• Happy holidays, folks! Thanks to each and every one of you for being part of the Tom's Hardware community!

AMD Reveals Ultrathin Prototype, Roadmaps

Page 2 - Seeking answers? Join the Tom's Hardware community: where nearly two million members share solutions and discuss the latest tech.
Status
Not open for further replies.
AMD is doing very well, contrary to what any bashers paid by Intel or Nvidia may post. They've been posting on the AMD yahoo finance discussion group for years, and now they are posting here as well. Ignore the Intards and Nvidiots!
 
Waethorn Energy efficient general purpose cores are still important and Windows 8 will make developers see that ARM is a capable alternative to x86, which is why AMD is working on DX11+ APU's with ARM cores in place of x86.
There is no mention of ARM cores in these, plus theres no reason to HAVE an ARM core in X86. ARM flounders under high loads. AMD I think is doing it the right way, as their 45nm and 32nm Chips offer resistance to the mainly 32nm shovelware Intel Chips. Also remember Intel and Nvidia fanboys, AMD is the only thing that keeps the price down on CPUs and GPUs. These are thin-light ultrabooks, and with this kind of processing power, compared to the seemingly hotter running INTEL (ive got Phen2 in my laptop and it runs the same, if not colder than my friends I5) really, 8-4 cores in an area where it used to be absurd if there was a Dual-Core? Seems legit to me, lets just hope on Piledriver. After all, which new architecture worked well the first time? Compare the Phenom1 and 2, or the first major Dual and Quadcores. ALL OF THEM SUCKED. Then Intel and AMD messed around with them and they were the best thing you could get for the time. Bulldozer may have let AMD fans down, but never give up on AMD. They've saved themselves before.
 
[citation][nom]mr_wobbles[/nom]There is no mention of ARM cores in these, plus theres no reason to HAVE an ARM core in X86. ARM flounders under high loads. AMD I think is doing it the right way, as their 45nm and 32nm Chips offer resistance to the mainly 32nm shovelware Intel Chips. Also remember Intel and Nvidia fanboys, AMD is the only thing that keeps the price down on CPUs and GPUs. These are thin-light ultrabooks, and with this kind of processing power, compared to the seemingly hotter running INTEL (ive got Phen2 in my laptop and it runs the same, if not colder than my friends I5) really, 8-4 cores in an area where it used to be absurd if there was a Dual-Core? Seems legit to me, lets just hope on Piledriver. After all, which new architecture worked well the first time? Compare the Phenom1 and 2, or the first major Dual and Quadcores. ALL OF THEM SUCKED. Then Intel and AMD messed around with them and they were the best thing you could get for the time. Bulldozer may have let AMD fans down, but never give up on AMD. They've saved themselves before.[/citation]

AMD is working on ARM-based chips for the low-end. You wouldn't have heard any public announcements about them recently, but this is why AMD made a big presense at that recent ARM show from last year. What AMD wants is better power efficiency out of the general computing cores and x86 can't provide that. Microsoft's plan to support ARM as a mainstream architecture alternative to x86 is opening the door to a new world of cross-platform software compatibility too. What ARM is getting out of the deal is AMD's experience with extending existing architectures to the 64-bit world without breaking compatibility, along with better graphics options. ARM has decent multimedia support (better than Atom for HD media), but they want to have better 3D options along the lines of DX11 (ARM only currently supports OpenGL ES 2.0 which is, at best, similar to the capabilities of D3D7).

None of this has any bearing on their current plans for x86 in the mainstream and high-end chips - for now. This is only relating to the low-cost chips where media consumption requires high-end multimedia performance without much in the way of general computing (beyond the capabilities of ARM, anyway).

Maybe by the time Windows 9 is announced, we'll see an announcement from AMD. This is the next major Fusion project for AMD though so it will likely take a few years.

....and if you're wondering: trade show reps have loose lips.
 
Later this year AMD will replace the Bulldozer line with the 32-nm performance-driven Vishera series which will contain 4 to 8 "Piledriver" cores.
Hmmm. I wonder what this will mean. It may still be too late for me as I am considering an Intel build for a new PC; Intel is something I have not done in more than 10 years.

As to 18mm ultrabook and at "half" Intel's price: I just bought my wife a Toshiba Z835-P330 ultrabook, i3-2367M, 120GB SSD, 13.3" LED backlit LCD. 2.4 LBS, and 16mm thin - $800 US. Now I realize that the APU will have significantly better graphics, but my wife does not play games, nor watch movies on the thing, so that is not a consideration for us.

