AMD's 'Puma' Leaps in Notebook Date:   Tuesday , July 01, 2008 With AMD leaping back into the game with its new notebook platform code-named puma, it seems a big battle is likely to be fought in the notebook computer platforms, as the main rival of Intel seeks to regain a competitive footing against the world’s biggest chip maker. In April, AMD posted its sixth consecutive quarterly loss amid missteps and market-share losses to Intel. The launch of the new set of processors and related parts, code-named Puma, is its largest ever for notebook personal computers. The California-based AMD is offering three versions of the Puma platform—a collection of the microprocessor, wireless chips to connect to WiFi, and related chips. Puma uses AMD’s Turion X2 Ultra Dual-Core processor as its brain. The heart of the platform is the new 7-series chipset with support for the ATI Mobility Radeon 3000 family of graphics and Wi-Fi support from a third-party chipset. AMD says this solution will offer three times the 3D performance, five times the HD quality, and 40 percent faster wireless than Intel's solution. At the cheaper end, AMD's new platform will use graphics technology integrated in the chipset, allowing video-gaming and being good enough to play back digital media seamlessly. Major laptop makers - including Hewlett Packard, Dell, Acer, and Toshiba - have already agreed to use it, and analysts like the design. "It's the first time AMD has really gone out of its way to optimize a product for the mobile environment," notes chip analyst Nathan Brookwood of Insight 64.