable, ultrathin notebook, bringing consumers uncompromised mobility" Cloran concludes.

Pricing on the Pavilion dv2 is expected to start at USD $699.