AMD Unveils "Brazos" Platform for Notebooks and Netbooks Discussion

The team at AMD has been actively promoting something they call "Fusion" for several years now. AMD's Fusion is a solution to a long-standing problem with computers: the communications bottleneck between the central processing unit (CPU) and the graphics processing unit (GPU). In short, if you can combine the serial processing power of a CPU and the parallel processing power of a GPU onto a single processor die then you should get faster performance and less power consumption packed into a fraction of the space needed for a standard CPU and stand-alone GPU.

I recently had the opportunity to spend some hands-on time with AMD's newest platform, and I was pretty impressed considering that this APU is going to be at the heart of ultraportable notebooks at netbooks priced at less than $500 starting in 2011.

Read the full content of this Article: AMD Unveils "Brazos" Platform for Notebooks and Netbooks

Related Articles:

• AMD "Zacate" APU First Look: Hands On with the Brazos Platform
• AMD to Unveil "Zacate" Fusion APU

 

I can't wait. I also can't wait for Anandtech to publish his benchmarks next week (AMD told him he had to wait).

 

Very interesting!

 

I am definitely interested in the benchmarks! If this chip can perform as well as one of the higher Intel dual core i5s, and ina slim form factor, I would definitely look to get an AMD powered multimedia 17 inch.

I'll wait until the test results have been published before I get ahead of myself/get caught-up in dreams of grandeur.

 

Looking forward to your benchmark numbers. Everyone so far seems to be saying the same thing: Bobcat is impressive and that's really good news.

Brazos does allegedly have better IGP performance but it isn't the i5 competitor.

 

Hmm, after reading Jerry's article apparently he got a hands-on preview as well. The way Anand wrote his article, he sounded like he got exclusive access to the test machines. How very deceptive of him. I'll wait for Jerry's results instead.

And Zacate is only supposed to have an 18W TDP maximum. That will be perfect for a "high end" netbook.

 

AMD really needs to get out of the retail CPU market and concentrate solely on servers and GPUs. I know that they're guaranteed a percentage of the consumer market due to a settlement with Intel, but that doesn't mean that consumers actually want AMD CPUs.

Okay, there are people who build their own gaming desktops, and a small subset of that small minority want AMD CPUs. Then of course, there's the very bottom of the market, where consumers are driven solely by price. Still, how profitable is it for AMD to compete solely on price, since they really can't make a CPU for all that much less than Intel?

I personally don't want a notebook with an AMD processor. I can think of a couple of HP and Lenovo product that I didn't even consider because of the AMD processor.

My message to AMD: leave consumers alone and concentrate on the server business.

 

My biggest hope for AMD Fusion is that it makes use of Hybrid Crossfire. Not only for the low end with Bobcat but even to the top end discrete GPUs with Llano or Bulldozer. It would in a way allow AMD to apply a form of it's discrete GPU "sweet-spot" strategy to the entire PC system and offer a combined GPU performance that Intel and Nvidia would have trouble matching with their individual products.

 

Look at AMD's pictures; here's a good one. Brazos is not even remotely close to the i5; in fact, it's not intended to match even the i3. Its competition are Pentiums and Celerons, that's why the price range of the notebooks it will be in is around $500.

 

I don't think I've read a worse statement in quite a long time. Do you honestly want Intel to have a monopoly on consumer CPU's? That is only asking for something terrible to happen.

 

I'm curious how the benchmarks will compare to Nile. I've been more than impressed with the 11" HP dm1z - the performance of the K625/4225 combo has been phenomenal.

lgpOnTheMove - taking a new cut on notebook reviews: First Impressions - HP dm1z notebook

 

Gotta love those NDAs.

Really exciting stuff here. From breifly skimming the replies here, I understand this new "architechture" (if that's the right word...) is targeted at the low end, to up the performance while keeping costs absolutely minimal.

But my question is, is it possible, or, does AMD see this being the future of computing? That would be quite a long term vision, of course.

