AMD Sampling Fusion 'Llano' Chips to Customers

[nforce4max]

Finally a thorn in the side of monopolytel.

 

[chickenhoagie]

[citation][nom]otacon72[/nom]So has AMD given up on trying to challenge intel? Don't get me wrong Fusion sounds interesting but I can't remember when AMD came close to touching intel's CPUs and this recent headline is worrisome:"SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- Shares of Advanced Micro Devices Inc. fell sharply Friday, a day after the chip maker posted results that showed a profit but also highlighted concerns that it's losing ground to Intel Corp. "I have nothing bad to say against AMD. We need AMD to keep intel honest but damn..come on AMD put out some chips that intel a run for their money.[/citation]

i disagree sir. my 955BE runs just as well as any core i5 and some cheap i7's. given it can't compete with a $500 intel processor, it still beats or easily ties any processor in its price range, or perhaps a bit more than its price.

AMD is a smart company. I believe these chips will bring great value to the industry

 

[sinfulpotato]

The money is in the common PC. The high end is nothing much a marketing scheme to show people you are "progressing". Intel doesn't care about its new 6 core processor.

They care about selling a billion Low end C2D's to Dell at a price they can't refuse. And making good server chips.

 

[DejaVuBoy]

No doubt Nintendo will be looking at this for the Wii sequel...

 

[sinfulpotato]

[citation][nom]DejaVuBoy[/nom]No doubt Nintendo will be looking at this for the Wii sequel...[/citation]

Nintendo is all ready working with AMD. The ATI "hollywood" is in the Wii.

 

[alyoshka]

Any Idea, how I could get my hands on one of the demo's?

 

[drowned]

The big question is: too little too late? I want AMD to succeed as much as the next guy, but they've really let Intel take total control of the field, and god knows what else Intel can drum up in the 8+ month delay until AMD comes out of the gate with this architecture. So unless AMD scores a home run into-the-parking-lot hit with these new chips, they are in trouble.

 

[DjEaZy]

... and now is the perfect sense to do so... win7 is out and is success... that means dx11 will be used... and directcompute and OpenCL will be used, that can help a low power CPU a lot... and the HD5xxx series is power efficient... long awaited, but it fits now... hmmm... Bobcat in iPhone 5G maybe?

 

[simple_inhibition]

its good to see amd releasing new stuff! i feel that Phenom II was the cpu version of the HD4870 in terms of competition. i just hope that what comes next will be the cpu equivalent of the HD5xxx series. keep up the great work!

 

[anamaniac]

[citation][nom]babybeluga[/nom]It's near impossible for the average user (including gamers) to max out a Phenom II x4/Core 2 Quad. Why would they need to compete in the (small) market of rich enthusiasts.[/citation]
Rich? When I bought my i7 920 I was making $13/hour...

32nm GPU? Awesome. The integrated 3200/4200 video in motherboards was enough for basic gaming already, I hope we get to see some nice horsepower in a integrated GPU.
The closer we get to a SoC, the happier I am. Intel did a poor job (in my opinion) putting a GPU beside a GPU (32nm CPU, 45nm GPU, duct taped together).
Hope they get some good yields on 32nm.

 

[SlyNine]

[citation][nom]chickenhoagie[/nom]i disagree sir. my 955BE runs just as well as any core i5 and some cheap i7's. given it can't compete with a $500 intel processor, it still beats or easily ties any processor in its price range, or perhaps a bit more than its price.AMD is a smart company. I believe these chips will bring great value to the industry[/citation]

Sorry but a Q6600 is clock for clock with a Phenom 2. a Q9xxx is faster clock for clock. A Core I5 would blow you away at the same clock speed and the lowest end Core i7 is even faster.

Do you notice it, no. But it doesn't change the facts.

Don't get me wrong, I wish my computer said AMD on it and am certianly hoping some day my main system will once again bare a AMD logo. But performance first, brand loyalty second. My secondary systems are always hand me downs from my main. Other wise they would certianly dawn AMD.

Most of my recommended builds are AMD at least .

