AMD Fusion APU Codenamed ''Llano'' Demonstrated at 6th Annual AMD TFE 2010

[btarunr]

At the 6th Annual AMD Technical Forum & Exhibition (TFE) 2010, AMD today showcased for its ecosystem partners the first public demonstration of the forthcoming AMD Fusion Accelerated Processing Unit (APU) codenamed "Llano", designed for notebook, ultrathin and desktop PCs. AMD demonstrated the accelerated single-chip processing muscle of Llano by simultaneously processing three separate compute-and graphics-intensive workloads.

"The serial and powerful parallel processing capability of the Llano APU has the potential to make OEMs and consumers re-think their computing experience," said Chris Cloran, corporate vice president and general manager, client division, AMD. "The experience potential of Llano is truly incredible, and the demos we showed today on stage provide a glimpse of what this processor is capable of delivering in sleek form factors with long battery life. Everything consumers love about their digital lifestyles today - social networking, gaming, consuming and creating media - can be enhanced with Llano, enabling a more interactive, vivid and immersive experience."


The Llano APU demo showed three compute-intensive workloads simultaneously on Microsoft Windows 7, including calculating the value of Pi to 32 million decimal places, and decoding HD video from a Blu-ray disc. Running concurrent to the CPU and HD video playback applications, Microsoft's nBody DirectCompute application is shown achieving around 30 GFLOPS (as reported in the application) a relative measure of the available capacity to post-process video during playback, play a DirectX11 game, or assist the CPU cores to accelerate a non-graphics application. The demonstration represents a preview of Llano's raw compute power enabling new levels of experience computing that AMD aims to bring to mainstream PC users in 2011.

Held annually in Taiwan, the AMD Technical Forum & Exhibition is an ecosystem partner event that focuses on addressing the world's most complex technology challenges, and spotlighting technology breakthroughs. Exhibitors span academia, hardware and software industries, fostering a healthy, open ecosystem for the AMD Fusion family of APUs.

View at TechPowerUp Main Site

 

[TheMailMan78]

Hmmmmm sounds like the next console generation will be APU.

 

[Imsochobo]

Hmmmmm sounds like the next console generation will be APU.

the future truly is fusion.
first laptops and workstations.

Intel and amd will really squish nvidia out of a big market here... hopefully compotition in gpu market will be healthy.

 

[InnocentCriminal]

Hmmmmm sounds like the next console generation will be APU.

Makes sense.

 

[sttubs]

I wonder if you could do some sort of Crossfire between the APU & the motherboard's integrated graphics.

 

[TheMailMan78]

I wonder if you could do some sort of Crossfire between the APU & the motherboard's integrated graphics.

The whole point of the APU is to rid the world of IGP.

 

[meirb111]

dont forget without software support to use this it will not be that good so only new
games and applications will use it properly.

 

[cadaveca]

Hmmmmm sounds like the next console generation will be APU.

the current "new" xbox360 slim IS already. And it's so good having the gpu in the same silicon that they had to artifcially slow down the link between the two.

The next big leap in computing is contained within these designs, IMHO.

The whole point of the APU is to rid the world of IGP.

I wouldn't say that EXACTLY, but to get rid of poor-performing IGPs, for sure.


It's all one step closer to a holodeck.

I wonder if you could do some sort of Crossfire between the APU & the motherboard's integrated graphics.

Yep, but it might take a different way of rendering to utilize it properly. To me Fusion chips are a start to this...

 

[TheMailMan78]

the current "new" xbox360 slim IS already. And it's so good having the gpu in the same silicon that they had to artificially slow down the link between the two.

The next big leap in computing is contained within these designs, IMHO.

Now that you said that I remember reading it. Thanks for the reminder!

This is the future. At least now we will be able to save some money on water blocks

 

[Steevo]

dont forget without software support to use this it will not be that good so only new
games and applications will use it properly.

There is no software need for this, as far as the aware applications are concerned there is a GPU, multiple cores of a CPU. So this is the same a running a application on a multi-core system with a dedicated GPU.

 

[cadaveca]

There is no software need for this, as far as the aware applications are concerned there is a GPU, multiple cores of a CPU. So this is the same a running a application on a multi-core system with a dedicated GPU.

no, it's not. Again, the 360slim proves this...with no real bandwidth bottleneck between gpu and cpu, the gpu can SCREAM...it accelerated the 360 ALOT. I'l lsee if i can find real numbers, but if I recall correctly, the silicon devoted to slowing down this link almost accounted for 5% of the entire chip. That is ALOT.

 

[btarunr]

Hmmmmm sounds like the next console generation will be APU.

It already is. The latest-generation Xbox360 uses a CPU+GPU System on a Chip (SoC).

 

[TheMailMan78]

It already is. The latest-generation Xbox360 uses a CPU+GPU System on a Chip (SoC).

Yeah I know. Cadaveca reminded me of that.

