AMD is looking to make the most of its advantage
Fusion has been a sales hit for Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (AMD), and a much need one amid slumping server sales. Fusion processors or "advanced processing units" (APUs), as AMD also bills them, combine AMD's discrete GPUs and one of several AMD CPU core designs on a single chip. The platform launched in January with the C-Series and E-Series, equipped with the lightweight Bobcat core. It was then expanded June 30, when the beefier Stars (Phenom II architecture) core-equipped A-series launched.
Today AMD announced new models in its C-series and E-series. Its press release is a bit confusing as it refers to "updated APUs". As far as we could determine the existing models are not updated at all -- rather AMD is launching new product here.
The C-Series gets one new processor, the C-60. This dual-core 1.0 GHz chip is on par with C-50 in most regards, but bumps the GPU from an HD 6250 to an HD 6290, keeps the standard GPU speed at 276 MHz, but adds a "Turbo" mode, which clocks the GPU core up to 400 MHz. Support for faster DDR3-1333 memory has also been added (previously, only DDR3-1066 was supported).
Despite these nice additions, AMD promises superb power performance -- roughly 12 hours of active battery life when idle and roughly 4 and a half hours of active battery life when active (3DMark '06 used to simulate typical gaming activity). That's roughly 4 more hours than AMD promised with the first generation C-Series models.
Two new dual-core E-series processors are also being pushed out the door -- the E-300 and the E-450. Both add DDR3-1333 support. Previously, the only dual-core E-Series design was the E-350.
By contrast, the new E-300 is slower than the E-350, with a 1.3 GHz CPU core clock. It also packs a slower 488 MHz GPU core. Clearly this is the more ultra-mobile-aimed core. The other core, the new E-450, is the new high-end model. It bumps the CPU clock up to 1.65 GHz and takes the GPU core clock up to 508 MHz in standard mode and 600 MHz in "Turbo" mode. AMD promises these E-series models will get "up to" (probably meaning the E-300) "10.5 hours of resting battery life."
All of the new processors receive HDMI 1.4a support and DisplayPort++ to connect to a variety of kinds of displays.
Chris Cloran, AMD's Client Division VP and general manager states, "Today's PC users want stunning HD graphics and accelerated performance with all-day battery life and that’s what AMD Fusion APUs deliver. With these new APUs, we're bringing premium features to entry-level products that let users get a richer computing experience."
In related news, AMD earlier this month announced [press release] the availability of its AMD Accelerated Parallel Processing (APP) Software Development Kit (SDK) v2.5. This OpenCL-driven SDK offers programmers tools to add general-purpose GPU (GPGPU) computing support to their applications. AMD seems to be taking a wise tact here, as its CPU performance trails that of rival Intel Corp. (INTC), but its GPU performance is well ahead of its rival. With GPU-enabled apps, Fusion APUs may finally start performing their Intel comparables in everyday applications like Microsoft Corp.'s (MSFT) Office suite or Adobe Systems, Inc.'s (ADBE), assuming the app-makers add support.
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