I'm excited to read the following article next week. I believe NBR does a great, thorough, and detailed job with their articles and reviews, while not getting bogged down in technical jargon, and explaining things the average tech follower can understand.

 

See this thread, AMD's APU's are their future.

 

It's just exciting from a tech standpoint. What is the future of anything electronic?

Faster, Smaller, Cheaper.

These "first steps" into APU and single-die processors will further branch out performance and technology on mobile platforms. Intel - as much as I love the company - needs to be pressured by AMD, and vice versa. This means better products for the consumers, new technologies as they try to "one-up" each other, and other than the upcoming benchmarks - A competition to try to stick as much power, onto something smaller, cheaper, that draws less power and means more mobility.

I think to myself - if someone told me this would happen five years ago I would have been amazed. I wonder in five year's time what else will be new that would amaze me today.

I knew I should have been an electrical or mechanical engineer.

 

What really impressed me was the comparison between the size of the Bobcat vs. Nile and its IGP. Even more impressive is the improved GPU performance, power usage, but I'm a bit worried it'll be anemic in the CPU, for my needs anyway. It sounds great for cheap and portable notebooks in the 11-13", I hope AMD can get some good systems out there.

 

Oh, there's no doubt now that the future of computing is to merge the CPU and GPU. This is not long term, it will happen in 2-3 months for the low end (AMD's Brazos) and desktop mid-range / laptop performance (Intel's Sandy Bridge). The high end CPUs are coming in about a year (Sandy Bridge EX) and eventually (2012-2013) there might even be a mid-high GPU in there.

 

Im deciding whether its a good thing or a bad thing, what if certain individual parts of the chip malfunction, you loose both objects (CPU and GPU) for the failure of 1, am i right?

Other then that im in agreement, they could go dam small with platforms if they wanted to.

 

In just about every netbook/ultrathin out now the CPU and GPU components are all soldered onto the board and you run into the same problem...if one part fails the whole system fails.

 

It is "exclusive" only in the sense that AMD only invited a handful of journalists from around the globe to spend 24 hours at the Austin, Texas campus and install/run benchmarks and other tests using the Zacate testbeds.

I don't know the exact number of testbeds that AMD made available to the lucky handful of technology journalists at the event, but I had lucky number 13.

 

The Brazos platform (Zacate and Ontario APUs) is absolutely targeted at the low end, but that's not a bad thing. Depending on which source you believe in terms of consumer sales, almost 90 percent of Intel's mobile CPU business comes from low-end Core i3 and lower (cheaper) processors.

AMD had an interesting slide that indicates (based on AMD's research) that for every 20 million consumers who focus on buying notebooks with specific processors there are 300 million consumers who don't care what processor is inside their notebook ... they just care that the notebook does what they need it to do (stream videos, edit photos, web browsing and email, online gaming, etc.).

In terms of getting "the most bang for their buck" it's probably a good thing that AMD is starting the launch of their APUs with the low-end systems.

That said, AMD will be launching multiple platforms of APUs for notebooks and desktops. The Brazos platform is just the first to hit the street for notebooks, but the AMD "Sabine" platform is coming for high-end notebooks (high-performance and multimedia entertainment notebooks) as well.

 

Currently, AMD is a very active participant in the subnotebook market, which helps to partially explain why the category was perhaps the biggest flop of 2009.

I don't doubt that AMD can produce processors. I suppose there's nothing wrong with a sub-$100 quad core processor for a server. It's just that they can't compete in the consumer market, and that AMD sticker is the best way to cool offer consumer interest in even a strong product.

With this development, AMD is attempting to bolster it's marginal position in a marginal market.

 

Well, there's always ARM, isn't there? I'm really not all that concerned about Intel's monopoly, because they've already had an effective monopoly for decades and AMD has been able to get guaranteed market share, regardless of consumer demand. As if that doesn't fit the definition of an anti-competitive practice. Make consumers buy something they don't want due to a legal settlement.

