Engadget: AMD to demo "Zacate" next week.

[cbn]

http://www.engadget.com/2010/09/10/intel-to-show-off-sandy-bridge-at-idf-next-week-amd-counters-wi/

AMD to Demonstrate Next Generation PC Experience

Powered by AMD Fusion APU Codenamed "Zacate"

- Sneak peek of stunning HD video streaming, immersive online gaming, and accelerated Internet browsing on "Zacate" APU-based platforms slated for next week -

SUNNYVALE, Calif. - Sept. 10, 2010 - Next week in San Francisco, AMD (NYSE: AMD) will unveil the first North America public demonstrations of its AMD Fusion Accelerated Processing Unit (APU) codenamed "Zacate," a new dual-core, 18-watt TDP processor containing discrete-level graphics capabilities on die and designed to dramatically improve the user's PC experience. Targeting value and mainstream notebooks and desktops, "Zacate" APU-based platforms bring many of the vivid digital computing experiences once reserved for high-end PCs into the opening price points of the mainstream segment.

What: Demonstrations of the experience consumers can expect to see early in 2011 from a broad range of mainstream notebook and desktop PCs based on the AMD Fusion APU codenamed "Zacate", including:

· Full HD streaming online video, showcasing the versatility of the "Zacate" APU-based platform to handle the most demanding multimedia tasks

· Immersive online gaming with high image-quality settings, demonstrating the DirectX® 11-compliant "Zacate" APU-based platform

· Preview of accelerated Internet browsing, showing how "Zacate" APU-based platforms support the future of GPU-enabled web browsing today and how these platforms perform side-by-side against currently available AMD- and Intel processor-based notebooks

When: Monday, September 13 through Wednesday, September 15, 2010

Where: San Francisco, CA

Who: Senior AMD executives and engineers responsible for AMD Fusion APUs

Throughout the week of September 13, 2010, AMD executives will provide frequent blog posts at blogs.amd.com on the company's demonstrations as well as commentary on new developments in the CPU, GPU and APU markets. The first two updates cover the consumer PC market and the software developer ecosystem.

For those in the community who wish to learn more about the demonstrations, please follow AMD on Twitter at @AMDUnprocessed, or on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/AMD.

About AMD
Advanced Micro Devices (NYSE: AMD) is an innovative technology company dedicated to collaborating with customers and technology partners to ignite the next generation of computing and graphics solutions at work, home and play. For more information, visit http://www.amd.com.

Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. AMD, the AMD Arrow logo, and combinations thereof, are trademarks of Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. Other names are for informational purposes only and may be trademarks of their respective owners.

 

[cbn]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RzRacpyvcTA

I wonder if AMD was also using the Zacate APU for this demo?

Next week AMD will add in comparisons to other processors using GPGPU accelerated web-browsing, HD video playback, and possibly additional games?

 

[MrK6]

Are there any benchmarks leaked on this yet? The GPU performance seems impressive from that YouTube video, but it's tough to say without numbers.

 

[busydude]

There are on benchmarks at the moment, but Hans says a dual bobcat cores will be slightly slower than a core 2 duo at similar speeds.

I posted some info in the other thread.

http://forums.anandtech.com/showpost.php?p=30429707&postcount=50

 

[LoneNinja]

Is Zacate a dual core bobcat or dual core llano? Is it 40nm or 32nm?

 

[Idontcare]

dual-core bobcat, 40nm.

 

[Terzo]

Will this be an appreciable competitor to the culv core 2s? I assume graphics performance will be head and shoulders above core 2, and it sounds like processing power will be comparable. But will it be able to match the long battery life of the culv notebooks?

 

[jvroig]

dual bobcat cores will be slightly slower than a core 2 duo at similar speeds.

Bobcat is the Atom competitor, yes? If so, then this would be impressive. I assume you are talking of Zacate of course, but Ontario could not be any different, except that it has only one core, right?

But will it be able to match the long battery life of the culv notebooks?

Same TDP, for one thing, and Bobcat should be closing the gap in technology that previously existed that affected power consumption, so on paper there should be no reason it will fall far from Intel CULV battery life.

 

[lopri]

It is an interesting strategy from AMD for sure, but it is debatable whether it can be called Atom's competition. Intel made it clear that future Atoms would not become faster. From the beginning Intel wanted Atom to be in smartphones, GPUs, tablets, set-top boxes, etc. - basically something other than traditional PCs. But we know how that turned out so far.

