AMD APU's based on 'Trinity' now shipping, preparing for launch

[caveman-jim]

A new blog post from AMD's Senior PR Manager, Phil Hughes, tells us that the new improved APU's are shipping in preparation for launch:

Great news AMD fans, our second-generation AMD A-Series APU (codenamed: “Trinity”) began shipping last quarter – putting the best video and gaming experiences and superior battery life one step closer to your fingertips!

The 2012 AMD A-Series APU helps improve on virtually every aspect of our current A-Series APUs while doubling the performance-per-watt over our previous generation. It enables Brilliant HD, amazing productivity and accelerated applications across a spectrum of form factors – including ultrathin and mainstream notebooks, embedded devices and desktops.

Not to be outdone, our new essential notebook platform codenamed “Brazos 2.0” also began shipping to OEMs last quarter! It builds on the success of our highly successful 2011 Low Power Platform, bringing many new features, excellent performance and extended battery life to entry-level products.

Stay tuned: “Trinity” and “Brazos 2.0” systems will be available globally soon!

AMD's Trinity APU will go head to head with Intel's Ivy Bridge design, where the companies difference in speciailty will be thrown into sharp contrast - parallel processing power vs. single thread performance. While both chips incorporate graphics hardware, Intel's Ivy Bridge is estimated to match the current bottom end graphics add-in boards from AMD - meaning the year-old APU design, Llano, will be faster for gaming and GPU accelerated applications. Trinity raises the bar, especially with it's rumored support for dual graphics with AMD Radeon 7000 series 'Cape Verde' chips.

The showdown between Ivy Bridge and Trinity will be fought not on the benchmark pages but in the user experience ratings, a place where AMD's superior graphics performance and drivers may prove critical. Secondly, price will be a factor - to beat Trinity, OEM's using Intel's Ivy Bridge will have to add a discrete GPU to their design; adding cost and heat while reducing battery life, and being confronted with Dual Graphics configurations from AMD that offer more performance once again.

http://blogs.amd.com/fusion/2012/04/...ding-your-way/

[noko]

This is great news! A bit sooner then expected, so when is the released date for mobile and then desktop?

Makes me wonder if I should have waited a little for the APU project I am doing. Still the mobo and APU will cost me less then $200. Was planning on doing another APU project later anyways.

What I am really interested is the APU with GCN, that to me is the real ticket.

[Dr. Zhivago]

[caveman-jim]

Originally Posted by noko

This is great news! A bit sooner then expected, so when is the released date for mobile and then desktop?

Hasn't been disclosed yet, but the indications are May/June launch for mobile, with ultra portable (read - Ultrabooks that aren't Intel, cos Intel owns the name Ultrabook) in late Q3.

Desktop likely will follow by about a quarter, so first parts in late summer time frame, with availability ramping up hard from then. Think kinda like the first gen APU's.

Originally Posted by noko

Makes me wonder if I should have waited a little for the APU project I am doing. Still the mobo and APU will cost me less then $200. Was planning on doing another APU project later anyways.

you can always wait the next great thing, I don't think you'll be cursing yourself and it'll give you a chance to do each gen as they come
besides, it looks like the trinity desktop APU's will sit above the llano ones, meaning they'll be higher priced.

Originally Posted by noko

What I am really interested is the APU with GCN, that to me is the real ticket.

That should be the next gen Kaveri, which is planned for 2013, and looks to feature Steamroller cores with GCN graphics core.

[FiggyG]

I am looking forward to your review