AMD Benchmarks Zacate APU
by Anand Lal Shimpi on September 13, 2010 11:06 PM EST- Posted in
- CPUs
- AMD
- Zacate
- Trade Shows
It's tradition for AMD to have an off-site meeting place during IDF week and this year is no exception. I headed over to AMD's suite to talk about servers, desktops and the imminent mobile Fusion launches. We've talked about AMD's three new microprocessors in great detail before. Bulldozer is targeted at the high end desktop and server markets, due out sometime in 2011 (sampling in Q4). Llano will arrive at the end of Q2 2011 and feature multiple 32nm Phenom II derived cores paired with a very beefy AMD DX11 GPU. What I'm most excited about however is the parts that will begin shipping in Q4 2010: Zacate for mainstream notebooks (18W TDP) and Ontario for netbooks (9W TDP).
Both APUs will have a pair of low-power Bobcat cores and an AMD DX11 GPU. AMD isn't publicly confirming how many cores the GPU side will have but both will share the same die manufactured on TSMC's 40nm process. The package is extremely compact:
The die area is very small. We've seen estimates as low as 74mm^2. On the flip side you'll see there aren't many balls on the package either:
The simple package is designed to make manufacturing as easy as possible. The relative lack of balls on the package seems to imply a single channel 64-bit DDR3 memory interface. Although AMD's 9W Ontario part clearly goes after Atom in the netbook space (and Bobcat's out-of-order architecture should ensure performance success), Zacate is going to go after the ~$500 mainstream notebook market. To prove its point AMD setup a Core i5 notebook and a Zacate test platform running City of Heroes at the same settings (1024 x 768, low quality):
The Core i5 notebook pictured above managed 14 - 19 fps while running around in the level. The Zacate platform did much better:
I saw performance in the 27 - 34 fps range on Zacate. At almost 2x the performance of Intel's HD Graphics, Zacate seems to provide the same performance boost that we saw with Sandy Bridge in our preview. Granted this isn't in a benchmark we've tried on Sandy Bridge, but the initial performance advantage is promising.
The Zacate test platform
For more GPU benchmarks check out our follow-up here.
AMD confirmed that we'll see hardware ready by the end of the year, with systems going on sale in early Q1. We may see mini-ITX boards at some point but initially the focus will be mainstream netbooks and notebooks priced at ~$500 all the way down to value netbook segments. AMD also promised 8+ hours of battery life on some of its designs, however that's a MobileMark figure - load use would be lower.
The performance is extremely promising. If we see this sort of graphics performance in a netbook, I think it may just reinvigorate the form factor.
In addition to Zacate we got brief updates on Bulldozer and AMD's upcoming Northern Islands GPU launch, the latter we'll be hearing about before the end of the year. That's all for now, expect to see more coverage from IDF later tonight.
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ericore - Monday, September 13, 2010 - link
2X the performance of i5 lmao. Shouldn't a futuristic cpu be compared to another futuristic cpu say SandyBridge. Clearly there is no bias! lmao. Anyways if it's twice the performance of i5 than its equal too or slightly exceeding sandbridge. Sandybridge can also be refered to as i5 2nd gen.Nothing special, but considering the monopoly Intel has quite impressive they can tie them on one front. Poor Nvidia walking the same path as Voodoo; they are screwed. X86 emulation lmao.
Quake - Tuesday, September 14, 2010 - link
Read the title, The AMD's GPU is faster than the I5's GPU, not cpu but GPU.StevoLincolnite - Tuesday, September 14, 2010 - link
Plus it's the competitor to the Intel Atom, not the Core i5/i7/Sandy Bridge.And the Atom is still using a variation of the crappy GMA 950 a-la the 3150 which cannot even do TnL or Vertex Shading.
In that regard, AMD poops all over Intels IGP offerings in that market, no contest.
vlado08 - Tuesday, September 14, 2010 - link
"Plus it's the competitor to the Intel Atom, not the Core i5/i7/Sandy Bridge."(18W TDP) "Zacate is going to go after the ~$500 mainstream notebook market"
"9W Ontario part clearly goes after Atom"
Perisphetic - Tuesday, September 14, 2010 - link
Hello I am Triumph.What do you have there Intel? Atom?
That's a nice chip. For me to poop on!
zingo - Tuesday, September 14, 2010 - link
Amd is always faster in integrated GPUs......not a news :). But what about CPU power ?????. Few customers are utilizing integrated GPU for games on laptop, the vast majority is on a laptop with a good discrete GPU. So in don't see a great market for Bobcat......it will be good for inexpensive notebooks good for kids :). People want CPU power on it's desk and bobcat will be very very crap on this side..........in fact Amd says nothing about this versus mobile i5/i3 :).flyck - Tuesday, September 14, 2010 - link
Maybe because they are not directly compititors in that region. They are for low power and small form factor. The only i3 that runs in a similar power envelop will be a 1,2Ghz device. Which, if the bobcat boinc scores are correct (which is hard to believe imo) would be similar in performance as a 1,6Ghz bobcat. (30% higher clocked) while the graphics for bobcat are way faster.B3an - Tuesday, September 14, 2010 - link
Sandy Bridge seems to have a GPU that can match this no problem, but also has VASTLY more powerful CPU's than these bobcats cores that probably aint much faster than atom.I'll be picking up a laptop with Sandy Bridge.
Pirks - Tuesday, September 14, 2010 - link
You'll reconsider after looking at the price tagSandmanWN - Tuesday, September 14, 2010 - link
First this is Zecate not Llano. You are comparing apples to oranges Intel top of the line to AMD middle of the road solution. Zecate is built to take on the Intel CULV solution.Llano is far superior to SB for the simple fact that nobody cares about CPU performance in a laptop anymore. You can get quad cores in laptops now, so how much more processor is necessary for opening up office suites, windows programs, and small databases on a laptop???
What I'm looking for is a better graphics solutions that fit the power requirements of a laptop so when I'm on the road I can do more than play a low quality video on a crappy Intel CULV solution or deal with a add-on GPU chip that kills my battery life. I want some multimedia so I'm not bored to death when I am stuck in a hotel room in the middle of nowhere. It would be nice to play an HD vid and have some programs running in the background so I can switch between the two without the laptop taking a crap all over itself.