AMD Previews Trinity, Hondo and Brazos 2.0 at CEBIT '12

[caveman-jim]

Whenever we're at CeBIT in Hanover, or IFA in Berlin, we visit AMD and ask nicely if they have anything new and exciting to show us. At IFA 2010 it was Brazos, at CeBIT 2011 it was Llano, and last year’s IFA brought us an early look at Bulldozer. So, what did AMD give us this year? Two things, actually. For one, we got a look at AMD’s upcoming Trinity APU in action – and for another, a video of said demo that we’re actually allowed to show you guys.

AMD’s Saša Marinkovic kicked off by giving us an rundown on what to expect during the next couple of months. As we already know, the second-generation APU code-named Trinity will be arriving in summer, with exact dates to be announced. The same goes for the tablet-bound Hondo and Brazos 2.0, which will be updated with TurboCore and USB 3.0. Those last two will still be built on a 40 nm process, but by next year, AMD says all of its parts will be 28 nm.

Toms Hardware

[noko]

Sounds impressive, may wait for TrinityII with GCN next year. Eyefinity with intergrated graphics is actually impressive . Sounds like during that Eyefinity demostration something like SMAA should have been used or something similar for AA IQ. Hopfuflly Nvidia new FXAA will drive this on AMD drivers.

[The PyroPath]

Originally Posted by noko

Sounds impressive, may wait for TrinityII with GCN next year. Eyefinity with intergrated graphics is actually impressive . Sounds like during that Eyefinity demostration something like SMAA should have been used or something similar for AA IQ. Hopfuflly Nvidia new FXAA will drive this on AMD drivers.

Trinity already has GCN graphics in it, or do you mean that you think it will be not powerfull enough for you and thus you will wait for the next generation?

[caveman-jim]

Trinity has VLIW4 graphics in it.

[The PyroPath]

Originally Posted by caveman-jim

Trinity has VLIW4 graphics in it.

Think I missed the final word on that, rumors were it would use GCN

[Dr. Zhivago]

Kewl.

[caveman-jim]

Originally Posted by The PyroPath

Think I missed the final word on that, rumors were it would use GCN

There's been no final word yet, but the little birdies who cheeped in my ear last time I was in Austin told me that.

[The PyroPath]

Originally Posted by caveman-jim

There's been no final word yet, but the little birdies who cheeped in my ear last time I was in Austin told me that.

Ah, ok, tnx. Thought I missed it but feel a bit better now because I didn't, too bad for it not using GCN though...

[bobvodka]

It's a shame we don't know if the GCN-Fusion devices will use the FM2 socket or a new FM3; the whole reason I've held off on any sort of Fusion system atm is knowing that FM1 was a dead upgrade path - if I knew that GCN-Fusion would work in an FM2 socket I might be tempted to build an FM2 system in the summer and then just drop in the new CPU next year when it appears.

[caveman-jim]

It's not clear from the road maps but I think that the APU's with GCN in them will have a new socket, because they're also moving more system functions in to the chip.

I think for APU's AMD are trying to get SoC functionality onboard as much as possible, no need for any external chips. Plus they want to get to Steamroller cores, too

[bobvodka]

Aye, true true, that makes sense with regards to the new socket.

I was half pondering a Trinity Fusion CPU to replace my i7 920 for general day to day use; while no doubt an Ivy Bridge CPU is going to push more x64 instructions around the idea of combining an APU with my HD7 card yields some intresting ideas in the realms of physics or audio processing... but I'd rather wait for GCN before playing with that as it's just a better GPU arch than VLIW4, certainly for that kind of work load anyway.

I'll just focus on my graphics plans instead for now

[caveman-jim]

Originally Posted by bobvodka

Aye, true true, that makes sense with regards to the new socket.

I was half pondering a Trinity Fusion CPU to replace my i7 920 for general day to day use; while no doubt an Ivy Bridge CPU is going to push more x64 instructions around the idea of combining an APU with my HD7 card yields some intresting ideas in the realms of physics or audio processing... but I'd rather wait for GCN before playing with that as it's just a better GPU arch than VLIW4, certainly for that kind of work load anyway.

I'll just focus on my graphics plans instead for now

I'm pretty sure that Trinity APU's with CFX with GCN GPU's.

[bobvodka]

It might but I'm not thinking CFX anyway; I'm after a CPU-close compute unit to chew on things while the GPU does graphics and the x86 cores sort other stuff/queues up future work.

(Which is the kind of setup I've been dreaming of since before the words 'Fusion' or 'APU' were even uttered... )

[aviphysics]

Originally Posted by caveman-jim

It's not clear from the road maps but I think that the APU's with GCN in them will have a new socket, because they're also moving more system functions in to the chip.

I think for APU's AMD are trying to get SoC functionality onboard as much as possible, no need for any external chips. Plus they want to get to Steamroller cores, too

It was very cool when I once opened up my HP 32SII calculator and found only a single chip inside. Not so much as a stray diode lingering on the board. Someday opening up a laptop and finding the same thing would blow my mind. (not that I expect that anytime soon.)