What's next, a legal settlement that forces large enterprises to buy a percentage of AMD processors? Actually, that seems to be possible, perhaps even likely.

 

An AMD label on Apple products would have a negative effect on the consumer interest of which product exactly?

AMD Fusion soon in Apple systems?

Obviously Steve Jobs would only consider something like that because he's worried about being sued.

 

I have to admit Im excited to see where this is going. I wonder what kind of gaming we could see with these chips as it would be nice to have an ultra portable to carry around and leave the dell at home to work as a server. Would also solve my need for an SSH server. Thinking about an 11in 1600x900 res screen and the ability to do my work and play WoW easily has me drooling (the 1600x900 is just a hope and dream).

 

If I go by the AMD/Intel comparison slide that AMD provided (posted in the article) then the top-of-the-line Zacate APU in the Brazos platform is positioned right around the bottom of the Core i3 target market. Sabine is more likely to compete directly with the Core i3/i5/i7 mobile processors.

I have to be a little tight lipped until next week (AMD is reading this discussion thread) but I can say that the testbed using the E-350 APU performed better with gaming than a $900 low-voltage Core i7-based ultraportable with Intel HD integrated graphics.

As for tablets, AMD did mention the Brazos platform working for slate tablets and convertible notebook tablets, but the systems they mentioned most were thin-and-light notebooks and netbooks.

I can't give you specifics until next week, but I can tell you that I had enough time to install and run Left 4 Dead 2 via Steam on the E-350 testbed and I was pretty impressed for a low-voltage budget APU designed for notebooks priced at $500 or less.

 

Worse statement? Not quite.....take a look at the recent review of the AMD-powered HP ProBook and you'll see his statement does indeed have a little merit.....

 

To be fair, that is due to a relatively specific problem: a 1.6GHz quad-core CPU that can't Turbo Boost is a recipe for disaster. On the one hand, it is barely adequate (if that...) for the vast majority of workloads because most applications are still single threaded. On the other, it has a lousy battery life. Definitely not the best of ideas.

Come to think of it, the first problem may also affect the low-end dual-core Brazos: it only runs at 1.0GHz. A 1.6GHz dual-core CPU with a modern architecture should be decent, but at 1.0GHz it's quite likely well into Atom territory.

 

That link appears appears to be dead. Though now that I've replied to you, I can see, and assume, you meant to link to http://forum.notebookreview.com/hardware-components-aftermarket-upgrades/505702-amd-fusion-info-thread.html. So thanks for the link!

Interesting. From Wikipedia I gathered that Sandy Bridge will feature "Integrated graphics core running at 650 MHz to 850 MHz". Now, another quick check on Notebookcheck tells me that my current 8600M GT has core speed of 475. A more contemporary mid-range, say, the Radeon HD 5650 has a core speed of 450-650. Now, I know there are a lot more specifications to consider, but, unless am missing something major, am I wrong in assuming this kind of integrated GPU seems quite powerful (in terms of mid-range)?

Thanks for the information. The other reason I asked my initial question, was that, if APU really is the future, would that not mean dedicated GPUs would eventually be phased out? From an average consumer's perception I believe ATI does much better than AMD. APU seems to cannibalize on one of the best things AMD has going in the consumer space. Or is the intention to always have the dedicated GPU, since merging an extremely high end CPU and GPU is unlikely (considering those GPUs are HUGE)?

 

I just really wish that more OEMs would pick up on AMD. With Brazos and Llano I think they could be a great alternative. I'm very impressed by the supposed Zacate performance (wont know for sure until next week). I'm dreaming of an ultraportable in the 10 or 11 inch range that will rival Core i3's in terms of graphics performance. It also seems that AMD could finally be getting heat under control, but I question if they're ready for fanless ultraportables as of yet. Only time will tell.

