AMD reveals more Llano details

[cbn]

http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?i=3736

It wasn't mentioned in the article, but I have read elsewhere that the fused GPU will have 6 SIMD units and 480 stream processors. (That sounds impressive to me)

 

[Hyperlite]

Interesting. Sounds like good news for competition in the next year.

All this GPU-on-die stuff, especially with AMD processors, could revolutionize their motherboard lineup. Obviously lots of AMD mobo's have relatively capable onboard graphics, which will become more than a little redundant with Llano. Mid and low end AM3/2+ mobo's are already priced very aggressively for the features they offer, it will be interesting to see how things shape up in that department with the new socket.

 

[Eeqmcsq]

2011 can't get here soon enough. With rumors of turbo-like features in Thuban and now in Llano, comparing CPU performances is going to get even more complicated.

 

[cbn]

Interesting. Sounds like good news for competition in the next year.

All this GPU-on-die stuff, especially with AMD processors, could revolutionize their motherboard lineup. Obviously lots of AMD mobo's have relatively capable onboard graphics, which will become more than a little redundant with Llano. Mid and low end AM3/2+ mobo's are already priced very aggressively for the features they offer, it will be interesting to see how things shape up in that department with the new socket.

I would like to see AMD go Mini-itx with these boards. Maybe then we will see the small form factor really drop in price. Intel offerings are just too expensive in this category.

 

[CurseTheSky]

I would like to see AMD go Mini-itx with these boards. Maybe then we will see the small form factor really drop in price. Intel offerings are just too expensive in this category.

Agreed. Give me a Mini ITX CPU + onboard graphics + motherboard combo all for under $100 and I'll be ecstatic. I would love to be able to VESA mount all of my new low-end systems on the back of their respective monitors.

 

[Cogman]

Interesting, but I somewhat lament the possibility that the CPU and GPU might become one. I don't like the idea that I have to upgrade my CPU to get faster video performance.

On thing that I just had to laugh about, the part about disadvantages for the hybrid "Constrained by programming models" lol. People have been trying to get a new more multithreading friendly paradigm for years, nobody has come up with anything good. Its like trying to ask an entire industry to change everything they teach overnight.

 

[cbn]

Interesting, but I somewhat lament the possibility that the CPU and GPU might become one. I don't like the idea that I have to upgrade my CPU to get faster video performance.

What do you mean by this? Why not just add a discrete video card?

What I am more concerned with is losing 480 stream processors when I add another GPU. Hopefully AMD is planning on employing some type of Hybrid-crossfire with this socket. (480 stream processors with Dx11 is something I wouldn't want to waste)

 

[Cogman]

What do you mean by this? Why not just add a discrete video card?

What I am more concerned with is losing 480 stream processors when I add another GPU. Hopefully AMD is planning on employing some type of Hybrid-crossfire with this socket. (480 stream processors with Dx11 is something I wouldn't want to waste)

What happens when there are no more discrete video cards? Or motherboard manufacturers stop including video card slots.

 

[Shilohen]

The computers become more consoles than computers? I don't think we're going to see that anytime soon.

 

[cbn]

What happens when there are no more discrete video cards? Or motherboard manufacturers stop including video card slots.

Hmmmm....well doesn't this happen on Laptops already? (the part about the video card slots)

For desktop I think this Llano CPU with 480 stream processor GPU might be well balanced for a single moderate resolution LCD screen.

If tessellation is turned on (which apparently gives a big performance hit in DX11) then folks might want to add another GPU.

 

[Avalon]

What happens when there are no more discrete video cards? Or motherboard manufacturers stop including video card slots.

That's not even remotely close to happening.

 

[cbn]

The computers become more consoles than computers? I don't think we'll see that anytime soon.

To me this is the best part about Llano.

Why not have AMD partner with Google and develop some nice educational games with a new Graphics API (that includes the Tessellation capabilities of the included hardware).

Llano + Mini-ITX + Google OS + Graphics API (Capable of making full use of ATI GPUs) + interesting educational based games vs. Microsoft based gaming consoles.

