Intel, AMD Set for Notebook Bout

For its part, Intel appears to have an impressive notebook product on its hands with Yonah, the code name of its new mobile processor, which, for the first time, will bring the advantages of dual-core processors to notebook users.

Even if AMD is able to catch up and introduce its own dual-core Turion early this year, as some analysts believe it will, the company will face a high hurdle matching Intel when it comes to power consumption benefits. That's because Yonah is built using 65-nanometer circuitry, while AMD still relies on less-advanced 90-nanometer technology. And Intel has invested significant R&D resources to devise various tricks to make its dual-core chip conserve power.

At a conference in December, Intel mobility group head Sean Maloney crowed that Yonah will give consumers twice the performance of previous mobile processors without consuming any more power. There are indications that this might not be mere hyperbole. Early reviews of the Yonah on anandtech.com, a must-read site for hardware buffs, praise the chip's performance and power consumption, concluding that the Yonah is able to "truly bridge the gap between mobile and desktop performance."

The billion-dollar question is which of these two attributes -- early Vista upgradeability or battery life -- will prove more important to consumers and business buyers as they shop for notebooks in the first half of 2006.

The answer may turn on which company's message prevails.

Intel's marketing prowess is legendary. And one sign of how seriously the company is taking the forthcoming notebook competition are the company's plans to retire its venerable Pentium brand for mobile processors next year, in favor of new "Core Solo" and "Core Duo" brands, the latter drawing attention to the company's dual-core processors.

Of course, AMD already has a head start in trumpeting the importance of 64-bit computing, having introduced the AMD64 architecture in 2003. And the company's message could get a helping hand from Microsoft next year, when the software giant launches its own advertising campaign introducing the world to its 64-bit Vista OS.