AMD Responds to 'Ultrabooks' with Trinity APU powered 'Sleekbook'

[caveman-jim]

HP has answered the curiosity of onlookers who wondered what a vendor might call an ultra-thin portable with an AMD processor that disqualified it from Intel's ultrabook trademark: Meet the Sleekbook.

Actually, the AMD APU-equipped, 15.6-inch HP Envy Sleekbook (shipping June 20 for $599.99) is accompanied by an Intel-powered 14-inch model (shipping May 9 for $699.99) with optional discrete graphics, as opposed to the "discrete-class" graphics of the AMD laptop. Each starts at 4 pounds, measures just 20mm thick, and features HP's Beats Audio with two speakers and a subwoofer. The 14-inch Envy Sleekbook offers a 500GB hard drive and, HP claims, up to eight hours of battery life; the 15.6-inch model comes with a 320GB drive and up to nine hours of battery life.

read more at PCMag.

[guest]

So the AMD has a larger screen and longer battery life? How does and AMD and Intel compare for integer/floating point performance?

[caveman-jim]

They can both do it. AMD can do FMA3 and FMA4, Intel only FMA3.

[guest]

Nobody will use FMA4 since no Intel CPU will ever use it. Bulldozer only supports FMA4 from what I'm reading. I think FMA4 = 3DNOW! in adoption success.

[caveman-jim]

Depends on who made the compiler, for commercial applications.

For HPC/Compute, if there's a performance benefit to be had then orgs will buy BD and write to FMA4.

[guest]

Depends on who made the compiler, for commercial applications.

For HPC/Compute, if there's a performance benefit to be had then orgs will buy BD and write to FMA4.

I guess I'm saying it's more of a strike against Bulldozer than Trinity. Piledriver will at least have FMA3.

From what I read Intel was going the FMA4 route and AMD FMA3 route then both decided to switch for some reason.

[caveman-jim]

I heard from the Intel guys that Intel said they were going to support FMA4 and FMA3, so AMD decided to support the one they thought would be the more logical to use, FMA4. Intel promptly said nope, not doing FMA4, we're setting the standard as FMA3. It's basically the standard SSE gamesmanship that Intel and AMD have been doing for years, everytime AMD looks to be shipping a standard first Intel will rev it after it's too late to change the first gen product so AMD gets a black eye. At some point you'd think AMD would learn...