AMD Fusion Info Thread

[Jayayess1190]

^^^^ What he said, more info here and here.

But Intel's focus remains on adding CPU cores to boost PC performance. With Fusion, AMD is trying to achieve faster PC performance through a mix of CPUs and GPUs.

The first iteration of Fusion will include a CPU and GPU, but by 2015 the model could change, said Leslie Sobon, vice president of marketing at AMD.

"The second iteration [in] 2015 ... you're not going to be able to tell the difference. It's all going away," Sobon said.

Quite interestingly, after AMD acquired ATI, the CPU designer said that eventually special purpose graphics processors would not be needed and would become obsolete, just like discrete math-coprocessors (or floating point units [FPUs]) did back in the late eighties and early nineties. Although AMD is successfully developing and selling its ATI Radeon graphics family and the first Fusion chips will have separate GPU core within one piece of silicon, it looks like the company still has plans to unify CPU and GPU cores going forward.

[cloudbyday]

Is this for both desktops and laptops? I don't see this as very practical, because eventually the gpu in the cpu chip is going to be outdated and needs to be faster.

[Sonicjet]

Is this for both desktops and laptops? I don't see this as very practical, because eventually the gpu in the cpu chip is going to be outdated and needs to be faster.

..thats the beauty...it standardizes the GPU socket!
The Death of MXM,just the APU Socket,of which will probably be predesignated to be DDR4 compatible in hardware to let you upgrade to a CPU made 5 years later,like Socket AM2,+, and AM3.
The best way to explain it is that it will be very close to the Field that is AM2 CPU's.
Do you want to upgrade?
You get a APU machine,two years later you can get a new APU that is roughly the same wattage,maybe even a hardware lock to keep you from putting a 65 Watt into a 25 watt socket,the cost is that you will not have lets say DDR4 or some new feature..but you do have DX12(lets say) and maybe 10-20% more power.
There are huge capabilities for this.
AMD...Good luck....

[Althernai]

What I think people don't get is what AMD wants to do with this....it is not sandy bridge,it is not a plan to force AMD IGPs....their plan is to kill the CPU.
They claim by 2015 that they will not be throwing X86 cpus into the APU,look at it,right now for 65 watts you can either get a 1200 Gflop 5870mr or an overclocked i7 at 65 Gflops...look at the watt per flop number.

...but first, look at what programs the 5870MR can run and what programs the i7 can run. The Gflops obscure the nature of how CPUs and GPUs work. A specialized piece of hardware like the GPU will always have better Gflops -- if it did not, there would be no point to its existence at all -- but those Gflops are calculated only in a situation that is most favorable to it.

In the case of GPUs, this must be some task that can be split into a massive number of parallel sub-tasks (like processing pixels to make images). If you try to use a GPU for a single or dual-threaded tasks (except for gaming and video, these constitute the entirety of everyday computer usage), then first it will not work because nobody in their right mind would have compiled the application to work with GPUs, but even if you work around that, the performance will be utterly miserable.

AMD is not trying to kill the CPU and their claim is most certainly not that they will stop using x86 CPUs by 2015 (that would be insane). They're trying to merge the GPU with the CPU, just like Intel is doing with Sandy Bridge. The difference is that in all likelihood, Sandy Bridge will give you a superior CPU while Llano will you a superior GPU.

Is this for both desktops and laptops? I don't see this as very practical, because eventually the gpu in the cpu chip is going to be outdated and needs to be faster.

Sandy Bridge, Ontario and Llano will all have the CPU and GPU on the same die while the initial version of Bulldozer will not do (as far as I can tell, anyway -- not much is known about it). However, it's pretty clear that all processors in both desktops and laptops will eventually feature this.

Discreet graphics cards will go the way of discreet sound cards: you will still be able to buy one if you want (it'll probably work in tandem with the processor much like Arrandale does with Nvidia's cards), but since every computer will come with one, far fewer people will bother. This is a very good thing -- it might even bring about a revival in PC gaming since the install base will be everyone with a PC rather than just the people who shelled out $100+ for a discreet video card.

[Phinagle]

AMD Looks to Boost Fusion Ecosystem Through Investments - PCWorld Business Center

[Aikimox]

What I think people don't get is what AMD wants to do with this....it is not sandy bridge,it is not a plan to force AMD IGPs....their plan is to kill the CPU.
They claim by 2015 that they will not be throwing X86 cpus into the APU,look at it,right now for 65 watts you can either get a 1200 Gflop 5870mr or an overclocked i7 at 65 Gflops...look at the watt per flop number.
Even if they have to emulate x64..it will blow the doors off of an i7,intel does not have the ability to do this,no high output gpu experience.
Nvidia does.....2011 will be a huge year for AMD...expect the CPU tables to turn.

..thats the beauty...it standardizes the GPU socket!
The Death of MXM,just the APU Socket,of which will probably be predesignated to be DDR4 compatible in hardware to let you upgrade to a CPU made 5 years later,like Socket AM2,+, and AM3.
The best way to explain it is that it will be very close to the Field that is AM2 CPU's.
Do you want to upgrade?
You get a APU machine,two years later you can get a new APU that is roughly the same wattage,maybe even a hardware lock to keep you from putting a 65 Watt into a 25 watt socket,the cost is that you will not have lets say DDR4 or some new feature..but you do have DX12(lets say) and maybe 10-20% more power.
There are huge capabilities for this.
AMD...Good luck....

Very interesting points!

[Phinagle]

If Fusion means the death of discrete cards then I better be able to Crossfire APUs.

[DEagleson]

AMD based gaming notebooks with superior upgradeability. ;D
Cant wait for the tech of 2011, so many choices.

[TANWare]

If Fusion means the death of discrete cards then I better be able to Crossfire APUs.

Maybe they need a dual or even quad cpu/apu socket board

[Jayayess1190]

AMD, ST Microelectronics to Detail Future Projects at Globalfoundries' Conference.

At the September 1 event, senior executives from AMD and STMicroelectronics will offer their perspectives on the changing dynamics of chip design and manufacturing as the industry moves to the 32/28nm technology node and beyond.

In a presentation titled “CPU/GPU Industry Dynamics and Technologies,” Chekib Akrout, senior vice president and general manager of the technology group at AMD, will discuss the benefits of integrating high-performance CPU and GPU capabilities on the same piece of silicon to form an accelerated processing unit (APU), combined with leading-edge 32nm gate first high-k metal gate (HKMG) with silicon-on-insulator (SOI) process technology. Globalfoundries will make code-named Llano APU for AMD starting in Q1 2011.

AMD's Fusion Processors Are Designed to Be as Fast as Discrete GPUs

"AMD’s APUs are designed to deliver exceptional performance – and we believe this will be readily apparent when compared to integrated graphics products available from the competition. Some of our APUs, by sheer performance alone, are expected to be faster than some discrete GPUs on the market. As our GPU cores improve, you can expect our APU graphics performance to similarly improve," said Godfrey Cheng, the director of client technology unit at AMD.