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AMD might not be able to keep up (down?) with Intel in the CPU power consumption race, so it’s taking another tack with the new Opteron X-series: horsepower. It just announced the Opteron X1150 and X2150 64-bit processors for microservers, part of the Jaguar-codenamed family of CPUs arriving in the next-gen Xbox One and Sony PS4 consoles. Thanks to its ultra-low power 6-watt Atom S1200 chips, Intel excels in the low-power server market, and at 9W and 11W respectively (minimum), AMD’s CPUs consume considerably more juice. But AMD is pitching them as a better solution overall, thanks to those four cores (compared to two in the Atom), integrated AMD Radeon HD 8000 graphics on the X2150 model, support for 32GB of RAM and integrated SATA ports. AMD’s chips are pricier, though, at $64 (X1150) or $99 (X2150) compared to $54 for Intel’s Atom S1200 (all in quantities of 1,000). To top it off, Intel has new 64-bit Atom SoCs coming soon promising even lower power consumption — possibly leaving AMD to play catch-up again.

Filed under: Peripherals, Networking, AMD

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When Intel launched Haswell, it promised a generational leap in battery life, and now the chip giant’s talking numbers to back that up. Architecture Group VP Rani Borkar said that laptops packing the chipset should get 50 percent more battery life than current Ivy Bridge models and go up to 20 times longer in standby or idle mode — without any cost to performance. She said that lower power requirements will be one factor in the drop in consumption, but an all-new architecture including a power management chip will also help reduce the energy draw. We’ll have to see whether that encouraging piece of news will help the moribund PC notebook market pick up lost ground to tablets, or whether companies will just keep blurring the line.

Filed under: Laptops, Intel

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Source: Computerworld

It’s all-change for AMD‘s APU line-up for mainstream and performance notebooks in 2013, as the company attempts to hit Intel where it hurts with chips that, bang for buck, offer more performance from less power. That’s the claim, anyway, and Kabini – for the mainstream – and Richland – for the performance end – are the processors that are expected to deliver it. Among the boasts are the first ever quadcore for small-display touchscreen notebooks, and up to 72-percent of the gaming performance than Intel’s comparable chips.

AMD Kabini

Kabini is AMD’s mainstream platform for portables in 2013, targeting small touchscreen notebooks as well as entry-level laptops. The company is making a big push for battery life, with machines running the new APUs apparently capable of up to 10hrs of resting runtime, or over 9hrs of web browsing. Even playing Full HD 1080p video, they should be good for more than 6hrs of use.

The single-chip SoCs use Jaguar cores with 2MB of shared L2 cache, and come in 9W to 25W TDP variants. Each supports two simultaneous displays of up to 4096 x 2160 resolution, with DisplayPort 1.2, DVI, and HDMI 1.4a output capabilities. Other connectivity includes provision for up to eight USB 2.0, up to two USB 3.0, two SATA Gen2/Gen3, and an SD card reader.

There’s also AMD’s Steady Video technology, for smoothing out jerky camera footage, and AMD Perfect Picture HD, which does real-time processing of on-screen graphics to bring out the best contrast and colors. Compared to last year’s chips, the new Kabini E1, E2, A4, and A6 APUs offer up to an 88-percent boost in performance.

AMD Kabini Mainstream APUs

AMD Richland

As for the performance end, AMD is taking on Intel’s Core i3 and Core it with the new Richland series of APUs, replacing Trinity in the process. They offer up to 71-percent better graphics abilities than the Core i5, AMD claims, while still being capable of over 10hrs resting battery life or 7.5hrs of web browsing.

Compared to Trinity, overall performance is up by up to 19-percent, the company claims, while graphics performance is improved by as much as 40-percent. The A8 gets gesture control and face login, for chip-level biometric security, as well as AMD Screen Mirror for wirelessly pushing graphics to a nearby TV. The A10 throws in game bundles, a strategy AMD has tried with success before, including a number of games with each qualifying PC purchase to show off the abilities of the APUs.

