AMD Trinity Laptop

I've decided to wait for a AMD Trinity 17.3" laptop with discrete Radeon 7000 series GPU and selling the SB laptop I've got right now while it still has value. Based on what I've seen (CES 2012), engineering samples and the Radeon 7000 GPU series, I think Trinity will be the AMD laptop on my dreams (always liked AMD better on desktops) but AMD Llano's (CPU power) did not cut it for me.

My guess and facts about Trinity APU/Radeon GPU 7000 series laptop so far (subjected to change without notice):

- Trinity APU/CPU is based on 2nd Generation PileDriver CPU's
- Trinity APU is 32nm based
- Radeon GPU 7000 series 28nm based
- Trinity APU has AMD's Turbo Core 3.0 (which actually works on laptops)
- Trinity APU for laptops will be 17W (ultra low power), 35W and 45W TDP
- Fastest clocked Trinity APU for laptops will be 2.5Ghz/3.2Ghz Turbo Core 3.0 (this is my guess as I don't think laptop Trinity APU's will be able to reach 3.8Ghz/4.1Ghz Turbo, this is also based on engineering sample diagrams I've seen online)
- Fastest clocked Trinity APU (3.2Ghz) for laptops will have the same battery life as the fastest LLano APU (2.7Ghz) for laptops (shrink in die but higher clock rate + more optimized APU/Turbo Core 3.0 = same battery life)
- Trinity for laptops will support DDR3-1333L, DDR3-1600L and DDR3-1866L (20nm DDR3-1866L only for 45W Trinity APU's)
- Trinity fastest onboard graphics will be as fast as a HD 6630M with DDR3-1333 and 30% faster with DDR3-1866 (most likely come standard with DDR3-1600 so equal to a HD 6650M)
- Trinity APU will have 2nd generation Hybrid CrossFire configurations with discrete Radeon 7000 series GPU
- Fastest Trinity APU (3.2Ghz) will be very close to a i5-2410M (2.9Ghz) in single core applications and as fast as a i7-2630QM (2.6Ghz/4 Cores) in multi-core applications
- AMD Trinity APU for laptops will support AVX and AES-NI instructions and will have up to 2MB L2 cache (512KB per core)
- AMD Trinity APU for laptops onboard GPU will operate up to 610Mhz with Turbo Core
- Radeon 7000 series discrete GPU will have up to 2GB GDDR5 (maybe?)

Please feel free to add to the thread if if you've got other info, facts or opinions on Trinity APU based laptops.

All opinions are welcome!

 

+1, hopefully they'll have improved IPC rather than just clocking it up. This way they can keep base clocks down to save power but jack them up for turbo core single core performance.

You know this is impossible, right? They both have to be made from the same process node (nm) since they're on the same die. Not to be confused with different processes within the same node (like what Nvidia did with Tegra3).

+ Turbo Core
+ 17W Trinity = 35W Llano
The frequency's you're seeing must be for the desktop. I can't see them going from a ~1.5GHz QC to a ~3+GHz in the same power budget (for laptops, scaling can't be that good unless they've gone even further and tanked IPC worse and upped the clocks).

Will all be very nice, I can't wait to see what game devs are going to be able to do with a decent PC system to work around.

Desktop.

Waste. Of. Memory. Only the most high end cards (mobile 78xx-79xx depending on how its named) could potentially use that much (but only if they support Eyefinity, otherwise they'll run out of juice before hitting the RAM limitation).

 

Your CPU expectations are probably a tad too optimistic. AMD's projections for Trinity is 25% more CPU performance over stock Llano. My overclocked Llano CPU already has 33% more performance than stock. I hope AMD leaves the mobile APUs unlocked or else they might turn out worse cpu wise than the current ones.

Also, the 6650m is faster than the 525m so your comparison doesn't make much sense.

He's talking about the APU vs the discrete 7xxxm cards.

Battlefield 3 easily uses over 1gb of vram with ultra textures and some other things turned up. 2gb is fine. VRAM is cheap anyway.