Heck, I grew up with consoles and regret to this day I wasn't more involved with PC building/PC software. Unfortunately now I am clueless (which is quite obvious from all my posts)

 

[Cogman]

That's not even remotely close to happening.

Oh? Your crystal ball must be clearer then mine is.

This COULD kill off the mid-range video cards, and if they go, what is the point of MB manufactures to include Video card expansion slots. Its cheaper for them to exclude.

This may not happen this generation, the next, or ever even (it may flop completely) but the possibility is there. We saw the death of discrete ALU, FPU, Much of the south bridge, and much of the north bridge. Along with that, we have seen the death of most sound cards as well. Who's to say it couldn't happen to the GPU?

 

[Auric]

The short-term buggery, at least, is paying extra for something you don't use just because the swinish masses do.

 

[cbn]

Oh? Your crystal ball must be clearer then mine is.

This COULD kill off the mid-range video cards, and if they go, what is the point of MB manufactures to include Video card expansion slots. Its cheaper for them to exclude.

This may not happen this generation, the next, or ever even (it may flop completely) but the possibility is there. We saw the death of discrete ALU, FPU, Much of the south bridge, and much of the north bridge. Along with that, we have seen the death of most sound cards as well. Who's to say it couldn't happen to the GPU?

You are saying the x86 CPU part of Fusion would shrink in comparison to the GPU part right?

I have been wondering if that could happen especially if increases in CPU IPC/frequency don't happen on a regular basis and instead we see Graphics APIs taking over instead.

However, I am not so sure this would kill off the discrete video card industry.

 

[soccerballtux]

That's not even remotely close to happening.

Oh? Your crystal ball must be clearer then mine is.

This COULD kill off the mid-range video cards, and if they go, what is the point of MB manufactures to include Video card expansion slots. Its cheaper for them to exclude.

This may not happen this generation, the next, or ever even (it may flop completely) but the possibility is there. We saw the death of discrete ALU, FPU, Much of the south bridge, and much of the north bridge. Along with that, we have seen the death of most sound cards as well. Who's to say it couldn't happen to the GPU?

Uh, for the same reason they still freakin include PCI. It's only an expansion slot and traces. Minimal cost. Especially if the PCI-express controller is integrated on the CPU, it's just a matter of connecting pins from the CPU to the expansion slot. We will gladly pay an extra $4 for the connector and manufacturing cost of cutting those traces. Trust me, you need not worry.

 

[formulav8]

Depending on the memory/memory controller situation a 480 stream on-die gpu would be a beast for a igp. Even 4670 (320 streams on 128bit bus) based performance would be quite a feat for a igp.

Just having a fast access/low latency access memory controller for the igp would give nice gains compared to the current crop of igps. It turned intels trash to less trash (Although in anands igp clarkdale review AMD still won 3 tests to Intel's 2x) So that feature alone could do wonders since igps has always suffered with having to deal with high latency, low bandwidth memory.

Should be interesting.....


Jason

 

[LoneNinja]

I just read the article and it looks very promising, but I don't think we'll see large gains in the performance department over Phenom II. This is basically a k10 derivative being designed with power efficiency in mind. Think budget builds, office computers, and HTPCs for this one. Bulldozer will be the high performance part.

 

[cbn]

http://arstechnica.com/business/new...usion-cpugpu-to-challege-intel-in-laptops.ars

At the end of this article, the author mentions Nvidia having a "Fusion" processor in the works also. Wow, this could get really interesting. Having three competitors, of course, is much better than two.

 

[RaiderJ]

Oh? Your crystal ball must be clearer then mine is.

This COULD kill off the mid-range video cards, and if they go, what is the point of MB manufactures to include Video card expansion slots. Its cheaper for them to exclude.

This may not happen this generation, the next, or ever even (it may flop completely) but the possibility is there. We saw the death of discrete ALU, FPU, Much of the south bridge, and much of the north bridge. Along with that, we have seen the death of most sound cards as well. Who's to say it couldn't happen to the GPU?

