Tuesday, September 14th 2010
18W AMD Fusion Beats Intel Core i5 at Graphics Performance
As with every IDF event, AMD camped nearby at hotel suites, showing off its latest. Even as Intel is busy selling Sandy Bridge to the press, AMD has some goods of its own. The green team displayed a notebook development platform built around the Fusion "Zacate" APU, which a dual-core APU based on the Bobcat architecture, with a DirectX 11 compliant GPU embedded into it. A more interesting specification is its TDP, just at 18W, with a more energy-efficient die suited for netbooks, at just 9W (codenamed "Ontario". The test platform was pitted against an Intel Core i5 processor-driven notebook, and the two were tested on casual gaming a run of City of Heroes, and HTML5 web-rendering performance using Microsoft Internet Explorer 9 test suite.
The Intel HD graphics embedded intro the Intel Core i5 managed just 6~7 fps @ 1024 x 768, while the Fusion "Zacate" managed close to 5 times that, around 30 fps, which made the game playable. Next up, the two setups were compared with MSIE9 HTML5 demos. In one such graphics-intensive demo that shows a virtual bookshelf from which you can pick up books, read a teaser, and then buy it off Amazon.com, the Fusion "Zacate" was able to deliver smooth animations, while that from the Core i5 looked choppy. Lastly, a close look at the demo board reveals that Fusion is indeed a 2-chip solution (APU + chipset). Compared to current AMD mobile platforms, it will significantly cut down board area, letting manufacturers build faster, and smaller ultraportables and netbooks. A video of the demo can be watched here.
Sources:
TechReport, Netbooknews
The Intel HD graphics embedded intro the Intel Core i5 managed just 6~7 fps @ 1024 x 768, while the Fusion "Zacate" managed close to 5 times that, around 30 fps, which made the game playable. Next up, the two setups were compared with MSIE9 HTML5 demos. In one such graphics-intensive demo that shows a virtual bookshelf from which you can pick up books, read a teaser, and then buy it off Amazon.com, the Fusion "Zacate" was able to deliver smooth animations, while that from the Core i5 looked choppy. Lastly, a close look at the demo board reveals that Fusion is indeed a 2-chip solution (APU + chipset). Compared to current AMD mobile platforms, it will significantly cut down board area, letting manufacturers build faster, and smaller ultraportables and netbooks. A video of the demo can be watched here.
52 Comments on 18W AMD Fusion Beats Intel Core i5 at Graphics Performance
Let just wait till everything is out, i don't care about any company... they don't pay me, so i don't give a shit.
If Intel does come out with something that performs better for a higher cost, well then it's ones decision to jump in on that extra performance if they'd like. We don't have an indication of Sandy Bridges price, but if it is a bit more expensive and the performance is well justified for that price, then that in itself should be something to be happy and proud about. Cause in the end, the consumers win.
that part is called Llano, inte's sandy brige only has HD 5450 performance
Llano is said to have four Phenom II based cores with Radeon HD 5670 level graphics peformace
Bulldozer is amd's next generation high performance desktop and server chip without any onchip video, its much like Opteron and Phenom II now a days
I really look forward to see this APU as this will bring 3D MMO gaming onto notebooks powered by batteries. At the moment, it is not possible to 3D game with integrated graphics on notebook and dedicated graphics consumes too much power so you can't game on a notebook easily with battery. AMD's APU is gonna change all that!
Maybe us want proper gpus, but from all computer users in the world, we are a minority. Intel doesn't need to make powerful gpus, they would loose money investing money in that.
Intel is also lead in notebook platforms. If amd wants to compete with intel there, they can't go against intel with cpu performance because they will surely loose, so they have to strike in intel's weak point: 3d performance. If amd offers a capable low power cpu with a good integrated gpu, all with affordable price it would be better than only offering cpu muscle and low power consuption because intel would own that quite easily.
Did it get anyone else?
Its actually quite disappointing to compare Fusion against i5, I would prefer it to be compared to a low end graphics card, like the 5570.
When you have a customer that only uses his computer for webbrowsing, word, youtube, email, listening to music i dont see why this FUSION wouldnt be perfect for him.
There was ATOM for a while but i found it not being snappy enough, also not being able to play 720p content was a downer.
Fusion being dual core, higher clocked, having DX11 compatible GPU even when you dont play games even though it could handle WOW, that is a big plus cause of all the GPU accelleration today.
our mainboards with quadcores, crossfire, 8GB ram, SSD arent going anywhere as there will always be gamers/music makers/designers etc that need more.
But i dont see why i would pick a AMD 3.0ghz dualcore on a 785g mainboard while low in power consumption compared to gaming rigs would be needed for most consumers when FUSION is the option, i see many gouvernments and companies buying those FUSION ITX computers in bulk to save money on the purchase and power consumption while it has all the performance needed for its tasks.
I wouldn't but a high end Fusion chip based on the size of the GPU because I'll be pairing it with the biggest, best GPU, from Intel or AMD. Having a GPU inside the CPU is just a waste of silicon which could have been used for adding more cores or more cache or a bigger memory controller or something. I don't need that GPU there.
Now sure I'd say they will do some kind of Hybrid Crossfire thing, but what if you have a NVIDIA card? What then? You'll get NVIDIAs drivers up your bum telling you that you have an ATI chip in there and PhysX won't work (without the patch which only works 2% of the time), and as for if you get a Radeon, even with 400SPs on the CPU, I can bet when they go to 32nm or less they will be over 2000SP, more likely 2400SPs. Or what if you are already running Crossfire 2x or 3x or 4x. That's like 4000+ SPs. The extra 400SPs is going to provide a small boost if anything. It certainly won't be as significant as just normal Crossfire.
The Fusion idea is a good idea in theory for low end machines to save power but I can't see it being a brilliant idea for top end machines.
Bobcat is Netbook/Ultra Portable or less than $500 notebook territory. Even though they are comparing it to i5 mobile, this is going to be in the same pricing portfolio as Atom.....yes Atom that cpu from Intel that makes everyone hate their netbook that has ever had one (not really but you get the point). Things Atom can't do without Ion or something else and even then doesn't make you really want it: Anything flash based. While the 99% of buyers are not going to be playing Steam games on these (or any kind of 3D game for that matter) they will do that thing this kind of setup was meant to do, cruise the Internet. How much does flash account for videos, browser games, college free time games, etc?
Like I said in another thread: Bobcat is going to make the Atom look like a P3. Intel is about to get pwn with a capital P. I've got AMD's marketing gold: "Want to play farmville as a game and not a slide show? Got 300-500 bucks? Come play! :rockout:
Llano is what will take on the i5 mainstream your talking about though and your right, 4 cores and 5570 performance is what is expected.
These chips will save mobo space on laptops, allowing that to be used to increase RAM slots, HDD size, more powerful Wireless chipsets, better ventilation, and all while lower power needed to play those games.