 

its actually possible to have different manufacturing process in the same die, check the GMA 4500 45nm and the arrandale cpus 32nm

 

Arrandale had a 45nm GPU on the same package as the 32nm CPU but they were on different dies. Take a look at this picture. Arrandale is on the right and SB is on the left.

 

@ notyou

- Radeon GPU 7000 series 28nm based = discrete Radeon 7000 series GPU

17W Trinity = 35W Llano (2.4Ghz max Turbo), 35W Trinity = 65W Llano (3.7Ghz max Turbo) and 45W Trinity = DDR3-1866L support and up to 3.9Ghz max Turbo but I don't want to get peoples hopes up so I'm guessing 3.7Ghz max Turbo (I've changed the initial post).

@ R3d

From early benchmark leaks Trinity is 30% faster than Llano clock for clock and 15% slower than SB clock for clock as Llano was 45% slower than SB clock for clock (talking about single core applications).

My bads, I meant Llano onboard @ 709Mhz with DDR3-1333 = HD 6630M, HD 6650M with DDR3-1600 and GT 540M with DDR3-1866 (I've changed the initial post).


The fastest Trinity (2.7Ghz/2.8Ghz) 17.3" laptop with discrete Radeon (HD 7750M most likely) will not be cheap. I'm guessing $1200 on release and $1000 on sale (coupons) for a HP DV7 Trinity laptop (with the goodies) and that's considering it's still half a year away from release.

 

Show me the leak? I'm pretty sure that it is the average CPU+GPU performance, not purely CPU performance. I can guarantee you that Trinity will not increase CPU IPC by 30%. That would be like a 3 generation jump for AMD. AMD's own estimates is 25% increase in CPU performance (not IPC) so I put a lot more faith in that.

Also, you can't just add/subtract percentages like that. I'll use your numbers for an example. SB is 45% faster clock for clock than Llano so it has 145% the IPC of Llano. Trinity is 35% faster per clock than Llano so it has 130% of the IPC. But is "145" 15% bigger than "130"? No. 145/130=~1.12 (i.e. 145 is 12% greater than 130). So SB would be 12% faster than Trinity. It doesn't make much of a difference in this context but it might in the future with different numbers.

My own guess is that is Trinity will have ~5-7.5% better IPC than Llano and will will rely on the more mature 32nm process (which could be a reason why AMD canceled 28nm for Trinity) for a ~15-20% clock speed advantage to deliver the extra 25% performance increase over Llano.

iGPU-wise, Trinity should be a beast but imo would still be pretty useless with dual graphics. Judging by the amount of progress driver-wise with Llano (little to none) I have a feeling that Trinity+7xxxm will be the same stutterfest it is for Llano right now. Imo the best spot for Trinity is for cheap dGPU-less systems and thin-and-lights. If you want GPU performance might as well get a good dGPU instead of relying on dual graphics.

I got the highest available Llano config (a8-3530mx + 6750m) for $800+tax so I doubt Trinity will be that much more. Trinity, being Llano's successor, is aimed at the mainstream market, not the high end. Though I guess if you get 17" with the best possible components you could break $1000 but that would be at the very top of the spectrum.

 

Did we miss the first generation of Piledriver? More seriously, Piledriver is the second iteration of the Bulldozer architecture.

Unlikely. Trinity is only two modules, but 3GHz sounds high. Bulldozer is a power hungry architecture and it would take a lot of optimization to turn it into something that can hit 3GHz with 45W.

There is no die shrink. Llano, Bulldozer and Trinity are all 32nm. Only the discreet GPU gets shrunk to 28nm. Battery life should be equal or better since it depends mainly on shutting off idle transistors and all chip makers have been getting better at that with each iteration.

Not even in AMD's wildest marketing campaigns. Here is the thing to keep in mind about Trinity: it is called a "quad-core", but it has 4 cores in the same sense that the high-end desktop Bulldozer has 8 cores. That is, Bulldozer has 4 modules each of which has 2 integer cores, but only 1 floating point core and only one of various other stuff usually associated with a core. Making the long story short, the "8 core" Bulldozer is more or less competitive with a "quad-core" Sandy Bridge without hyper-threading. A hyper-threaded part like the i7-2820QM will utterly crush Trinity in a heavily threaded task (probably by a factor of two or more, depending on the task and how different Piledriver and Bulldozer are).