What bothers me about this is that given the specs and price on the ultrabook I just bought, how is $500 to $600 half of $800?? To me, this sounds like AMD is still up to their marketing blather, er, uh, I mean crap, and that really, really bothers me after the BD fiasco. If they continue to spin their stuff as the greatest thing since sliced bread, I think they better watch out as anything that does not meet the implied expectations of their marketing crap will backfire on them and give us "loyal AMD fans" even more of an extremely bad taste in our mouths. Setting customer expectations high and then disappointing those same customers again will not please people like me - IMHO.

IMHO, for the desktop realm, intel has some decent "value" processors available, and AMD better watch their six rather than market more bling.
 
I think AMD expected 10% improvement on Piledriver over Bulldozer, this closes the gap to intel cores (looking at CPU only, over 25% at same clock ?). Considering Bulldozer is 5% slower than PhenomII, new trinity APUs will get 5% more CPU horsepower over current APUs, is that ?
Don't know what to expect at the graphics side (in fact, nothing else to expect there, any improvement is welcome).
I am considering changing my new development desktop computer to A8 (cost conscious, OpenCl is something I would like to dig in) or i5-2500 (CPU horsepower).
I just can't decide (won't go wrong with none of them), and now Trinity makes things worse ? sorry, but waiting for Bulldozer was disappointing. 5% CPU over A8... should I expect something in 3D worth the wait for trinity then ?

In the mobility space, AMD should have the best product, with an SSD, 4 cores and a powerful enough GPU you get a 4 years old desktop power into mobility factor (plus the fact of multicore and SSD responsivity) and that's enough horsepower for today's apps in a truly attractive form factor based on fewer components and a simpler design.
 
I think when AMD has the CPU, IGP, and discrete video card all computing in harmony under HSA they will be hard to stop.
As far as " not competing with Intel" They are leaving Intel the raw power King as raw power no longer
is a problem any 4 core cpu has more than ample power. Instead AMD has been as busy as a bee
creating the next era in computing. HSA will change for ever how computers work.
 
[citation][nom]leon2006[/nom]roadmap of delays and under performing product? I hope AMD deliver this time around.The irony is the market is shifting to tablet...[/citation]
well, we can all agree that BD didnt meet expectations. But Llano did not underperform. The APUs are the big focus this year. Sure the APUs sacrificed CPU power, but had a powerful GPU(for the architecture) and lots of battery life compared to intel pcs. I bought a cheap A4 laptop and it has almost six hours battery life, and despite being the weakest Llano, it can play any UE3 game on high, and isnt all that slow either. With this big shrink in size, Im pretty sure they can cram in some cache in there and make it more competitive. Llano was a success in sales and in performance, cant really see them making it worse in the APU area.
 
[citation][nom]A Bad Day[/nom]Would be nice if AMD added some memory to their APU, like 256 or 512 MB. Rarely do you find mainstream laptops with RAM that have higher than 1066 or 1333 MHz, and such slow RAM is bound to kneecap any integrated GPU.I think AMD meant they had no interest in headbutting Intel over who can market the most powerful CPU.[/citation]
The problem with that is they'd likely need new leads coming into and out of the APU to access dedicated memory. This would necessitate a new and bigger socket. More leads adds more cost, so it'd push these systems out of the price bracket they're in. I assume AMD wants to still sell discrete laptop cards for the brackets above these APU systems, and not cut into it.
 
[citation][nom]A Bad Day[/nom]Would be nice if AMD added some memory to their APU, like 256 or 512 MB. Rarely do you find mainstream laptops with RAM that have higher than 1066 or 1333 MHz, and such slow RAM is bound to kneecap any integrated GPU.I think AMD meant they had no interest in headbutting Intel over who can market the most powerful CPU.[/citation]
well ther's a reason for that,
there's no die space for that, remember, they had to remove any L3 cache to fit the on-die GPU so they won't have space for any RAM
although adding some in the FCH would be an excellent idea
 
"ARM only currently supports OpenGL ES 2.0 which is, at best, similar to the capabilities of D3D7"

Ummm... D3D7 didn't support shaders, OpenGL ES 2.0 does, huge difference there.
 
serendipiti

I think AMD said it would be 20% faster than Llano, however we've not been informed if that's down to a more mature process combined with higher clock speeds or whether AMD have managed to fix some of BD's shortcomings with Piledriver. I suppose it's another waiting game to see if they're telling the truth or not. It's also likely they're referring to "up to 20% faster".

Llano itself is technically faster than Athlon II but slower than Phenom II in some situations due to the lack of L3 cache. However, it's swings and roundabouts really as Llano has more L2 cache than Phenom II.
 
Although ultrathins are less thin than ulltrabooks, if the 17w trinity performs as well as current a8 processors, this is quite impressive for an 18mm thick notebook. The cpu performance matches an i5 ulv, with more than triple the graphics performance. ivy bridge will not come close in gpu performance at this form factor.

http://AMDFX.blogspot.com
 
Status
Not open for further replies.