First Look: AMD’s Carrizo APU Notebook Design

[Janithdalw]

A good competitor for the Broadwell U.

 

[jacobian]

Yawn. At this point, does anyone still believe AMD's claims? The Kaveri "non-release" of laptop CPUs is quite telling. One year since Kaveri's were introduced, I have yet to find a decent mainstream Kaveri notebook. And Kaveri performance was oversold as usual. In the end we got an AMD quad core APU that's about as fast as a dual core Intel i3 for the same price, and the GPU performance was also totally oversold. I don't know why we need to hold breath for other AMD announcement.

 

[xenol]

I don't have high hopes for anything but low-end gaming on an AMD SoC anyway. I don't expect this to run Metro on high at 30FPS. The most I'd expect is say being able to play a MOBA at a better frame rate on medium settings than Intel's SoC (if I were to make an ass-pull guess, 35FPS vs 20FPS?)

Ultimately in my mind though is how is the battery life when I'm not gaming?

 

[airborn824]

Better be a FM2+ Carrizo also or AMD has completely abandoned the desktop till 2016. Also don't bother bringing up the rebadged 2012 8350's that they are still trying to sell like new.

I believe this will be FM3. Yes there are desktop versions

 

[airborn824]

This has the new mobile dGPU. That is exciting i wonder which one it is....

 

[NeatOman]

I heard this before :/

 

[anxiousinfusion]

Better be a FM2+ Carrizo also or AMD has completely abandoned the desktop till 2016. Also don't bother bringing up the rebadged 2012 8350's that they are still trying to sell like new.

I believe this will be FM3. Yes there are desktop versions

AMD wouldn't bother to release a new socket just for Carrizo only to move onto yet another socket for Zen a year later.

 

[photonboy]

Vlad Rasan,
You compared AMD vs NVidia based solely on your experience with one NVidia laptop.

For one thing, you describe overheating on the NVidia GPU which may be happening but that has to do with Asus properly designing the cooling solution and not NVidia. If anything, recent NVidia GPU's are much cooler than AMD's.

You also mention not being able to overclock your GTX980M however a properly built laptop would already have this optimized for the cooling solution. It's also odd you want to overclock but complain about the GPU overheating...

As for the AMD drivers having "more features" that confuses me as I've not seen anything more that you would even want from the recent NVidia Control Panel that you'd get with a 980M laptop.

 

[bluekoala]

I feel my 8350 will be more than adequate for another 2 years or so.
It does everything I need it to do quite well. 30% better won't necessarily be any better if the difference isn't at least somewhat noticeable.
For what it's worth, I don't mind waiting 18 months for a CPU upgrade because I don't need one right now. I'll definitely buy AMD again if and when HSA becomes a thing.
In the meantime I'll just lurk around looking for a VGA upgrade from my 7870XT which I feel is a bigger bottleneck.

 

[rav_]

Why are we even reading about this. This is a waste of time. This laptop or one like it will NEVER be built.
Why does AMD even bother to develop a 4k Notebook. Intel will never allow ANY OEM to build it. This is Deja Vu all over again. Project Discovery Tablet impressed the media yet AMD killed it. How many A10-6700T APU's has AMD sold? How many Windows Tablets has AMD sold?
This is a waste of time. Unless AMD were to make a deal with Walmart for 100,000 units per quarter. AMD could also sell a few on their website like nVidia does with shield. AMD then just might see some revenue growth.

 

[Xibyth]

I personally feel pretty good about this, honestly if I want to play all my graphically intense games I have my desktop. But sometimes I feel like just lounging around and playing some CSGO. Currently there are not really any good options for this within a reasonable price range, paying upwards of $600 is not really a good feeling to get a machine with performance expected in the modern world. Weight is also a huge factor for me as I can't stand all these 6-9lbs laptops with only 2.5 hour batterys. We have been in those days since the Core2 days. I really hope for once AMD will live up to the expectations I used to expect from AMD. But within the last decade they have really just been throwing away their reliability and stability to Intel.

I also feel they really need to catch up in desktops, 95-125 watts for something an i7 pulls off with only 45 watts is terrible, no gains to be had from spending half the money on an fx-9000 series over the $280 (microcenter price right now) 4790k. Get off your butts AMD and go back to the lab, your components use too much power, and thus generate too much heat.

 

[Xibyth]

I feel my 8350 will be more than adequate for another 2 years or so.
It does everything I need it to do quite well. 30% better won't necessarily be any better if the difference isn't at least somewhat noticeable.
For what it's worth, I don't mind waiting 18 months for a CPU upgrade because I don't need one right now. I'll definitely buy AMD again if and when HSA becomes a thing.
In the meantime I'll just lurk around looking for a VGA upgrade from my 7870XT which I feel is a bigger bottleneck.

The socket AM3+ and AM3 are end of life, the Vishera was AMD's final iteration of the FX series CPU.

 

[kenjitamura]

Pretty sure that I've read AMD is set on not releasing Carrizo for desktop. They've got a new platform in the works that finally tosses away bulldozer and will be manufactured on FINFETs in 2016.