They should be cheaper than that. Laptop prices are going down. I expect $1200 to be towards the higher end of the mid-range (i.e. where the decent Ivy Bridge + discreet graphics will sit). AMD's products are generally $200-300 cheaper.

 

@ Althernai

You are correct, I meant second generation Bulldozer.

Putting all the puzzles together on the Trinity engineering samples charts online, turns out the fastest laptop Trinity APU will be 2.5Ghz/3.2Ghz with Turbo (which sounds just about right, I've corrected my initial post).

This puts the fastest Trinity APU pretty much the same as a i5-2410M in single core applications and the same as a i7-2630QM in multi-core applications, not too shabby if...

An all options in AMD Trinity laptop should cost around $900 - $1000 since the fastest Trinity tops out a 3.2Ghz with Turbo (still guessing).

 

Any ideas how a Trinity APU would compare with my 740qm/5730 rig? If it can offer similar (or improved) performance at least on the GPU side (even last gen's i7s are still overkill for most tasks) with increased battery life in a 13" form factor, I'm sold. If it can do this for $500 or less (and thus would probably be a straight trade for my current laptop, if I can sell it), I'm even more sold.

Also, can someone answer me this - without a power-eating dedicated GPU in the mix, is gaming on battery a feasible proposition with fusion chips? I know my tablet can play Halo for ~2 hours, but that's decidedly on the low end of things.

 

Depends on if the 13" has the 17W or 25W GPU. Don't know if 35W would be possible, but the 35W would offer a significant improvement.

See here: AMD Slips Out Trinity ULV 3DMark Performance | techPowerUp

25W 3DMark 3600
17W 3DMark 1500

Assuming those scores are Vantage.

 

@ Syberia

I'm guessing the fastest Trinity APU 3.2Ghz Turbo will be faster than your 740QM in both single and multi-core applications.

Judging by the link on 3DMark provided above the onboard graphics with DDR3-1333 should be slower than your slightly slower than your 5730 and faster with DDR3-1600.

Just like with Llano, the fastest Trinity APU's will probably only be available in 15.6" and 17.3". Battery life should be the same as Llano and bit less than Ivy Bridge.

 

Just curious - have any Trinity notebooks been announced as of yet?

 

I don't know about battery life. As it is my Llano system drains only about 13W with medium screen brightness, wi-fi on, and general browsing and desktop work. I can get it down to about 11W if really necessary without Wi-fi, etc.

Nothing has been announced. We don't even know for sure when Trinity is going to be released or finalized details. Although they have piped up about making sub $500 "ultrathins" to compete with Intel's "ultrabooks".

 

No. At CES, AMD said that they will come out in mid 2012 which means they currently have prototypes, but the chips have not yet entered mass production. Thus, almost everything in this thread is speculation.

 

If you need OpenGL wait to verify if Trinity runs OpenGL in best card of the system. The Llano doesn't . And with WebGL around the corner...

 

It DIDN'T because it wasn't supported by the manufacturer. Have it running OpenGL just fine with the dedicated cards now.

 

My brother never saved enough cash for a Llano based notebook but im guessing Trinity will be kept on the same pricepoint.
Looking forward to benchies.

 

It wasn't supported by AMD? Or it wasn't supported by the computer manufacturer (dell, hp, asus, etc.)?

I just hope Trinity APUs support OpenGL so it can play Minecraft.

 

The Llano APU's support OpenGL. The issue was that it would ALWAYS use the integrated GPU and not the dedicated. Minecraft runs great using the Llano APU GPU or whatever it's called, lol.

With the help of an uber user at another forum he unlocked the HP BIOS and now we can turn on fixed graphics. Set it to dedicated GPU and OpenGL runs great.

