well, based on those benches, trinity is far more powerfull on cpu than llano... it's closer to an mobile i5 2c\4t, while llano baraly beat 2c\2t...
I'll bet that Trinity will be quite powerful if you crossfire it with a discreet GPU.
Maybe because they currently can't make their CPUs any faster and improving the IGP wouldn't cause lower efficiency?
And I don't think I'd say a CPU with hugely lower performance is "competitive", especially since most people care more about CPU than GPU performance. It's the exact reason why Intel CPUs are by far more popular than AMD's and the reason why Intel's bad to horrible IGP performance in the past didn't stop them from selling a huge amount of product.
And it's already been proven that the "IGP matters a lot" argument is wrong. Look at Sandy Bridge vs. Llano. Did Llano make Sandy Bridge any less popular? No, right? Then why would that change with Ivy Bridge, which still has excellent CPU performance and now an okay-ish IGP? Less of a reason for the very few people that care about gaming performance to buy AMD anyway, especially since Intel's brand is more recognized and they're very competitive in pricing.
Get Bobcat's engineering team to design and TSMC to manufacture a mainstream APU for AMD and then you'll see a truly great product.
As it stands, AMD's only true great products come out of their GPU division.
And I don't think I'd say a CPU with hugely lower performance is "competitive", especially since most people care more about CPU than GPU performance. It's the exact reason why Intel CPUs are by far more popular than AMD's and the reason why Intel's bad to horrible IGP performance in the past didn't stop them from selling a huge amount of product.
The new power efficient A10 is now within mobile i3 performance territory. And I would think that the standard version of the A10 will be close to mobile i5. Then I wouldn't call that a CPU with "hugely lower performance". If Trinity can follow Llano with its prices in current laptops, I would take an A10 500$ laptop over an i3 any day.
AMD and OEMs need to market Trinity like no tomorrow and hit that 500 dollar mark.
Contradiction- if the GPU side of the equation isn't important, what exactly is Intel doing with Ivy Bridge?
In my opinion, Intel's horrid GPU performance in the past didn't stop them from dominating the market because AMD had no worthwhile integrated GPU to compete with. The only reason Intel would dedicate so much of IB to a gigantic jump in graphics performance is AMD's (potential) success with Llano.
I'll call it right now. If Trinity gains nothing over Llano other than stable, full volume supply... it will be a smash hit. A home-run in the exact market that matters the most now- mobile.
And what success does Llano have to show for? Sandy Bridge is still selling huge amounts better, and it's exactly in laptops where there's the bigger market share gap between AMD and Intel (as opposed to desktops).Maybe because they currently can't make their CPUs any faster and improving the IGP wouldn't cause lower efficiency
No, it is not.
And good look getting an A10 laptop for $500 when laptops featuring the lower-end A8 (3500M) started at $600-650.
The A10 is scoring over 8k in Cinebench R10 and over 2800 in 3DMark06 CPU, i3 scores the same. Yes, the A10 loses in single-threaded but at least it now catches the i3 in multithreaded while destroying it in iGPU within the same power envelope. Also, I saw an A8 laptop for 500$ 3 months after Llano's launch. If Trinity starts appearing on shelves in June, then prices should get close to current Llano prices for back to school season.
I already answered this. Read again:
And what success does Llano have to show for? Sandy Bridge is still selling huge amounts better, and it's exactly in laptops where there's the bigger market share gap between AMD and Intel (as opposed to desktops).
And the volume argument is getting old. AMD's Llano APUs have had more than their decent share of exposure. In most retail stores there's a significant number of Llano laptops yet they get outsold by Intel by a huge amount. Surely if your argument about IGP performance was true then that would be reflected in sales. I work in a retail store and I can tell you right now almost no one cares about GPU performance on laptops. Intel is improving IGP performance because they can't increase CPU performance any more right now and improving the IGP is where they'd get the biggest performance gains without any decrease in efficiency.
And again, just like today in the future you'll be able to get a laptop with a Core i3 or i5 and a discrete, switchable AMD or NVIDIA GPU that blows away Trinity when it comes to overall performance for little price difference.
Oh, so you mean it's AS fast as the slowest mainstream Intel CPU in multi-threaded. Too bad it's still a huge amount slower in single-threaded, and that matters as much if not more to the average consumer. So in reality, it's still much slower overall. Back to square zero.
Too bad most consumers don't care for the superior-but-still-only-okay IGP, either, since they don't care about gaming on their laptops in the first place.
And if you see A10 laptops for $500, you'll probably see i3 or i5 laptops with something like an HD 7670M for $600-650, and those will have a huge amount more CPU and GPU performance without trading in battery life because of switchable graphics. With Trinity you'll get what you pay for, just like with Llano.
Let's be realistic here.
As to your self quote- Occam's Razor?
As to your anecdotal evidence of Llano's failure... umm what?
Forbes: AMD Can Reach $8 On Market Share Gains In Notebooks And Servers
Saying Llano and the APU strategy is a failure might put you in the same type of minority claiming Bulldozer was a victory.
Switchable graphics are cool for someone posting on this forum, your average person- the overwhelming majority of the market- could give a crap less. APU target market ≠ You. Once your average, oxygen-deprived consumer figures out what Trinity can do and for how much less...
I own both an i3 and a Llano laptop, and I can't tell the difference in everyday usage. I can only see a difference when a program with something like a timer is used such as encoding videos. My i3 is about 15% faster in multithreaded. However, the HD3000 is just horrible for games while Llano manages quite well. I also have a friend who bought an i3 with a GT540m. Although it is faster than my Llano in graphics, I would rather have my Llano or i3 without a discrete GPU as it just creates too much heat and consumes more power. Both my laptops are dead silent while surfing the web.
Good, but the avg. consumer doesn't care about that.
And an i3 + 540M barely consume any power so you know exactly where you pulled that out from. Your laptop is dead silent while surfing the web? So is my sig laptop right now: the fans are off. Not that big of an achievement. And if you have something with switchable graphics you wouldn't have to sacrifice noise and heat anyway because the discrete GPU can be turned off.
Certainly interesting to at last see how the top-end Trinity performs... but that's by no means a complete picture as the rest of the line-up takes some pretty hefty hits. The A8-4500M and A10-4655M have roughly two-thirds the raw GPU power (whether or not that affects results much will depend upon how bandwidth starved the reviewed A10-4600M is) while the A6-4400M is at half and the 17W A6-4455M is at roughly 40%... Not to mention the only way they get that SKU down to its 17W TDP is by going with only a single module topping out at 2.6GHz turbo. It's going to be quite amusing to see how that compares with the 17W Ivy Bridge SKUs.