 

[Textfield]

I have to say I'm not incredibly optimistic about this one. The prototype is relatively thick. In this form factor you can get a quad-core i7 and, if you pay enough, a discrete GPU as well. I can't see any APU matching the performance of either, so the only way I see this going anywhere is if it's very cheap. But I don't think marketing this as a gaming laptop is realistic.

 

[Xibyth]

I have to say I'm not incredibly optimistic about this one. The prototype is relatively thick. In this form factor you can get a quad-core i7 and, if you pay enough, a discrete GPU as well. I can't see any APU matching the performance of either, so the only way I see this going anywhere is if it's very cheap. But I don't think marketing this as a gaming laptop is realistic.

Battery life, weight, and durability are far more important than a discrete GPU. They are a waste in mobile machines, until we can get to the point of realistic battery life while using them, in mobiles they just make the device hot and heavy.

You want a small machine for high end gaming build an HTPC. Leave the laptops for what they are intended for.

 

[Dan Ritchie]

I have Atoms that get 45 minutes of battery life, and Jaguars that get 6 hours, so it's got a lot to with the quality of the battery they put in there, but yes, completely different class of machines.

 

[kvragec]

As a longtime AMD user, I'm telling you... don't get your hopes up. AMD cant make decent cpu's or drivers, but their PR department is top notch. Expect the usual %10 performance increase with a %5 battery life gain. They will use the designs marginally increased efficiency to increase clock speeds, but not so much to negate a net a battery-life gain.

I don't agree with you on the drivers part. While it used to be true in the past, I consider current AMD drivers to be on par with nVidia's. I currently own an Asus ROG 751JY with an nvidia card, and I have to say - nvida drivers are dissapointing. Issues like BSODs and overheating, or setting the GPU to 100% at idle and on battery power are quite common in today's nvidia drivers. Also, nvidia control pannel doesn't have as many features as Catalyst control center. (I used to have a 7970m in my Precision M6700 before I sold it and got my current machine). I can't belive I'm saying this, but I miss catalyst control center... It even enabled OC by default - I can't seem to OC the 980m regardless of what I try...

As a longtime AMD user, I'm telling you... don't get your hopes up. AMD cant make decent cpu's or drivers, but their PR department is top notch. Expect the usual %10 performance increase with a %5 battery life gain. They will use the designs marginally increased efficiency to increase clock speeds, but not so much to negate a net a battery-life gain.

I don't agree with you on the drivers part. While it used to be true in the past, I consider current AMD drivers to be on par with nVidia's. I currently own an Asus ROG 751JY with an nvidia card, and I have to say - nvida drivers are dissapointing. Issues like BSODs and overheating, or setting the GPU to 100% at idle and on battery power are quite common in today's nvidia drivers. Also, nvidia control pannel doesn't have as many features as Catalyst control center. (I used to have a 7970m in my Precision M6700 before I sold it and got my current machine). I can't belive I'm saying this, but I miss catalyst control center... It even enabled OC by default - I can't seem to OC the 980m regardless of what I try...

As a longtime AMD user, I'm telling you... don't get your hopes up. AMD cant make decent cpu's or drivers, but their PR department is top notch. Expect the usual %10 performance increase with a %5 battery life gain. They will use the designs marginally increased efficiency to increase clock speeds, but not so much to negate a net a battery-life gain.

I don't agree with you on the drivers part. While it used to be true in the past, I consider current AMD drivers to be on par with nVidia's. I currently own an Asus ROG 751JY with an nvidia card, and I have to say - nvida drivers are dissapointing. Issues like BSODs and overheating, or setting the GPU to 100% at idle and on battery power are quite common in today's nvidia drivers. Also, nvidia control pannel doesn't have as many features as Catalyst control center. (I used to have a 7970m in my Precision M6700 before I sold it and got my current machine). I can't belive I'm saying this, but I miss catalyst control center... It even enabled OC by default - I can't seem to OC the 980m regardless of what I try...

As a longtime AMD user, I'm telling you... don't get your hopes up. AMD cant make decent cpu's or drivers, but their PR department is top notch. Expect the usual %10 performance increase with a %5 battery life gain. They will use the designs marginally increased efficiency to increase clock speeds, but not so much to negate a net a battery-life gain.

I don't agree with you on the drivers part. While it used to be true in the past, I consider current AMD drivers to be on par with nVidia's. I currently own an Asus ROG 751JY with an nvidia card, and I have to say - nvida drivers are dissapointing. Issues like BSODs and overheating, or setting the GPU to 100% at idle and on battery power are quite common in today's nvidia drivers. Also, nvidia control pannel doesn't have as many features as Catalyst control center. (I used to have a 7970m in my Precision M6700 before I sold it and got my current machine). I can't belive I'm saying this, but I miss catalyst control center... It even enabled OC by default - I can't seem to OC the 980m regardless of what I try...

As a longtime AMD user, I'm telling you... don't get your hopes up. AMD cant make decent cpu's or drivers, but their PR department is top notch. Expect the usual %10 performance increase with a %5 battery life gain. They will use the designs marginally increased efficiency to increase clock speeds, but not so much to negate a net a battery-life gain.

