AMD Fusion Info Thread

Toshiba also released a mainstream budget notebook with AMD Fusion.

This is starting to look promising, especially if the manufacturer's claims of "Up to 9 Hours and 30 minutes of battery life" is atleast somewhat true. 7+ Hours and the Atom platform is essentially dead.

Good riddance Intel.

 

Llano news:

What is an APU:

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Hurray for HP and Lenovo! At least they know how to make good looking n-books.

As for Llano, was it always going to be in desktops too or is this something recent while we wait for Bulldozer?

 

It was always for desktops. Bulldozer now looks like it might actually be out before Llano, but Bulldozer is just a plain CPU (no integrated graphics). Llano on desktops is meant to counter Sandy Bridge, although I'm not sure how well that will work for them given that its architecture has never come anywhere close to matching Nehalem or Westmere and Sandy Bridge is substantially better than the latter.

To be honest, Llano got a lot less interesting in the past couple of days, mainly because the laptop version of Sandy Bridge is so good. It's much closer to matching the desktop CPUs than anything before it ever was and at the same time, the battery life is surprising even in light of Intel's previous statements. As if that wasn't bad enough, the discreet GPUs coming out in the next few days are also quite good and it's quite likely they'll get a refresh before Llano comes out so it's unlikely to be that impressive.

AMD is going to have to pull a rabbit out of a hat here: the CPU architecture of which Llano is a die shrink is pathetic both in terms of performance (relative to Arrandale, never mind Sandy Bridge) and in terms of battery life (again, relative to Arrandale which was positively mediocre in this respect). A die shrink is good, but can AMD use it to increase the performance, improve the battery life and put a decent GPU on the chip all at the same time? I doubt it.

 

11.6" Vaio with Zacate


1.6GHZ E-350
4GB DDR3
500GB HDD

 

I really hope that isn't the only color option and that there's a much better battery option that doesn't cost every limb you have, along with a lung and a kidney.

 

Ouch:

As expected, the manufacturers are going to match these poor things with the lousiest batteries they can find. Not a good idea...

 

Course they are, they are hardly making money on low end notebooks, including a decent battery would be adding insult to injury unless another manufacturer does it for the same price range.

 

*points to HP dm1 and Lenovo x120e*

 

They still aren't make that much money compared to say a Pavilion DV7 model. They make all their money on accessories,upgrades, software which are all marked up. And I somehow doubt that 5 hour battery life.

 

The dm1 promises 9.5 hours, so it should be able to manage at least 7. My dv6 promises 4.75 hours, and I can squeeze 4.25 hours out with little effort.

This is of course assuming that they're still being honest.

And it looks like I edited too late. lol.

 

AMD Fusion APU review

 

laptops available? ballmer said that on amazon but i cant fin them!

 

HEXUS.net - News :: Upcoming Acer tablet to be powered by AMD Bobcat APU : Page - 1/1

 

It looks like a slate, but Hexus keeps calling it a tablet from title to second to last sentence. I'm not sure if I should expect a digitizer and want it to be Wacom enabled. Certainly something I'd be interested in getting as long as the battery life is adequate.

 

What's the difference between a tablet and a slate?

 

To me the difference is the addition of a digitizer and a connected keyboard as opposed to a keyboard dock, while the slate is just a thin device controlled via a touchscreen similar to the iPad. As technology improves it'll start blurring into the same thing, but for now I think there's still a distinction.

 

Has anyone heard of information or reviews of heat? (E-350 with the AMD Radeon HD 6310 to be specific) We know the graphic performance is good, relatively low price and good battery life.(Up to ~10 hours) All this means nothing if it runs hotter than the sun.

 

Some pictures of AMD Laptops from CES 2011: Gallery - AMD Laptops - CES 2011 - 21 Photos - AnandTech

Lenovo's still looks the best, but some of the Acers look good too. The last picture has a Vision Black from Acer, which seems a bit late to the party even if Llano is still a ways off.

Original article: AMD and GlobalFoundries, CES 2011 - AnandTech

 

O_O 6900M will offer over 110 GB/sec memory bandwidth. Hopefully within 100 watts..

