AMD's Fusion Trinity chip

[piesquared]

Guess there will be information after all.

http://hothardware.com/News/AMD-Fus...00M-Mobile-GPUs-and-Lightning-Bolt-In-Action/

From PCPer:

http://www.pcper.com/news/Cases-and-Cooling/AMD-Shows-Trinity-APU-Die-And-Trinity-Powered-Notebook

Update: Another interesting bit of information is that AMD will have a low power Trinity APU with a TDP of 17 watts and will supposedly deliver the same level of performance as the current Llano chips (that draw twice the power).

That's a 2 fold increase in perf/watt. Same node.

Update: AMD has stated Trinity will deliver a 25% increase in CPU performance and a 50% increase in GPU performance. Stay tuned to PC Perspective for more Trinity info as it develops

That's a fairly hefty increase in performance.

 

[frostedflakes]

Now let's wait and see if they can actually deliver on their promises.

Sounds pretty good if things end up panning out for them, though. With ultrabooks being all the rage these days that 17W chip should be pretty nice.

 

[jhu]

I'll believe it when I see it.

 

[Vesku]

Did anyone check if that game demo was playing in VLC?

 

[CHADBOGA]

Guess there will be information after all.

http://hothardware.com/News/AMD-Fus...00M-Mobile-GPUs-and-Lightning-Bolt-In-Action/

From PCPer:

http://www.pcper.com/news/Cases-and-Cooling/AMD-Shows-Trinity-APU-Die-And-Trinity-Powered-Notebook



That's a 2 fold increase in perf/watt. Same node.



That's a fairly hefty increase in performance.

Will it be any more realisable than Bulldozer's 50% with 33% more Cores claim?

We all know how that turned out.

 

[Skurge]

It's about time they actually made a cpu faster than the ancient phenom 2. Also whats with AMD copying Intel's names. LightningBolt? really?

Stupid names aside. It looks like an awesome technology.

With Lightning Bolt, AMD aims to offer the ultimate docking station of sorts for AMD-based mobile devices. Using a $40-ish hub, users will be able to connect a single DisplayPort 1.2 cable to a mobile PC to not only charge the system, but to connect it to up to four external displays and multiple external USB 3.0 devices.

I wonder if the same team doing trinity is the same team that did bulldozer. It doesn't seem like it. Trinity is already looking in much better shape.

 

[IntelUser2000]

That's a 2 fold increase in perf/watt. Same node.

We can guess the CPU clocks:

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/a8-3500m-llano-apu,2959-16.html

So the highest 35W Llano(that's twice the 17W) is a 1.5GHz/2.4GHz Turbo part. Thankfully, TH decided to include 1.5GHz and 2.4GHz underclocked Phenom II X4 for comparison. It looks like the TurboCore works at 1.5GHz for 3-4 cores, or even 2-4, for the fastest 35W Llano.

It looks like with same amount of cores, Bulldozer needs ~25% higher clocks to perform as the same core Phenom II: http://www.legionhardware.com/articles_pages/amd_fx_8150fx_8120fx_6100_and_fx_4170,4.html

They only need a 1.8-2GHz Trinity to equal Llano in performance. And it seems only the 8 core Bulldozer uses lot of power. The 4 core FX-4170 uses 30W less system power than Phenom II X4 980: http://www.legionhardware.com/articles_pages/amd_fx_8150fx_8120fx_6100_and_fx_4170,7.html

To achieve 25% higher performance, they need 50% higher clock than Llano, which isn't as far fetched because Llano's TurboCore is so low. 3GHz TurboCore should allow that.

 

[Joseph F]

I don't like the idea of charging my laptop though a Displayport.

 

[frozentundra123456]

Guess there will be information after all.

http://hothardware.com/News/AMD-Fus...00M-Mobile-GPUs-and-Lightning-Bolt-In-Action/

From PCPer:

http://www.pcper.com/news/Cases-and-Cooling/AMD-Shows-Trinity-APU-Die-And-Trinity-Powered-Notebook



That's a 2 fold increase in perf/watt. Same node.



That's a fairly hefty increase in performance.

Sounds great, but bulldozer sounded great also. I also wonder if they are comparing it to the top of the line current quad Llano with all 400 GPU cores or to one of the lower performance Llanos with 320 or 240 cores. If the GPU is this much improved, it would probably have close to 6770 performance. I am skeptical of that.

 

[sm625]

I don't like the idea of charging my laptop though a Displayport.

If you can dock with just one cable, and have that dock be non-proprietary, then what's not to like? Oh... the DP connection may not be able to survive a lifetime of charger insertions. Many laptops end up breaking at the charge plug.

 

[Chiropteran]

And it seems only the 8 core Bulldozer uses lot of power. The 4 core FX-4170 uses 30W less system power than Phenom II X4 980: http://www.legionhardware.com/articles_pages/amd_fx_8150fx_8120fx_6100_and_fx_4170,7.html

The FX 8120 also uses less power than the 1100T. ( http://www.techpowerup.com/forums/showthread.php?t=157453 ) And as has been shown before in many threads, even the 8150 is better power consumption in idle or less than max workloads, it's only really at it's worst in a few specific benchmarks that really push all 8 cores. But, they don't take kindly to facts in these parts. Bulldozer bad high power consuming monster! To say otherwise is to brand yourself a heretic.