There’s also provision for AMD Dual Graphics, with the onboard GPU in the Richland chips capable of working simultaneously with a discrete GPU from the company’s Radeon HD 7000 or 8000 series. That should make for ultraportables that can still put in some solid gaming, AMD claims.

The first notebooks running AMD Kabini and Richland APUs will show up in the coming months.

AMD Richland Elite APUs

AMD Kabini and Richland fight Intel for mainstream and performance notebooks is written by Chris Davies & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

AMD has been willing to tease its 2013 ultra-mobile APU (accelerated processing unit) strategy through PCs like the Acer Aspire V5, but today it’s spilling the beans in earnest. The headliner for many is the company’s just-shipping Elite Mobility line, or Temash: the A4 and A6 designs are built for tablets, like Hondo was, but their Jaguar-based system-on-chip designs should be faster in both CPU and graphics power without a hit to battery life. AMD estimates that the Radeon HD 8280G video core in an Elite Mobility A6 is about five times faster a Clover Trail-based Atom and twice as fast as Hondo, but lasts about 45 percent longer on battery than an Intel Core i3. And that’s while untethered — that Turbo Dock feature is still in place to boost speeds by over 30 percent when a dock is around for extra cooling.

The E1, E2, A4 and A6 mainstream APUs based on Kabini, meanwhile, are all about tackling the Pentium and Core i3 chips that go into entry-level laptops. AMD reckons that the dual-core (E-series) and quad-core (A-series) parts are up to 88 percent faster overall than their ancestors, and can even punch above their weight class: the E1’s Radeon HD 8000-level graphics are up to 66 percent faster than those of a much thirstier, Trinity-era A4 chip. Battery life is a specialty as well, with up to 10 hours when idle and 9 hours of web use. That’s typically 2 to 3 hours more than Kabini’s Brazos ancestor could manage. AMD wasn’t specific on when these mainstream APUs would first ship when we were briefed, but we had the opportunity to benchmark an A4-based reference laptop. Read on past the break for the scores and some early impressions.

Filed under: Laptops, Tablets, AMD

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Source: AMD

Intel‘s 4th-gen Core processors will also debut a brand new Iris graphics system, with the chip company splitting its new line-up into multiple tiers for ultrabooks, thin-and-lights, and mainstream PCs. Ultrabooks powered by the most frugal of Intel’s 4th-generation Haswell chips, the U-Series, will get Intel HD, HD Graphics 4600, or HD Graphics 5000, but those machines that can stand a little extra power consumption will get either Iris (for thin-and-lights) or Iris Pro (for mainstream) for at least a doubling in 3D processing performance.

Ultrabooks, where minimal power draw is still king, will get a range of 15W U-Series processors for prolonging runtimes. The onboard HD, HD 4600, and HD 5000 GPUs won’t be labeled Iris, but they will offer a bump over the HD 4000 graphics of the 3rd-gen range, with Intel claiming improvements across the board in the usual 3D graphics testing. Power consumption will also drop, thanks to 15W TDP chips where previously 17W was pretty much the lower limit.

It’s when you get to Iris and Iris Pro that things get really interesting, however. They’ll need at least 28W TDP to shine, but given that can up to double 3D graphics performance with the Iris GPU onboard.

Iris Pro sees the biggest leap, however. Intel has multiple ranges of Haswell processors in mind – to suit desktops, mainstream laptops, and various other iterations – but roughly the 65W TDP 4th-gen chips are good for up to twice the performance of their 77W TDP 3rd-gen counterparts. The difference gets even more pronounced when you slot in Intel’s 4th-gen 84W TDP processors, which deliver up to a 3x performance improvement over the last generation.

The GPUs each support OpenGL 4, DirectX 11.1, and OpenCL 1.2, along with enhanced 4K video support and the Display Port 1.2 standard for double the bandwidth. There’s also “Collage Display” for easier multi-screen setups, spreading the desktop across up to three panels. Haswell 4th-gen chips are expected to arrive in PCs later this year.

[via AnandTech]

Intel Iris graphics detailed for 4th-Gen Core “Haswell” chips is written by Chris Davies & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.