 

The Acer is an update to the 7552G, the only notebook I know of to offer the Phenom II x4 x920 BE. Unfortunately AMD paired it with a Mob. HD5850 with GDDR3.

It's been updated to the rebranded HD6850M like the Aspire 8950G

 

Anandtech claimed that during a 1080p demonstration "the bottom of the netbooks was even warmer, hitting ~97 on E-350 and ~98 on C-50, compared to 112F on N550." N550 being an Intel Atom part, the E-350 being a dual core Fusion...

 

Ah, I see. Thanks for the clarification. Never knew about it and it's a bit of a shame it was gimped like that. Would you know if either machine has switchable graphics and does the update have GDDR5?

 

It really was a shame. The 7552G never made it to the US with the X920BE but if Acer hadn't gimped the VRAM...or ditched MXM...I would have tried to find a way to get one from Canada or Asia. An unlocked CPU, 3 RAM slots, 2 HDD bays, and a top level GPU for around $1300 was a great deal.

Haven't seen anything that confirms switchable graphics or GDDR5 for the updated model.

 

LaptopMag HP DM1 Review

 

Those temperatures are just above room temperature. Good job HP. Now to see if others can do any better....

 

The ONLY thing I'm a little disappointed in is the battery life - 6 1/2 hours isn't bad for the performance, but it could still be a lot better. Hopefully this is something AMD addresses.

I gotta give them credit though, Fusion is looking like a worthy competitor to Intel. The graphics performance is awesome.

 

New EEE's with the E-350:

10.1" EE E 1015B


12.1" EE E 1215B


AMD Fusion versus Intel Atom Thermal Test:
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Has anyone heard anything new regarding Llano? Still mid-year?

 

DH Special: AMD's Fusion processors to a new generation of "dual-GPU" technology

 

Fusion is AMD's quad-core processor, i3-540'tan fast

(edited with original source article)

 

lol Google Translate can only do so much. I had to re-read that a few times to get what they were saying. If Llano can get the kind of performance they are talking about, improve current gen battery life a little, and keep the price point down they might be able to take on Intel in the mainstream market, they have no chance at the high-end market though.

 

AMD Reschedules 32nm Product Launch Again: Llano Comes Ahead of Bulldozer.

 

Llano won't be the APU that wins back market share for AMD, but if they can get a manufacturer to pair a mobile Llano IGP with an HD66/700M in a 14"-15" notebook they'd generate a lot of buzz and start people on noticing the kind of changes Fusion can bring.

 

AMD ships 1.3 million Fusion APUs, 35 million DirectX 11 GPUs, says it has 'momentum' -- Engadget

 

Why would you do a thing like that? Llano's only possible strength is the IGP -- if you are going to put a discreet card in there anyway, you are much better off going with Sandy Bridge. Unless AMD did much more to revise K10.5 than anyone currently expects, the CPU part of Llano is certainly going to be far behind Sandy Bridge in performance and quite like in battery life as well.

What makes Llano interesting is the claim that it can do mid-range gaming without a discreet card. Sandy Bridge can sort of do it, but it's still more low-end than mid-range and Intel's drivers still suffer from some compatibility problems.

 

Unless I am reading the link you posted incorrectly they are claiming that the IGP will perform around the ATI 55/56xx cards. If that is the case, the processor performs around as good as the lower end i5s, they have comparable battery life, and the price remains the same as notebooks with Intel IGPs I see no reason why AMD wouldn't at least gain some ground in the mainstream market.

 

Micro Center - Acer Aspire AS5253-BZ602 Laptop Computer - Black LX.RD502.005

Well I finally got to use Fusion notebook. Very impressive for the money (and I get a 50 dollar discount on it too). Totally beats on anything from Intel at that price point. Windows 7 is very smooth unlike many notebooks within this price tier (mostly you get single core Celeron/Athlon processors). I'm sure with even more RAM it would be even better.

 

Why one would pair Llano's IGP with an HD66/700M is the potential to get close to reaching the gaming performance of an HD6870M or GTX 460M in a power and heat envelope low enough to fit in a normal sized 14" machine...and also have the option for switchable graphics.