Now that AMD wants a piece in nettops/netbooks markets the Atom (inadvertently) pioneered, I wonder how Intel will respond?

 

[Terzo]

Same TDP, for one thing, and Bobcat should be closing the gap in technology that previously existed that affected power consumption, so on paper there should be no reason it will fall far from Intel CULV battery life.

Great news if true. I've been contemplating a compact notebook (something like the 13" timeline or u30) but I've been holding off in hopes that zacate will lead to a 13" with comparable battery life but much better igpu and a cheaper cost.

I guess I also have a soft spot for AMD. Now that I think about it, I've never owned an intel processor. Then again, that's probably because whenever I buy amd has offered cheaper options (especially when you add in the cost of a mobo).

 

[Idontcare]

It is an interesting strategy from AMD for sure, but it is debatable whether it can be called Atom's competition. Intel made it clear that future Atoms would not become faster. From the beginning Intel wanted Atom to be in smartphones, GPUs, tablets, set-top boxes, etc. - basically something other than traditional PCs. But we know how that turned out so far.

Now that AMD wants a piece in nettops/netbooks markets the Atom (inadvertently) pioneered, I wonder how Intel will respond?

Yeah and I seem to recall an AMD exec saying on record that AMD wasn't going to chase after Intel's atom and the market Intel was going into with Atom because it just wasn't in AMD's best interests. Don't know if that just meant smartphones and stuff or what.

 

[MrK6]

There are on benchmarks at the moment, but Hans says a dual bobcat cores will be slightly slower than a core 2 duo at similar speeds.

I posted some info in the other thread.

http://forums.anandtech.com/showpost.php?p=30429707&postcount=50

Thanks, I was wondering more about graphics scores though. If AMD can strap a killer GPU on this card, they'll be competitive in a large market. Hell, if the thing can play SC2 well, especially better than Intel's HD Graphics, they'll make a mint.

 

[busydude]

Bobcat is the Atom competitor, yes? If so, then this would be impressive. I assume you are talking of Zacate of course, but Ontario could not be any different, except that it has only one core, right?

No, Ontario and Zacate both consist of two Bobcat cores. All the info we have for now is that, Zacate is clocked higher than Ontario.

Ontario: Two Bobcat cores, 1-1.2Ghz CPU, GPU rated at 500Mhz, 9W TDP.
Zacate: Two Bobcat cores, ~1.6Ghz CPU, GPU rated at 750Mhz, 18W TDP.

These numbers do fall in line with TDP's(Assuming CPU and GPU consume near equal power), Zacate is rated 50% higher for both CPU and GPU.(EDIT: Blatant Math error here)

Anand's words:

Bobcat won’t be used in a microprocessor by itself - Ontario will feature two of them. AMD said that future designs are expected to integrate 2 or 4 Bobcat cores, while there are no plans to produce a single core version it’s always possible.

 

[busydude]

Thanks, I was wondering more about graphics scores though. If AMD can strap a killer GPU on this card, they'll be competitive in a large market. Hell, if the thing can play SC2 well, especially better than Intel's HD Graphics, they'll make a mint.

The only benchmarks we have are a few BIONIC numbers and the APU demonstration of AvP at Computex, which is rumored to be an Ontario then, may well be Zacate now.

The announcement of Zacate caused a great deal of confusion(In my mind). When Ontario was made public, it was expected to operate at ~1.5-1.6 GHz and perform better than comparable offerings from Intel in the Netbook segment.

Now, AMD has split chips that have same architecture, same number of cores but with different clock speeds. What is AMD thinking? What is the need for creating different code names?

Maybe, AMD were conservative with their estimates at the beginning, but after seeing some early number they were confident enough to push it into the so-called CULV segment.

 

[lopri]

I don't think Intel will try to beef up Atom to counter Bobcat. If the netbook market continues to thrive, however, Intel can introduce low-power, Celeron-like Sandy Bridge and that may be more than enough to counter Bobcat. Considering that current mobile CPUs go from 15~35W, sub 20W SB shouldn't be too difficult. (though profit might not be as high as Intel wants it to be, especially since Intel usually charges premium for low-power CPUs)

 

[khon]

At 9W TDP you're competing against Atom.

At 18W TDP you're competing against SB ULV processors.

AMD will probably win the first of those on performance, but I seriously doubt they can win the second one.

