AMD Zacate to consume 18W, Ontario 9W

[Jos]

AMD has been busy promoting its first Fusion APUs (accelerated processing units) the past few weeks. Besides explaining the upcoming architecture late last month and showing off physical samples at IFA 2010 in Berlin, the company is now sharing some additional details regarding specific products and their power envelopes. Specifically the company mentioned two Bobcat-based APUs that will form the basis of their "Brazos" platform: Ontario and Zacate.

Both APUs implement two Bobcat cores merged with a graphics core capable of DirectX 11 rendering and a new Unified Video Decoder (UVD) on-die to handle full HD decoding at 1080p. Zacate is aimed at ultrathin, mainstream, and value notebooks as well as desktops and all-in-ones. With a TDP of 18W, it will have to compete with Intel's ultra-low voltage Core i3 in these markets. Meanwhile, Ontario will target netbooks and nettops with a TDP rating of just 9W. By comparison, Intel's new Atom N550 with on-die graphics has an 8.5W TDP. Unlike Atom, however, Bobcat cores will support out-of-order instruction handling and thus have the potential to offer significantly higher performance.

AMD also touted the very small physical footprint of both APUs and suggested the combination should result in a "full and vivid digital experience," long battery life and small form factors. We're definitely looking forward to some competition in the notebook and netbook market, so here's hoping the new chips can live up to the hype and long time in development.

Permalink to story.

https://www.techspot.com/news/40191-amd-zacate-to-consume-18w-ontario-9w.html

 

[agissi]

Given the time frame we've seen from Intel's first release of the Atom to AMD's now release of Bobcat, do you think they essentially took a look at the Atom and redesigned it in a better way than Intel did? What made me think this is the fact they support out of order instruction handling. I assume Intel skipped this with the Atom to save the number transistors which essentially equates to a the (low) TDP envelope they were shooting for. AMD's Bobcat essentially has what Intel's Atom does not and it's very close to the same TDP.

 

[Vrmithrax]

I believe the Fusion products have been in development since shortly after AMD acquired ATi... The reason for similarities between Atom and Bobcat probably lies in the fact that both companies were developing systems for the same specific performance/size/power envelope. AMD just seemed more concerned with coming out of the gates with a power house, which Bobcat is shaping up to be. Plus, it doesn't hurt to let Intel take the lead, get a well-established market developed, and then waltz in with a superior product to wow the crowds away from Intel... I'm just sayin...

 

[jgvmx]

Definitely looks promising, let's see if it the actual performance delivers. Any info on the integrated gpu?

 

[vangrat]

What I would like to see is an APU that will allow you to Crossfire automatically with an AMD Radeon video card, this way you could have the built in power of a CPU GPU combo along with the grunt of a full fledged GPU..not sure what kind of performance gains there would be (if any), but it would be interesting to see non the less.

 

[Vrmithrax]

vangrat said:
What I would like to see is an APU that will allow you to Crossfire automatically with an AMD Radeon video card, this way you could have the built in power of a CPU GPU combo along with the grunt of a full fledged GPU..not sure what kind of performance gains there would be (if any), but it would be interesting to see non the less.

Not sure about the Crossfire thing, but I'm hoping the graphics handling will be similar to when you have a motherboard with integrated graphics onboard. That is one place that nVidia shines, with the Optimus configurations as well as their drivers that allow you to assign tasks to each processor - for instance, I just recently built a lower end gaming rig with a motherboard that had an integrated nVidia 8200 GPU on it, which we set to be the PhysX processor when the discrete GPU was installed. Very slick, and hopefully AMD is taking note and making sure that their Bobcat and Bulldozer systems are as flexible.

 

[Guest]

2 zety. Pieniadz w cenie ;]

 

[Guest]

AMD and Intel going to present their APU next week
to see more copy – paste the links below

bit.ly/amcaVx

AMD to show of its third APU – Zacate 18W Mainstrem Processor

bit.ly/buwR9Z

Intel to Show Off SANDY BRIDGE next week

bit.ly/cW92VY

 

[Guest]

AMD and Intel going to present their APU next week
to see more copy – paste the links below

http://bit.ly/amcaVx

AMD to show of its third APU – Zacate 18W Mainstrem Processor

http://bit.ly/buwR9Z

Intel to Show Off SANDY BRIDGE next week

http://bit.ly/cW92VY

 

[Guest]

GO FOR MORE

AMD and Intel going to present their APU next week
to see more copy – paste the links below

http://bit.ly/amcaVx

AMD to show of its third APU – Zacate 18W Mainstrem Processor

http://bit.ly/buwR9Z

Intel to Show Off SANDY BRIDGE next week

http://bit.ly/cW92VY