Fusion's strength is not just the IGP by itself but what the IGP can also do for the entire notebook platform when paired a discrete GPU. An IGP by itself or a discrete GPU by itself can not reach the gaming performance of an IGP+discrete GPU working in unison. That is what Fusion offers that Intel can't match with Sandy Bridge.

If Fusion's only goal was to make the IGP "good enough" by itself, AMD would be cutting off their nose to spite their face....selling more APU but eliminating most of their discrete GPU sales doesn't make the company more money. You might not get it, but Fusion IGP and discrete GPU boosting graphics performance has always been part of AMD's game plan....it's the same "sweet-spot" strategy they've always applied to their discrete desktop card design.

Did you also read the first link about dual-gpu configs between the APU and a discrete card?

 

You will be nowhere close to the performance of a high end card. The most obvious reason is memory bandwidth. The second is that splitting the heat between two chips does not help with the overall thermal budget -- at most, it helps with the cooling. Third, I don't think performance scales linearly with multiple chips.

Combining a discreet AMD card with Llano will give you greater GPU performance than either one alone, but it won't be that much greater and its price is that it comes bundled with the crippled version of a 3 year old CPU architecture. I suppose it might still make sense if these are dirt cheap, but if I have to get a discreet card anyway, I'd just get it with Sandy Bridge.

 

I think AMD could do well enough in the mainstream if Llano has Turbo Core on par with Turbo Boost, as well as killer apps from their investment into companies to support OpenCL. I don't think they'll gain ground on Intel, but they'll live to fight another day so to speak.

 

Performance doesn't scale linearly with multiple chips....if it did I would be comparing the Llano's IGP + HD66/700M discrete to the HD6 970M. I'm well aware of the limitations on the typical IGP memory bandwidth, as well as the scaling of Crossfire and made my performance comparison accordingly. I believe within 10-15% of an HD6870M is possible.

Also you're not splitting the heat of one more powerful chip into a two lesser chip solution...the comparison will always be between two chips vs. two chips: A CPU with a Performance GPU versus an APU with a Mainstream GPU.

 

I agree with you that it would help AMD a lot if they do combine it with a high mid-range GPU but I think that even if they don't the IGP itself will help them gain some ground.

 

I will be extremely surprised if that is the case, but there isn't much more to say here until we see the hardware in action.

Sure. But the APU has the GPU on its die -- the point is that you've still got the same shaders producing the same amount of heat (well, maybe 1.6 times less to account for the move to 32nm, but that's optimistic). The CPU part of the APU will merely add on to this.

 

Right now the quad core Fusion(Llano) has me intrigued. What size machines are these being aimed at? Will we see them in 12-13in notebook with 4.5+ hours of battery life(when done right), or is that being a bit unrealistic? And how will the quad core or even dual core models compare with some of intel ULV devices(IGP included) out now.
I would love to get a compact quad core 13in(with optical drive) with a fair battery life and price. I hope AMD can prove it.

 

AMD has a 5W Fusion APU to put in your future tablet of choice

 

How do you think this will compare to a base dual core atom paired with an intel gpu performance wise? Is the cpu just underclocked or is that the stock speed?

 

The part where it mentions that "Clock speed remains at 1 GHz" seems to say that it's stock speed.

 

I guess I missed the part about remaining at 1ghz. This is still interesting though, but personally I'd rather have a the Zacate or Llano version of Fusion in a tablet(something like the X120 in tablet form would be an instant buy for me).

Dual booting windows 7 and Android would be pretty sweet on something like this I bet. hmmm

 

Hey guys I have some questions, in particular the E-350 found in the DM1z and the x120e coming out:

-How does the performance compare to my AMD Neo L335 @ 1.6ghz with ATI Radeon 3200HD?

-What kind of RAM does it take? Would I be able to take the 4 GBs found in my DM3z and transfer it?

-Is it possible to get 7+ Hours of battery life?

-Can it play Hulu 720P Fullscreen on a 1080P screen (my current DM3z with the AMD Neo can't do this 100% perfectly)?