 

Separate discrete GPUs are not dead ... at least not yet. The material AMD showed me clearly indicates that these APUs can be connected to separate discrete GPUs if the notebook manufacturer wants the system to have even better gaming performance than what the APU can provide.

Although I fully expect the overwhelming majority of Zacate-based notebooks to only use the APU for graphics, I suspect we'll see quite a few high-end notebooks with the Sabine APUs that also have separate discrete GPUs for even better gaming performance.

Think of it similar to the way there are notebooks with switchable graphics today.

 

There are already a few manufacturers on board to launch Bobcat machines (at CES?). Besides the MSI that Jerry mentions in the article there's ASUS, HP, and Acer....who will be updating their 11.6" Ferrari One.

http://www.thinq.co.uk/2010/8/4/fusion-netbooks-lined-early-2011/

 

Good to hear! This may end up being a perfect solution for me.

 

I say again, hopefully it ends up being more than just switchable graphics.

The Llano APUs in the Sabine platform have an estimated TDP in the 20-55W range and have been quoted as having an IGP potentially rated between the Mob. HD5650 and HD5730. By itself that's impressive but if it's only an either/or deal when paired with a discrete GPU it's kind of a waste.

As a comparison to Llano: The Alienware M11x has about the same GPU power as a Mob. HD5650 with it's discrete GT 335M but a weaker ULV CPU at a total TDP of ~41W.

 

Very good, I cannot wait! I hope Dell also going to use it in Latitude quality. So long it was very hard to find laptop with acceptable graphics performance, because most of it built with Intel's IGP. However graphics performance is same important as CPU. The most happy part is it's price, only $400-500. I am wondering who will spend thousands $ for Intel IGP systems .

 

You are missing something major. The power of a GPU is not determined by the clock speed alone; in fact, most modern GPUs run at similar clocks speeds (within a factor of 2 or so). What differentiates them is the number of miniature processors each one has. The 8600M GT has 32 of the G84 variety, Sandy Bridge will have 12 "exectution units". Of course, the architecture is completely different so you can't compare them directly, but I don't think SB will quite reach the level of an 8600M GT.

Yes! And good riddance. It will take a long time and they'll never disappear completely, but they'll eventually be banished to a fairly small market segment. Once the integrated stuff really can match mid-range cards, GPUs become superfluous.

This is a historical curiosity. When AMD bought ATI, Fusion was one of the big selling points. In fact, it is explicitly mentioned in the press release:

Keep in mind that in 2006, AMD was not the company you're probably thinking of now. Until about the middle of that year, Intel was selling mostly NetBurst CPUs which were basically garbage: they ran at a high clock speed and drew a lot of power, but performed worse than AMD's contemporary offerings. Consequently, AMD's market share was larger than Intel's and it wanted to keep it this way by adding the GPU to their CPUs.

Unfortunately, they failed at this -- repeatedly. The press release says late 2008/early 2009, but it kept getting delayed and delayed and delayed. Notice that the first iteration will be released in 2011 and it's graphics will not be better than the contemporary integrated ones (or heck, even Intel's version of the same thing). So yes, AMD is essentially cannibalizing its own business, but it wasn't meant to be this way -- it's just that they're processors got less and less competitive while their graphics cards got better and better.

 

I disagree only because the target is moving, so as integrated chips advance, so too should the discrete GPUs. So once the integrated stuff can match (current) mid-range cards, the mid-range will have moved, and will still be ahead of the integraed GPUs (given incentive, and if things like 3D prove to be popular, or any of the various other potential future items that people are always hoping to see, like holographic tanks, the incentive will be there). The current lower end will largely drop out, though, admittedly.

 

Something is moving, but it is not the target. It is true that discreet GPUs are getting better, but as long as the applications that make use of them do not, this is largely irrelevant. There are not that many programs out there that use GPUs to begin with and the most popular of these (basically stuff used to watch video) are perfectly happy with even Arrandale. The exceptions are a few niche programs (people who use them will still buy discreet cards, but they are few) and games which are the real battlefield.