 

[Steevo]

no, it's not. Again, the 360slim proves this...with no real bandwidth bottleneck between gpu and cpu, the gpu can SCREAM...it accelerated the 360 ALOT. I'l lsee if i can find real numbers, but if I recall correctly, the silicon devoted to slowing down this link almost accounted for 5% of the entire chip. That is ALOT.

I didn't mean it was the same in performance, power or any way other than the application needs no tweaking or extra information added as far as I'm aware, thus the reason on the slim you can play the sames games without updates.

Same for this chip, no updates needed to use the optimizations that are built in.

 

[cadaveca]

I didn't mean it was the same in performance, power or any way other than the application needs no tweaking or extra information added as far as I'm aware, thus the reason on the slim you can play the sames games without updates.

Same for this chip, no updates needed to use the optimizations that are built in.

Well that's just it... for the 360 slim they had to make a signifigant hardware change so that the software WOULDN'T be affected...everything just ran at super-speed, so they had to go back, and re-design the chip. The slim was actually supposed to be released long before it did, but the extra dev time involved in getting the chip working right with current titles really threw a wrench in the release.

I even beleive they said it was so fast that there was just no way software could help, unless every signle game out there was patched...and because very many development houses from older games just don't exist any more, they had to change the hardware.


Now, Win7 is fine-grained enough (i think)that they can push slowdowns at the software level, IMHO, but I do NOT think that this would simply be a drop-in chip-type thing...there WILL need to be software hacks to get older stuff working right...they may already exist in the OS though(actually, I know that they do).

These chips are what have me really excited for future tech...I WANT THEM NAOW!!!

 

[meirb111]

There is no software need for this, as far as the aware applications are concerned there is a GPU, multiple cores of a CPU. So this is the same a running a application on a multi-core system with a dedicated GPU.

you think encoding or decoding with avisynth to x264 will auto use this i dont think so still you will need sofware update this is just one example.

 

[jasper1605]

is AMD on the forefront with this or do Intel have something similar they're working on too?

 

[largon]

AFAIK, Intel has yet to have indicated they'd have anything coming in the same performance ballpark as Llano.

 

[CDdude55]

is AMD on the forefront with this or do Intel have something similar they're working on too?

AFAIK, Intel has yet to have indicated they'd have anything coming in the same performance ballpark as Llano.

Sandy Bridge.(not if they are both on par performance wise or whether one stomps the other, but they are allegedly coming out around the same time and are direct competitors of each other)

 

[cadaveca]

LoL..what are they gonna do, put a larrabee core in SandyBridge?

Of course, to me, SandyBridge is just that..a silicon bridge to new tech, and won't be as good as some are expecting...but the following gen will be fantastic.

 

[CDdude55]

LoL..what are they gonna do, put a larrabee core in SandyBridge?

Of course, to me, SandyBridge is just that..a silicon bridge to new tech, and won't be as good as some are expecting...but the following gen will be fantastic.

This is their first steps into pushing out this type of technology into the masses, i think it's inevitable we won't see anything of significant from either camp until it becomes frequently worked on.

 

[f22a4bandit]

That's way too sexy for us average consumers

 

[Steevo]

you think encoding or decoding with avisynth to x264 will auto use this i dont think so still you will need sofware update this is just one example.

No more of a patch than is needed for any software to use steams hardware already. So nothing we weren't doing a few years ago, just in a smaller package.

Well that's just it... for the 360 slim they had to make a signifigant hardware change so that the software WOULDN'T be affected...everything just ran at super-speed, so they had to go back, and re-design the chip. The slim was actually supposed to be released long before it did, but the extra dev time involved in getting the chip working right with current titles really threw a wrench in the release.

I even beleive they said it was so fast that there was just no way software could help, unless every signle game out there was patched...and because very many development houses from older games just don't exist any more, they had to change the hardware.


Now, Win7 is fine-grained enough (i think)that they can push slowdowns at the software level, IMHO, but I do NOT think that this would simply be a drop-in chip-type thing...there WILL need to be software hacks to get older stuff working right...they may already exist in the OS though(actually, I know that they do).

These chips are what have me really excited for future tech...I WANT THEM NAOW!!!

Yes, they had to introduce a self stall for data being transported to the GPU as it was arriving there much faster and could cause out of sync audio issues.

It wasn't due to the super duper performance increase, it was a timing issue that only effects systems that have set specs, like a Xbox, PS3, etc....... Thus the reason we can run the same game on multiple combination of CPU, GPU, audio, memory, and motherboards with different connectors and latencies.

 

[wahdangun]

so if this chip that have rumored HD 5550 GPU build in ?

 

[meirb111]

No more of a patch than is needed for any software to use steams hardware already. So nothing we weren't doing a few years ago, just in a smaller package.



really is that why ati's stream processing is not yet working with avisynth/x264 in any sofware.sdk were recently released ,two years to late . nvidia works with other to make its cuda work ati didnt do so with stream processing=un used hardware part.