 

[nielnield]

amd is the way to go. It is affordable and good. If amd can deliver such a good performance at such a low price..Imagine if amd makes a $1000 cpu like intel...

amd>intel.

 

[sonofliberty08]

woohoo ... directx 11 capable gpu in the 4 core cpu , this makes those intel fanboy jealous because intel igp in the cpu was a main crap and joke

 

[digiex]

This will be the first child of AMD, ATI marriage. My best wishes.

 

[juliom]

[citation][nom]SlyNine[/nom]Sorry but a Q6600 is clock for clock with a Phenom 2. a Q9xxx is faster clock for clock. A Core I5 would blow you away at the same clock speed and the lowest end Core i7 is even faster.Do you notice it, no. But it doesn't change the facts.Don't get me wrong, I wish my computer said AMD on it and am certianly hoping some day my main system will once again bare a AMD logo. But performance first, brand loyalty second. My secondary systems are always hand me downs from my main. Other wise they would certianly dawn AMD.Most of my recommended builds are AMD at least .[/citation]

You cannot compare diferent arquitectures clock for clock because, well, they're diferent arquitectures... It's like comparing ATI's and Nvidis's chips clockwise and shader processors wise, it's not directly comparable.

 

[kartu]

Guys, so what's the deal? How does it benefit "PC gamers"? Isn't it just a mediocre GPU slapped on CPU chip? Why would I buy it?

 

[anamaniac]

[citation][nom]kartu[/nom]Guys, so what's the deal? How does it benefit "PC gamers"? Isn't it just a mediocre GPU slapped on CPU chip? Why would I buy it?[/citation]
Because not every gamer is willing to blow $2,000 on rig?
[citation][nom]SlyNine[/nom]Sorry but a Q6600 is clock for clock with a Phenom 2. a Q9xxx is faster clock for clock. A Core I5 would blow you away at the same clock speed and the lowest end Core i7 is even faster.Do you notice it, no. But it doesn't change the facts.Don't get me wrong, I wish my computer said AMD on it and am certianly hoping some day my main system will once again bare a AMD logo. But performance first, brand loyalty second. My secondary systems are always hand me downs from my main. Other wise they would certianly dawn AMD.Most of my recommended builds are AMD at least .[/citation]
I don't carte about direct clock per clock, because the AMD quad cores typically run at higher frequencies. For those who don't overclock at least (most people), it doesn't matter. I'd trade my 2.66GHz (2.8GHz realistically) i7 for a 3.6GHz AMD quad core and I wouldn't really care.

 

[idisarmu]

[citation][nom]dreamer77dd[/nom]Intel has money to loose AMD does not. I believe it is a new direction they bin working on for some time now. i think you could use this chip for more then one system. desktop, server, mobile most people dont need the power to run photoshope on their mobile pc. The floating point is high and would be great if they could take the knowledge and add it to servers. It think it is good idea and only the first so my expectations are not high but at least their thinking. when you want to stay a float your forced to think of better ways of doing things for cheaper. i know i could loose 2 second in performance for cost value. I dont expect the chip to last a life time as it will be replaced anyways in 5 years be old by then. he said pad not ipad because their will be note pads coming out, short form i guess. i would not go head to head with intel, beat them were their not focused.[/citation]

Lose, not loose. Loose = Paris Hilton. Lose[r] = you when you get an STD.

 

[nottheking]

I actually find the prospects of this exciting... Of course, that's provided that Fusion really does more than just duct-tape on a GPU core with a CPU. Rather, I'm hoping that AMD manages to integrated the GPU cores a bit into the CPU's own instruction pipeline, or at least give proper instruction set support so that CPUs can offload work to the stream processors.

If this actually does happen, what we're basically looking at is a version of the Cell processor on crack, but in x86 flavor. Another Xbit article mentions that a single Llano chip could have up to 480 stream processors; if the whole thing can run at 3 GHz and can work with existing x86 code to offload work to the stream processors, we're talking a jump from around 120 gigaflops for a 4-core Phenom to to 3 teraflops for a 4-core, 480-SP Fusion. Even if the SP run at 750MHz instead, it's still a jump up to 840 Gigaflops.