Integrated graphics does not need to match discreet GPUs in gaming, it just needs to match the consoles adjusted for platform transition inefficiency. Almost nobody makes PC-only AAA games anymore; practically everything that needs a GPU is optimized first and foremost for 5 year old hardware. If you look at the reviews of modern high end cards, you'll see that the poor reviewers have to go to settings like 2560x1600 resolution + everything maxed out to get a meaningful difference (nobody cares if the FPS increases from 120 to 150). For typical consumer products (read: lousy 1366x768 displays), you really don't need to be much above something like the 8600M GT. Once the on-die GPUs become more powerful than that, it won't matter that the mid-range cards are as powerful as today's high end because a few bells and whistles in games are not worth the weight, heat and decreased battery life.

It is possible that something new will come out that will extend their lifetime, but I don't see anything on the horizon yet. 3D has been around for a while, but it has never gone beyond being a gimmick (lose the glasses, then we'll talk). Holography is more than 5 years out and will require a different approach from anything done until now. I will be pleasantly surprised if something unexpected shows up, but I'm not holding my breath.

 

Chicken or the egg....does hardware advance only to handle the software that's already out or is new software developed to make use of the advances in hardware.

 

Lol. So when did you dream all this up?

 

Thinking about a business class notebook in 11-12in form that gets amazing battery, can do light gaming, and handle sys admin/coding work all for around $500 makes me wet myself in joy! Now if only they were to offer a 1600x900 screen in that size point Id be in heaven! The SXPS would be my multimedia/server at home with a multi screen setup and the vostro would be a nicely setup SSH server gatekeeper. I need to go before I get too excited.

 

I'd like to see ASUS resurrect the N10j with Bobcat and a discrete Mob. HD6370.

 

Why? Bobcat's built-in GPU is it's greatest strength. Why throw it away and pair a low-end CPU with something that adds both weight and TDP?

 

Because I want it to use Hybrid Crossfire and have the option to either run off the IGP by itself or run both together and get more GPU performance than either offer individually. The dimensions might be thicker but there shouldn't have to be a significant weight increase (N10J was less than half a pound heavier than other ASUS 10" netbooks).

 

I bought my AMD Notebook last October with the first generation Neo processors. It does basically everything I want it to with no significant slow downs, the performance is awesome for my needs, and I only paid $500 for this notebook.

The only issue I have with this notebook is that the battery life is subpar, I can SQUEEZE out 5.25 hours by undervolting, disabling a core and running the computer with 1 core @ 800mhz, the brightness at the lowest point, and bluetooth off doing basic stuff, but that is extremely unreasonable.

Honestly, as long as AMD can improve battery life, I would replace this notebook with a new one before I start college next year.

How is the battery life/heat looking for these new APUs? Are they going to match Atom?

 

Meh. Unless they made a breakthrough in clock-for-clock performance, that CPU is going to limit you in most things you want to use the GPUs for anyway. I doubt an extra card will be worth it.

 

Intel Atom - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Wiki page above shows the official TDPs for Atom processors. Most of the popular Atom-based netbooks are using chips with TDPs between 6.5W and 13W max.

AMD's Ontario APUs will be 9W max and the Zacate will be 18W max. AMD claims they've had engineering samples systems with the Zacate E-350 APU running idle at 5.6W total system draw and only ~1W was being used by the APU itself (the other ~4.6W of power was being used by other components like the screen and the hard drive).

I'll be able to give you my real-world power consumption results (based on one of the Zacate E-350 testbeds) next Tuesday.

 

This CPU isn't as anemic as Atom though, correct?

 

These cpu's battle Pentium's, so no.

 

So an Ontario APU clocked at 280 MHz with 80 Stream Processors will be faster than my Radeon 4225 clocked at 380 MHz with 40 Stream Processors?