ATI Rage Mobility 128

The Card

We received a sample Rage Mobility 128 chip mounted on a a somewhat strange AGP 2X PCB. The strangeness of the PCB comes from the fact that it is merely an engineering sample to help test the functionality of the Mobility 128 while it must also include all the options that a notebook implementation of the chip would have. Thus, we get a variety of connectors onboard, including an internal flat panel connector at the top of the board and external flat panel and standard DB15 analog monitor connector at the back of the board.

But more interesting is the lack of support components on the PCB. We find a memory upgrade socket, one voltage regulator, a clock crystal, a flash ROM chip for the BIOS, and the usual capacitors and resistors. Everything else is for debugging purposes, which is certainly a testament to the extremely integrated nature of the Mobility 128. In an actual notebook, a lot of this would most likely be eliminated - the flash ROM would be integrated with the system BIOS and its doubtful the graphics chip would get its own voltage regulator.

The Mobility 128 chip itself is just about in the center of the board and looks like a relatively large BGA chip, approximately the size of a i443BX North Bridge. As mentioned previously, it includes 8MB of memory integrated into the package, but not into the die. Unlike some other chips that feature memory in the same package as the core, the memory bus is only 64 bits wide. There was no heatsink attached to our sample and chip was barely warm to the touch during operation. We did however note that there were two small holes and a silk screen image of the area that a low profile heatsink might require.

We were also supplied with an 8MB memory upgrade module that featured 7ns Samsung SGRAM chips. When installed, the total memory is brought up to 16MB and the memory bus is now a full 128 bits wide. We doubt that many notebook manufacturers will actually offer a memory upgrade slot, but the possibility is always there.

Overclocking

Overclocking the Rage Mobility 128 will most likely be a tricky thing to accomplish. We'll state first that we were not able to do so solely because we could not find an overclocking utility that recognized the Mobility 128 - not too surprising since it's not even really out yet. More than likely, this will change once notebooks are actually available with the chip.

However, the mobile environment is not exactly the most overclocking friendly. The biggest problem is cooling as the inside of the notebook is quite cramped while the OEM may or may not have included a heatsink on the graphics chip. In fact, our sample did not include a heatsink as it was barely warm to the touch without one. Further, it's not clear whether the memory clock can run asynchronously with the core clock since it is included in the same chip packaging. Our sample ran at the final clock speed of 105 MHz core and 105 MHz memory. Finally, if you do overclock, we'd only recommend you do so while on AC power as any increase in clock speed will increase the power draw of the chip.

We'll revisit the overclocking aspect of the Mobility 128 when actual shipping notebooks are available.