In other words, as a CPU, it'd curb-stomp even Intel's hexa-core i7s. And from AMD, it wouldn't be costing the same $1,000US price. As a result, I think it's definitely calling it too early to say that AMD has "given up" competing with Intel on the enthusiast front.

[citation][nom]DejaVuBoy[/nom]No doubt Nintendo will be looking at this for the Wii sequel...[/citation]
Microsoft and/or Sony may be taking a look, too. I have my doubts that, after massive profit losses on the PS3, anyone's gonna really try a $600US flagship that still costs more than that to produce. AFAIK, Sony STILL is at a loss in terms of the PS3 hardware overall, and their gamble hasn't pair off, due to their steady 3rd place in the market, and loss of so many exclusive franchises to the Xbox 360.

And at any rate, thanks to the wonders of Moore's law, even a lower-end modern chip beats the living hell out of what the much-vaunted best of the current crop of consoles offers: while the Xbox 360 boasts 288.0 gigaflops of math power, (96.0 CPU + 192.0 GPU) and the PS3 396.8 GFLOPs, (185.6 CPU + 211.2 GPU) The aforementioned Llano Fusion core, at 3.0 GHz, could offer anywhere from 840-3,000 GFLOPs, or nearly 8 times as much power.

 

[RazberyBandit]

With TSMC and Global Foundries having both scrapped their 32nm bulk fabrication process, I'm curious how expensive, tedious, and possibly limited these chips may become to produce.

 

[Guest]

LOL at the Intel fanboys. ATI has powerful stream-processing/highly parallel processing technology, Intel does not, Larrafail was... well... a fail. Now AMD has integrated it into a CPU/GPU combo. Intel does not have an answer, and if they've thus far failed to create a decent GPU in their entire existence, I don't think they'll have an "answer" in the next 8 months.

If Apple may be thinking about switching, then they probably realize it's going to stomp any Intel chip ever made into the ground.

PS: It's not just about graphics. If AMD implements sideport memory(likely), then you'll have a 480sp GPU, but since it's not connected by Hypertransport, but rather directly to the cores, then that tells me that the cores can schedule work on the stream-processor easily, therefore a 70 gigaflop Core i7 might be competing with a 1 teraflop AMD processor.

 

[jonpaul37]

[citation][nom]gto127[/nom]Fusion is the reason AMD bought ATI 4 years ago. We finally get to see this amazing product! The market is eventually going to this(CPU/Video) so AMD is way ahead of the game. Intel or Nvidia won't have anything close to this product. I predict AMD will get half the notebook market & over half the low end desktop market. The only way Nvidia or Intel could compete would be for Nvidia to get bought by Intel. It would take at least a couple of years before they(Nvidia/Intel)had a competive product. Also for the people that say AMD is abanding the high end market- Bulldozer core is around the corner. The last time AMD had a radically new CPU(the athlon)they had the superior CPU for the next 5 years. History tends to repeat itself. Only this time Intel can't use anticompetitive practices to hold their marketshare.[/citation]

couldn't have said it better myself.

 

[Dkz]

[citation][nom]Kelavarus[/nom]I'm sure AMD looks at your post and says "Fascinating, but we do."[/citation]

Come on guys this guy is right, there is still no Phenom up to core i7 CPUs, of course if you are crazy enough to pay the X58 platform.
Intel is a good performer for high end, still AMDs rocks the pot with price point.
Its good to have the competition to force them to improve, and still i wish the best for AMD(Intel doesn't need luck they have too much cash in exchange of luck), and lets hope the new x6 CPUs will completely change the market.
Cheers!

 

[tntom]

As Atom was to Intel in dominating the netbook market as Fusion will be to AMD. It will not be faster than a Core i7 because that would be a waste of effort when the returns of displacing the Atom in the market is where the money is at. A large portion of those who commented on Tom's criticized the Atom for it's performance. The same will be true when Fusion comes out, we will be disappointed and then it will dawn on us we should be comparing this to Atom and hopefully Tegra.

 

[Marco925]

I wanna sample!