 

I'd love for AMD to hit the sweet spot with a 13"-14" gaming machine with Trinity.

 

If they can iron out the issues with Crossfire then the integrated + a decently powerful dedicated would be very impressive and possible in a 14". Even in 13" with the integrated GPU you could game fairly well with just the integrated at 1366x768.

 

Compal Trinity ODM reference design eyes-on -- Engadget

AMD Targets Ultrabooks, Shows 18mm Trinity Notebook | PCWorld

AnandTech - AMD & Compal Show Off 18mm Trinity Notebook

AMD demos next-generation Trinity APU for notebooks with Lightning Bolt docking station - Notebookcheck.net News

http://www.itbusiness.ca/it/client/en/home/News.asp?id=65959

 

Ha! AMD has been sandbagging this whole time and holds a trump card in their pocket. Euchre!

 

Now, don`t draw conclusions just yet. We all heard the BS AMD spewed out about Bulldozer. And that turned out to be a complete mess. They ended up with many angry customers who waited for it because of the overhyping from AMD.

But atleast they have shown a working 17W prototype @ CES. Let`s just hope the rest (25% faster x86 performance, 50% GPU performance, 17W Trinity = 45W Llano, etc etc) is true and not another lie

That said I am very interested in this, but to be honest I would love to see them release Trinity around April-May because I don`t know how strong I am in resisting the Ivy Bridge in April

 

Well, I'm satisfied with my current laptop, and WANT to see what Trinity brings to the table before making a choice. I know they will be cheaper, and mainly interested in GPU performance because current CPU performance is more than adequate for my needs, so it can only get better. I would love to go with a 13" that can game well on the IGP, I'd even settle for a 14" if I could tuck a 45W CPU in there.

 

I`m aiming for a 15-16" Trinity laptop myself. But I must admit that the 35W Quad from Intel is a bit interesting too. I would also love to see if AMD have futher evolved the Crossfire function with APU and dGPU together.
BTW: Was it any noticable boost with CF Llano?

 

See my 6750m link in my thread, I test CF. It's a boost, but not without caveats (i.e. stuttering) in most cases.

 

The gpu performance will probably experience a good boost... but the CPU having only up to 25% extra speed over the existing Llano's... that's disappointing.
Why can't AMD do something to cram at least 50% more performance onto their CPU's?

I would consider getting them in that case because it would be comparable to SB quads for cad based programs... but like this, they aren't exactly pushing it.

 

If it overclocks like Llano (please, please, please leave it unlocked) and has 25% more power clock-for-clock, it may not be a speed demon, but it will certainly be "fast enough." That's what they're going for here, cheap but "fast enough."

I hope the 25w or 35w parts can make it into a 13" laptop (especially without a separate GPU to cool, it should be doable). Either that, or the 17w part better be good enough to play modern games on low for the next year or two.

 

@ Syberia

I highly doubt it will overclock like Llano since K10Stat did not work with Bulldozer and Trinity is based on 2nd generation Bulldozer core.

Still the predicted, i5-2410M single core performance and i7-2630QM multi-core performance is very impressive, combined with a HD 7750M discrete Hybrid Crossfire graphics card is going to make Trinity very competitive at the mainstream level and should give Intel a run for it's money.

 

@Syberia: It will not have 25% better performance clock for clock. But if AMD is smart they will leave the chips unlocked because they need every edge they can get over Intel. But even if Trinity was unlocked, I can almost say for certain that notebook manufacturers are still going to lock down the BIOS, so we would still need someone to develop a program similar to k10stat to overclock the chips.

@Nemix77: The i5-2410 and i7-2630qm both turbo up to 2.9ghz single core so there's no point in saying i5-2410M single core performance and i7-2630QM multi-core performance "i5-2410M single core performance and i7-2630QM multi-core performance", might as well say same performance as the i7-2630qm. And I highly doubt the top Trinity chip will be able to match the i7-2630qm either, as that would put it way over AMD's estimated 25% improvement (at stock, at least), though with overclocking it might be possible.

 

Thanks, I stand corrected.