The Graphics Update

There's nothing new about GPU architectures, but here's the short recap. GPU revenues are understandably up since last year:


Market share has gone up as well:


If you want to look at console + PC market share, AMD's GPUs look very good thanks to the Wii and Xbox 360, but this is stretching it a bit:


On December 10 AMD will release Catalyst 8.12, and alongside the normal driver updates AMD will be releasing its own GPU-accelerated H.264 transcoder. The AVIVO Video Converter (AVC) is AMD's own Badaboom-like application but for Radeon GPUs, which AMD promises will be much faster.

I'm trying to get my hands on a copy and as soon as I do I'll work on a head-to-head with the latest version of Badaboom.

45nm Phenom? It's called the Phenom II and you get it Next Year The Foundry Update
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  • gochichi - Tuesday, November 18, 2008 - link

    They actually make these, they are called LAPTOPS.

    I have a 13" Inspiron 1318 that I picked up for about $650.00. It has a 2.0GHz C2D, 4GB RAM, 250GB HDD, 9-Cell battery (this being key as it gives an actually useful battery... say 5 hours easy). It is definetely useful, and I have to tell you that the 13" screen is actually kind of small as it is.

    Now a junky-junk-junker of a netbook is about $400.00, maybe $350 even. For $300 more you get an actually useful device. Also, sometimes you can find used Dell Latitudes X1s for about $300.00... they are 2.5lbs, 12" widescreen, 2GB RAM and about 4+ hours battery.

    A used ultra-portable may be a good option for you if you're dead set about having something below 4lbs. Also Lenovo makes a killer product called the X200 which is also quite light and exceedingly fast. Though my top choice for power/price/portability would be the Lenovo T400 (14" though, which I think would be ideal, especially cause it's a little higher res 1440x900 vs 1280x800). Check out the X200 though, I think it's under $1k if you buy it with a coupon and it's going to outlast a crapbook by about 5 years (seriously).
  • Orthogonal - Thursday, November 13, 2008 - link

    Looks like AMD didn't learn their lesson with Barcelona. You don't do a process shrink AND new micro-architecture at the same time. Maybe they've learned from their mistakes, but it's just way too many variables to control at the same time. 32NM and Bulldozer.
  • Martimus - Thursday, November 13, 2008 - link

    AMD is rolling out 32nm in 2010 with Magny-Cours and Sao-Paulo, which is really just a 8 and 12 core MCM version of Shanghai and Istanbul. Bulldozer is coming in 2011 according to the road map. So, they are in-fact doing a process shrink before they start the new architecture.
  • BLaber - Thursday, November 13, 2008 - link

    Deneb a.k.a Phenom 2 X4 has 8MB OF L3 cache,that was not heard of before and not even shown in any Deneb ES samples seen so far ;)
  • Veteran - Thursday, November 13, 2008 - link

    The writer of this article misunderstood it

    its 8MB of total cache = 6MB L3 cache + 2MB of L2 cache
    Propus is a quadcore without the L3 cache => total of 2MB cache

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