I don't agree with you on the drivers part. While it used to be true in the past, I consider current AMD drivers to be on par with nVidia's. I currently own an Asus ROG 751JY with an nvidia card, and I have to say - nvida drivers are dissapointing. Issues like BSODs and overheating, or setting the GPU to 100% at idle and on battery power are quite common in today's nvidia drivers. Also, nvidia control pannel doesn't have as many features as Catalyst control center. (I used to have a 7970m in my Precision M6700 before I sold it and got my current machine). I can't belive I'm saying this, but I miss catalyst control center... It even enabled OC by default - I can't seem to OC the 980m regardless of what I try...

AMD driver have been improved preety much. Last 3-4 updates gave me great experience and resolve some issues i had in the past. Also some nice performance improvement and i run R9 270x

 

[Bloob]

I feel my 8350 will be more than adequate for another 2 years or so.
It does everything I need it to do quite well. 30% better won't necessarily be any better if the difference isn't at least somewhat noticeable.
For what it's worth, I don't mind waiting 18 months for a CPU upgrade because I don't need one right now. I'll definitely buy AMD again if and when HSA becomes a thing.
In the meantime I'll just lurk around looking for a VGA upgrade from my 7870XT which I feel is a bigger bottleneck.

In terms of gaming, a 8350 is likely to last the whole console generation for multiplats. PC-dedicated AAA-games are such a rare breed that they are IMO not worth upgrading for.

 

[Vlad Razvan]

Vlad Rasan,
You compared AMD vs NVidia based solely on your experience with one NVidia laptop.

For one thing, you describe overheating on the NVidia GPU which may be happening but that has to do with Asus properly designing the cooling solution and not NVidia. If anything, recent NVidia GPU's are much cooler than AMD's.

You also mention not being able to overclock your GTX980M however a properly built laptop would already have this optimized for the cooling solution. It's also odd you want to overclock but complain about the GPU overheating...

As for the AMD drivers having "more features" that confuses me as I've not seen anything more that you would even want from the recent NVidia Control Panel that you'd get with a 980M laptop.

The overheating I experienced was a DRIVER issue. On this model, video bios has control over the GPU fan - and on modern GPUs, drivers can override VBIOS settings. On a recent nvidia driver I installed the GPU fan would not go over 50% in games, regardless of GPU temps, witch in turn caused thermal trotteling and poor performance. Once I updated the driver, the issue went away.

Thermal design on the G751JY is decent. GPU tops at 70-71C and CPU at 79-80 witch OC form 3 to 3.5GHz. It could have been better, yes, but it's tolerable.

I also mentioned that I CANNOT overclock the GPU - not even with ASUS's own OC tool that came with the machine.

Please carefully read before you comment.

P.S. - As an enthisiast I've owned just about every nvidia and ATi video card up untill a couple of years ago - then I switched to laptops because I spend a lot of time away from home.The last desktop GPUs I owned were a Sapphire 7970 vapor-x and Gigabyte GTX 680 Windforce. I don't really care if a GPU is made by nvidia or amd - i'll allways pick the best price / performance option.

 

[Jonas Magnusson]

Looks like something i might get, hope it will run windows 10 and have some awesome specs&drivers to it as well.

 

[kvragec]

Looks like something i might get, hope it will run windows 10 and have some awesome specs&drivers to it as well.

It will run windows 10 for sure but other things are mystery... Performance and quality of drivers.... Hope that AMD will deliver on that field also, they are certainly putting a lot of work into it

 

[Jonas Magnusson]

Hope so, i really hope it will be able to run GTA V on pc.

 

[Reepca]

With the HSA effort, getting single-threaded performance up there is extremely important, since anything data-parallel in nature can almost always be done by the GPU. Not everything can be done in parallel, though, and now that their parallel processing capability with HSA is so strong, they really need to focus on raising single-threaded performance - some things simply HAVE to be done serially (I'm thinking about processing collisions in physics... you have to process them in order, since time moves in one direction and does not jump around).

 

[Dan Ritchie]

Their energy efficiency gains have been astonishing over the last few years. Their GPU gains have been impressive too. OEMs use smaller, cheaper batteries. I think we all agree CPU needs some love.

 

[Reepca]

If Carrizo tops the fx-7600p (the one we can't see in the wild, you know the one) in performance at the highest end, I would happily shell out ~ $700 for a laptop that:
- Has a FreeSync-compatible quality 1080p display
- Has 1866-speed RAM (or any better equivalent, be that DDR4 or some embedded RAM like in the PS4)
- Active idle battery life of at least 5 hours
- Decent build quality (of course)
- Standard laptop goodies (bluetooth, wifi radio, webcam... more obvious stuff like keyboard and touchpad :~) )

Some stuff is more of a preference than a requirement (I'd *like* 8GB of RAM or more instead of 6, but I could live... and I'd *like* a 1TB HDD instead of 500GB... but I could live).

Take note of this, OEMs we hope read the comments section of tech websites!