 

[busydude]

AMD will probably win the first of those on performance, but I seriously doubt they can win the second one.

Can you provide a rough estimate of performance delta between core 2 duo and SB ULV?

Hans estimated the performance relative to Core 2 Duo series.

 

[khon]

Can you provide a rough estimate of performance delta between core 2 duo and SB ULV?

Hans estimated the performance relative to Core 2 Duo series.

A (very) rough estimate would be that SB is ~15% faster per clock than Core 2, and will the ULV models should be able to reach at least 2GHz with turbo. So as far as single threaded performance goes I'd guess they'll beat that 1.6GHz C2D by something like 50%.

Obviously though that's mostly guesswork, since there are no model details on the SB ULV parts yet, let alone any benchmark results. However, it is certain that they will be much faster than C2D parts.

 

[Cerb]

It is an interesting strategy from AMD for sure, but it is debatable whether it can be called Atom's competition. Intel made it clear that future Atoms would not become faster. From the beginning Intel wanted Atom to be in smartphones, GPUs, tablets, set-top boxes, etc. - basically something other than traditional PCs. But we know how that turned out so far.

Now that AMD wants a piece in nettops/netbooks markets the Atom (inadvertently) pioneered, I wonder how Intel will respond?

Intel's current plans are to spend tens of billions of dollars--maybe more, long term--to compete with a half a billion dollar powerhouse in small devices, using x86's historical inertia, and R&D budgets that only IBM can match. IoW, Intel doesn't really have to respond in any direct way.

Thanks to this, AMD has a great opportunity for consumer chips: Intel is using the Atom in netbooks and nettops because there was and is insane demand. But, it's not really their goal. You, the user who would be well-served by a 3GHz Atom, aren't going to be well-served by Intel. They'll use SB to once again release a largely overpriced ULV platform.

Short-term, AMD has it made with Bobcat-based chips. It's in the same size range as the Atom, should offer far superior performance, and as such AMD might be able to handle a price war, against tweaked parts made for full-size, high-performance systems.

Long term, though: ??? If they can make real SoCs (IE, just add connectors), using designs from others who use TSMC bolted on...well, Intel is going that way, too. Hopefully, they have a good plan.

 

[nyker96]

I was thinking of buying a netbook w/ atom. but this new bobcat is burning up the trails with these benches. very impressive, any netbook cpu that can match core 2 is very impressive and all under 20W as I understand it.

 

[StrangerGuy]

At 9W TDP you're competing against Atom.

At 18W TDP you're competing against SB ULV processors.

AMD will probably win the first of those on performance, but I seriously doubt they can win the second one.

I'm sure there is still a huge demand for netbooks out there but people aren't buying them because Atoms are too slow, and Atom + Ion is overpriced into the full laptop category (why pay $500 for 1215n when I can get 5x the performance for $150 more). Bobcat will be a killer product in the cheap and powerful netbook segment.

 

[Idontcare]

Bobcat will be a killer product in the cheap and powerful netbook segment.

Think we'll ever see one in an iPad? Or is too much for a tablet?

 

[cbn]

Think we'll ever see one in an iPad? Or is too much for a tablet?

Aren't tablets mostly for web surfing?

Could something like this change the way manufacturers look at planning component power budgets?

Higher power CPU + weaker graphics (typical of Intel, although Sandy Bridge is beginning to change this).

vs.

lower power cpu (down-clocked bobcat or ARM) + stronger graphics?

Which CPU/GPU ratio yields the fastest web browsing experience at 1 watt? 2 watts? 5 watts? 8 watts and beyond?

 

[extra]

I'm actually more excited about bobcat (well, zacate i guess, lol) than I am about bulldozer... Fast enough cpu + adequate gpu in a netbook/tiny laptop form factor, *cheap*, with decent battery life. This will sell by the bucketloads. Also excited about llano and what the ulv sb chips might be like. Though for that the main questions will be llano gpu vs sb gpu, battery life, and price points (even a crappy athlon II dual core is fast enough for 99% of daily tasks, even gaming, gpu matters way more, I'll encode dvds and do heavy photoshopping tasks at home on my i7 anyway).

 

[IntelUser2000]

Pentium M 1.6GHz Banias

2914 Int
1467 FP

That's rather a telling sign of how relevant BOINC is.

Think we'll ever see one in an iPad? Or is too much for a tablet?

iPad = too much
Win Tablet = perfect