As far as Trinity, it's sounding great. I am very happy with my cheap $380 llano notebook- it plays games many cheap desktops can't even handle (due to it's GPU) and even at it's low base clock-speed the CPU is more than sufficient for anything I throw at it. My only complaint is the cheap build quality of the laptop itself, which I can only blame on Samsung. I hope trinity will encourage some manufactures to make some nicer AMD laptops.

 

[denev2004]

Sounds nice. If thats ture I might should change sides

 

[formulav8]

This is at least more interesting than that Intel IB IGP junk.

This apu is really going to be starved of memory bandwidth. Would be quite interesting if AMD could do a Triple or even a Quad style memory bus. Actually a triple width bus could feed the apu quite well....

 

[Vesku]

I'm really curious now as to whether Intel's F1 game incident fiasco wasn't an attempt to quickly imitate this AMD Trinity demo. "Hey guys our IB ULV chip can play games just like that Trinity demo unit!"

 

[Idontcare]

If you can dock with just one cable, and have that dock be non-proprietary, then what's not to like? Oh... the DP connection may not be able to survive a lifetime of charger insertions. Many laptops end up breaking at the charge plug.

Yep, had a beauty of an ultra-lightweight notebook (DELL X200) that cost me over $2k, darn thing died and stopped being my primary web-use laptop only because the charging plug on the laptop died.

I even took it apart and attempted to hard-wire (solder) the charger to the mobo where the charge plugs went and I couldn't do it because I suck at soldering Was such a nice laptop too.

 

[Gigantopithecus]

I mentioned in another thread that if Trinity's higher-end desktop SKUs offer Radeon HD 5670 performance graphics-wise and improve on the already adequate A8-level cpu-wise, that they'll have another home run on their hands. Looks like they might even hit Radeon 6670 levels with similarly substantial cpu performance. If that happens, and they keep the prices under $180, then they're going to kill Intel in the low to low-mid range market.

 

[Phynaz]

I mentioned in another thread that if Trinity's higher-end desktop SKUs offer Radeon HD 5670 performance graphics-wise and improve on the already adequate A8-level cpu-wise, that they'll have another home run on their hands. Looks like they might even hit Radeon 6670 levels with similarly substantial cpu performance. If that happens, and they keep the prices under $180, then they're going to kill Intel in the low to low-mid range market.

Wow, all this sounds just like all the way overboard speculation that happened with Llano. How did that turn out?

Really, a 75w GPU on the same chip as a 125w or 95w CPU? Not going to happen. Ever.

 

[Flipped Gazelle]

Wow, all this sounds just like all the way overboard speculation that happened with Llano. How did that turn out?

Really, a 75w GPU on the same chip as a 125w or 95w CPU? Not going to happen. Ever.

Llano turned out OK. Not a home run, but OK.

I haven't seen anyone mention a "75w GPU on the same chip as a 125w or 95w CPU".

 

[ElFenix]

It's about time they actually made a cpu faster than the ancient phenom 2. Also whats with AMD copying Intel's names. LightningBolt? really?

Stupid names aside. It looks like an awesome technology.



I wonder if the same team doing trinity is the same team that did bulldozer. It doesn't seem like it. Trinity is already looking in much better shape.

thunderbolt is an apple name.






piledriver would need huge changes to pull this off. i'm doubtful, but would like to be pleasantly surprised.



would like a proper mobile chip in a 13" or 14" chassis for respectable gaming.

 

[Vesku]

Keep in mind when AMD gives out GPU improvement percentages they usually are quoting best theoretical flops. My guess is it will be similar in performance to a 6570 on starved DDR3 bandwidth.

Edit: In mobile terms my guess would put it as an integrated 6770M running on system memory rather than DDR5. Not bad for on die graphics.

 

[Flipped Gazelle]

thunderbolt is an apple name.

IIRC, Apple sold/transferred the name to Intel.

 

[georgec84]

The question is how good can they make the CPU?

 

[Gigantopithecus]

Wow, all this sounds just like all the way overboard speculation that happened with Llano. How did that turn out?

Considering how many Llano desktops I've built and Llano laptops I've recommended, I'd say pretty damn well. Not a home run like Zacate, but at least a triple. Which considering Bulldozer, is great for AMD.

Of course I'm speculating, and it's clearly a best-case speculation. Llano is already a winner in the mobile space and is carving a nice niche for itself in the desktop market. AMD's Athlon II line is really showing its age compared to the newer low-end SB-based CPUs, so it's great to see that Trinity will return AMD to a position of real competition with the G-series Celerons and Pentiums, and probably even the i3s. ...Or do you think Intel lowered the price on i3-2100s to $110 so they could sell more $150 i3-2130s?

 

[blckgrffn]

I am still hoping for a triple channel option - if not for Trinity then the GCN based part. It's hard to swallow buying uber-premium memory when so many other platforms don't need it for great performance - especially for what many consider a value platform.

 

[Rvenger]

Keep in mind when AMD gives out GPU improvement percentages they usually are quoting best theoretical flops. My guess is it will be similar in performance to a 6570 on starved DDR3 bandwidth.

Then that would be almost identical to an A8-3850 running 6550D graphics on 1866mhz DDR3. I owned an HD 6570 with my A6-3650 and there wasn't much of a performance difference between the 2 running them separately. (I wish I still had the card to prove it but I got rid of it due to the abysmal dual graphics capability)

I believe Trinity will be identical to at least a Radeon 6670 with Gddr3.