Previewing AMD's Brazos, Part 1: More Details on Zacate/Ontario and Fusion
by Anand Lal Shimpi on November 9, 2010 1:09 AM ESTI hate to keep things from you all, but last week I was diligently working in a room at AMD’s new campus in Austin, Texas. You see, AMD wanted to give us more time with the Brazos/Zacate platform we tested at IDF ahead of its official launch. It’s too early for production worthy OEM systems and AMD wasn’t too keen on these reference platforms leaving its offices so it did the next best thing: fly us out to test the systems on AMD’s campus.
The rules were simple. We couldn’t run anything that would harm the system, but other than that we were free to bring whatever we wanted and test however we wanted. AMD dropped by our private room to check to see if we needed anything but other than that, it was all hands off.
The Brazos test platform
While I’d love to share performance data with you today, I can’t. You’ll have to wait another week or so for that. What AMD is allowing us to talk about are the specific configurations AMD’s first Fusion APUs will ship in and general impressions from the testing. Specific benchmarks are off limits unfortunately.
The platform felt final as far as stability goes. I didn’t encounter any crashes during my several hours of non-stop testing. Performance is also indicative of what will ship early next year. The system felt quick (very 11-inch MacBook Air like if you catch my drift) but you have to keep in mind that Zacate and its lower powered sibling Ontario will be used in systems priced between $299 - $549.
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miahshodan - Tuesday, November 9, 2010 - link
I meant HD4500 graphics, not 945asmoma - Tuesday, November 9, 2010 - link
First gen CULV does have lower power consumption than brazos and about the same as 2. gen CULV.http://media.bestofmicro.com/amd-fusion-power,1-6-...
http://images.anandtech.com/graphs/toshibat235d_08...
5,31(minutes/wh)*1,35 is 7(minutes/wh). But because only the cpu and chipset is taken into consideration, the actual minutes/wh is lower.
This does not make the brazos platform a bad product(like the yukon and congo platform(rubbish!)), but it won't be a product for high end(high quality) products like macbooks and vaio z.
asmoma - Tuesday, November 9, 2010 - link
"5,31(minutes/wh)*1,35 is 7(minutes/wh). But because only the cpu and chipset is taken into consideration, the actual minutes/wh is lower"Maybe even lower than 2. gen culv
jbhunt17 - Tuesday, November 9, 2010 - link
What game is that on the screen? Looks cool.LeftSide - Tuesday, November 9, 2010 - link
Anand,Will these new amd processors support ECC ram? I want to build a new low power Windows Home Server, and want to use ECC ram. Atom is too slow and doesn't support it.
Thanks!
ProDigit - Tuesday, November 9, 2010 - link
Darn, Homer Simpson's APU would not like it to be compared to a computer chip!So what do we call it, APU (A-Poo, APU with the u from 'under' or the U from 'unanimous')?
ProDigit - Tuesday, November 9, 2010 - link
In all honesty, those cpu's + GPU's are good enough for (heavy powerdrawing) netbooks, not notebooks or laptops, and especially not desktops!They may be good for HTPC's or small servers, but I see no unit strong enough to replace a C2Duo laptop (or desktop). (especially not at the price).
jabber - Wednesday, November 10, 2010 - link
Again this setup isnt for enthusiasts.Its not designed with you in mind.
Its designed for your mum and dad who are still hobbling along with their old P4 or Celeron machine they bought back in 2005.
Its designed for the knock about family PC that gets used mainly for Ebay, Messenger and Facebook and may allow the 13 year old daughter to play the Sims.
This will be plenty powerful enough for small low power boxes in the home.
Dark_Archonis - Tuesday, November 9, 2010 - link
Whether you know anyone who wants an iPad is irrelevant. Personal anecdotal observations are frankly irrelevant.It is a statistical fact that *since* the iPad went on sale, netbook sales have been declining harder. Acer in particular is suffering as its netbook sales over the last few months have been down BIG-TIME, and Acer is one of the big netbook OEMs.
Millions of iPads have already been sold, and Apple continues to sell them at a very high rate.
Yes Atom's lack of performance in some areas might have contributed. However it is ludicrous to completely deny the impact the iPad is having on netbook sales.
bloodterfly - Wednesday, November 10, 2010 - link
For someone who uses statistics as an argument, you seem highly ignorant of the fact correlation != causation.iPad goes up, net books go down doesn't prove anything.
Any number of myriad factors could've caused netbooks to stop selling.