AMD has been curiously absent from the value netbook and nettop segments since Atom’s arrival nearly three years ago. These markets are highly profitable only for component vendors, as the OEMs that sell netbooks and nettops must survive on very slim margins in order to hit aggressive price points. It wasn’t too long ago that we were shocked by $699 desktop PCs, but to now be able to get a fully functioning portable PC with display at below $300 is impressive. In order for the profit equation to work out however, you can’t simply scale down a larger chip - you need an architecture targeted specifically at the type of very light workloads you expect to encounter in these segments. Underclocking and undervolting an architecture targeted at high end desktops or servers won’t cut it.
AMD came to the same realization. For it to compete in these value markets, AMD couldn’t rely on its existing Phenom II derived architectures. The Phenom II and its relatives currently span a range of TDPs from 9W to 140W, and at the lower end of that spectrum we’re talking about some very low clock speeds and performance targets. Getting down to 1W was out of the question without a separate design.
What AMD came up with was a core called Bobcat, initially targeted for netbooks, notebooks, nettops and entry level desktops. Architecturally Bobcat is a significant step ahead of Atom: while still dual-issue, it features an out-of-order execution engine making it the Pentium Pro to Atom’s Pentium.
AMD Brazos Lineup | ||||||||
APU Model | Number of Bobcat Cores | CPU Clock Speed | GPU | Number of GPU Cores | GPU Clock Speed | TDP | ||
AMD E-350 | 2 | 1.6GHz | Radeon HD 6310 | 80 | 500MHz | 18W | ||
AMD E-240 | 1 | 1.5GHz | Radeon HD 6310 | 80 | 500MHz | 18W | ||
AMD C-50 | 2 | 1.0GHz | Radeon HD 6250 | 80 | 280MHz | 9W | ||
AMD C-30 | 1 | 1.2GHz | Radeon HD 6250 | 80 | 280MHz | 9W |
CPU Specification Comparison | ||||||||
CPU | Manufacturing Process | Cores | Transistor Count | Die Size | ||||
AMD Zacate | 40nm | 2 | ? | 75 mm2 | ||||
AMD Thuban 6C | 45nm | 6 | 904M | 346mm2 | ||||
AMD Deneb 4C | 45nm | 4 | 758M | 258mm2 | ||||
Intel Gulftown 6C | 32nm | 6 | 1.17B | 240mm2 | ||||
Intel Nehalem/Bloomfield 4C | 45nm | 4 | 731M | 263mm2 | ||||
Intel Sandy Bridge 4C | 32nm | 4 | 995M | 216mm2 | ||||
Intel Lynnfield 4C | 45nm | 4 | 774M | 296mm2 | ||||
Intel Clarkdale 2C | 32nm | 2 | 384M | 81mm2 | ||||
Intel Sandy Bridge 2C (GT1) | 32nm | 2 | 504M | 131mm2 | ||||
Intel Sandy Bridge 2C (GT2) | 32nm | 2 | 624M | 149mm2 |
The combination of these Bobcat based APUs and the FCH is called the Brazos platform.
Late last year AMD invited me to spend several hours with a Brazos system at its brand new campus in Austin, TX. While the preview gave us some insight into what we could expect from Brazos, I didn’t have enough time to really dive in as much as I would’ve liked to.
Earlier this month, AMD officially launched Brazos with hardware expected sometime this quarter. For the past couple of weeks I’ve been testing a Brazos mini-ITX motherboard from MSI and today, it’s time to break the silence and share the results. They are quite good.
No comments:
Post a Comment
If you have any Doubt..kindly let me know