Just a hunch, but AMD isn't interested in killing off the market for graphics cards. I think they own stock or something in a company that produces video cards.

 

[RaiderJ]

Depending on the memory/memory controller situation a 480 stream on-die gpu would be a beast for a igp. Even 4670 (320 streams on 128bit bus) based performance would be quite a feat for a igp.

Just having a fast access/low latency access memory controller for the igp would give nice gains compared to the current crop of igps. It turned intels trash to less trash (Although in anands igp clarkdale review AMD still won 3 tests to Intel's 2x) So that feature alone could do wonders since igps has always suffered with having to deal with high latency, low bandwidth memory.

Should be interesting.....


Jason

An on-chip GPU, or several hundred on-chip streams if you want to look at it that way, would make for a very interesting computing system. What I like is that you can do graphics processing as a reasonable level as you do now with add-in cards for consumers, or scientific computing with OpenCL/CUDA. Having all that functionality and flexibility, plus a fast connection to a shared stack of system memory will open up lots of doors. This may be the ticket to the larger enterprise market AMD has been missing for so long. Plus, it could really improve the performance/watt metric for AMD.

If general purpose computing really takes off for GPU type processors, I can imagine a quad-socket Llano server with 32+GB of RAM being a monster in the data center. Might be the system every digital animation company wants to fill their server farms with.

 

[Cogman]

Just a hunch, but AMD isn't interested in killing off the market for graphics cards. I think they own stock or something in a company that produces video cards.

Question, what if AMD could get rid of Nvidia, do you think it would be worth it for them then? What do you think would happen if the only video card you could buy for their system is integrated in an AMD CPU?

 

[RaiderJ]

Question, what if AMD could get rid of Nvidia, do you think it would be worth it for them then? What do you think would happen if the only video card you could buy for their system is integrated in an AMD CPU?

You're suggesting if AMD could kill off NVIDIA, that they would then stop selling discrete cards? That makes no sense. Why would AMD not sell a product that people want to buy?

A valid concern might be what happens if AMD becomes a monopoly on the GPU market, but if that happens it would be because NVIDIA can't stay competitive. However, at that point Intel might just buy NVIDIA if their in-house graphics isn't up to snuff.

Either way, I think you're just trolling for comments. Motherboard manufacturers not including "video card slots"? Do you mean PCI-e? The same slots used for every other type of expansion card? I think some silicon moving around on a motherboard scares you way too much.

 

[lopri]

I've had this mixed feeling about the whole Fusion thing as well. I suppose I can't fault AMD's vision and business strategy - it paid goodly amount for ATI - but as others have suggested this can accelerate the console-lization of PC. Also it is, at least in part, responsible for the lack of innovation in motherboards in recent past.

For years we haven't seen anything new in motherboards. AMD and Intel have practical monopolies on chipset business, respectively, and lack of competition results in no progress, plain and simple. NVIDIA is actually the one that's struggling to bring something new in this front although it hasn't been very successful, partly because of legal issues and partly because of its own opportunistic behaviors.

Motherboard manufacturers response has been adding blings and gimmicks on the high end, and creating hair-splitting tiers by cutting corners one by one on the mid-to-low end. That strategy worked to an extent in the past few years, but I think consumers have wised up by now. The global recession played a big role in that, no doubt.

Frankly I have no idea where the industry will be headed. Every player seems to have a grand plan or two, which all sound awesome on papers. But there are too many unknowns as well as healthy amount of skepticism which are not completely baseless judging from past experiences. Add to that the rapidly evolving social, economical, and legal environments, nothing seems certain. But I digress.

Time will tell, I guess.

 

[grimpr]

AMD aims for GPUs in mainstream servers starting 2012.

http://www.computerworld.com.au/article/335351/amd_aims_gpus_mainstream_servers_starting_2012/

Its not so far off for a new CPU/GPU Instruction Set, starting from the 2nd generation Fusion with BD x86 Cores.

Until then, Llano will pack a punch in gaming and some GPGPU loads.

Chuck Moore from AMD, explains better at the Analyst Day 2009.

http://tinyurl.com/yarql22