AMD shows impressive Trinity at CES 2012

Nick Mertes 12 Jan, 2012 at 5:15am ET Article published in Tech

One of the highlights of our CES trips has always been our visit to the AMD meeting space, and this year was no different. Last year saw the introduction of Fusion, the first accelerated processing unit (APU) that combined CPU and GPU cores into a single package. We found them simply amazing. This year saw a new batch of APUs that promise to be every bit as impressive as the previous year’s generation.

Trinity

Top to bottom: FX (Bulldozer), Llano, Trinity

The next generation APU (codenamed Trinity) will be available later this year, and will use up to four Piledriver (next generation of Bulldozer) cores. The new APUs will use significantly less power than the current Llano architecture, down to 17W for the ULV parts designed for ultra-thin notebooks (because Intel owns the term “UltraBook”). To demonstrate the power of Trinity, we were taken to a demonstration desktop system connected to two displays. The system was running an unnamed Trinity APU which was handling video transcoding via Cyberlink Media Encoder one one monitor while simultaneously running DiRT 3 at 1920×1080 on the other, at 30fps. We were asked if things looked like they were running well, which they were. We were then directed to look at the internals of the case to see the components driving the demonstration…

Upon removing the side panel, Brian and I realized we were the latest victims of a rather successful troll on AMD’s part—the entire demonstration was being run by a Trinity-powered notebook which just happened to also be running HD YouTube content on the laptop’s display. Three displays from a small laptop, running a 1920×1080 DirectX 11 game, doing media encoding, and playing HD video. Simultaneously. You read that correctly.

The AMD troll at CES: Laptop inside of a desktop case

The AMD troll at CES: A Trinity-powered laptop inside of a desktop case

Radeon HD 7000M

AMD also revealed some additional details about Southern Islands’ portable counterpart, the Radeon HD 7000M series, which will be out sometime in Q2. Following in the steps of the desktop parts, Radeon HD 7000M will continue the trend of leading in performance, innovation, and efficiency. All the usual laptop partners are on board with designs in the works.

The chart below shows the specs for currently available Radeon HD 7000M series parts:

Radeon HD 7000M 40nm parts

At resolutions of 1366×768, both the Radeon HD 7500M and 7600M are able to play modern games while maintaining > 30fps while the Radeon HD 7400M will be sufficient for pretty much all other tasks. All models support HD3D, OpenCL, UVD3, DisplayPort 1.2, Eyefinity, and power management features such as Vari-bright and PowerPlay.

Details have not yet been made available regarding the high-performance parts, but we’ve been assured that when they are released AMD will once again take the mobile graphics performance crown.

Desktop graphics

We already know about the Radeon HD 7970, which officially hit the market a few days ago. There isn’t currently anything new to report, though we’re told to expect an announcement soon in this area.

AMD is poised to continue their graphics dominance in 2012, and their APU line is looking increasingly amazing. Now, if only they could do something about dat Bulldozer…

Comments

12 Jan 2012 ~ 8:24am storrm you got the love that style.
12 Jan 2012 ~ 9:48am quake101 This is truly impressive!

Side note, who the heck transcodes video while playing games! LOL
12 Jan 2012 ~ 10:11am Garg So, the graphics in the Trinity APU are considerably more powerful than those in the 7600M?
12 Jan 2012 ~ 1:37pm Cliff_Forster The 7600M is a pretty remarkable mobile chip. 1080P ultra settings may push it on some DX 11 titles, but I'm willing to bet 1600X900 or so, running medium to high will run darn near perfect at 60FPS on most games, and at that low of a TDP its going to change everything.

In a couple years, we may all leave our desktop at home when we travel to a lan. I welcome it.
12 Jan 2012 ~ 1:45pm primesuspect Garg, we were a bit confused about some of the numbers too; Nick and I had a discussion last night about Trinity pushing more FPS than mobile Radeon and something's not stacking up. I'll try to get more info.
12 Jan 2012 ~ 1:49pm GHoosdum I approve this troll.
12 Jan 2012 ~ 2:42pm Ilriyas Bloody brilliant marketing on their part.
12 Jan 2012 ~ 3:32pm Garg Maybe they just emphasized performance at 1366×768 res on the mobile Radeons because that godawful resolution is spreading like a cancer on anything less than enthusiast-class laptops.
12 Jan 2012 ~ 4:48pm chris @primesuspect maybe a 7600m + trinity? I don't know about the laptop counterparts but in the desktop you can have an APU + a discrete card to get better performance.
12 Jan 2012 ~ 6:26pm fatcat
Maybe they just emphasized performance at 1366×768 res on the mobile Radeons because that godawful resolution is spreading like a cancer on anything less than enthusiast-class laptops.
agreed. 1920x1080 should be the MINIMUM resoulution for ANY electronic these days. Including your cell phone

why, because the world needs 4k resolution sooner than latter
12 Jan 2012 ~ 8:20pm Ilriyas ^Now I feel like my 1650x1080 isn't good enough for anything.
12 Jan 2012 ~ 8:46pm mertesn
^Now I feel like my 1650x1080 isn't good enough for anything.
Because it isn't. Eyefinity or GTFO
13 Jan 2012 ~ 4:58am peter If only intel didnt have the punters scared () dont work in china it seems - they love amd) amd has intel on the hop in consumer mainstream pcS & mobiles for years to come.

bet they wish they bought ATI for $10b (amd got it for $5b)

not many crunch big numbers on lappies but almost all want light, cool & good battery life & a movie or a game on a trip. No matter what they pull out of a hat re graphics - amd can stomp on them at short notice

intel is left w/ a few peripheral markets, suckers & sadly - servers which is where the money is

BD flunks in the hi end cpu market - lets hope it can find a niche in servers

c/gpu is also lucrative - hard to see nvidia dominating much longer when amd gpuS so superior - open standards always win in the end.

analyst bang on about the declining pc market - but anything from a kindle up is still x86 - its a big market & amd only has 80%~ & edging up - amd dont care - they grow from stealing market share from intel - which it seems they have done for ~3yrs

hate to think how many unassailable dominant companies have been topples in last ~30 years - cpm - wordstar/calcstar lotus - wordperfect hotmail - maybe microsoft - u get the idea - amd dominance may be a watershed

maybe they added a memory channel - llano dramatically improves up to 1600 speed ram (duh - is using shared memory) but then it gets incremental
14 Jan 2012 ~ 2:29am Komete OK AMD, you pissed me off with bulldozer but looks like you got me back with trinity
14 Jan 2012 ~ 8:04pm _k Did they bother to mention anything about Interlagos at all? Feels like they brushed everything under the table with the new lines. Funny how Interlagos dropped and have seen where people have passed and stuck with their MCs.
14 Jan 2012 ~ 8:08pm Thrax Server stuff doesn't make an appearance at CES. Wrong type of show.
14 Jan 2012 ~ 9:37pm _k Yup but would have been a great time to ask them "Whats the deal bro, whats the deal?".
24 Jan 2012 ~ 2:13pm Principle Here is what I want, a Trinity APU in a uATX case with two x16 PCIe3.0 slots (at x8,x8 if need be). And let Trinity xfire to two 7770s that have zero power state (or 8770s if zero power state is only on new core GPUs). So I got two cards drawing 2 watts or less waiting idly by while my APU tackles everything it can by itself. But if FPS drop below 60, then xfire kicks in on slot 1, and if fps drops below 60 again xfire slot 2 kicks in. This is my perfect end state, power efficient but extremely capable, and in a portable box (with a handle of course).
25 Jan 2012 ~ 11:57pm dknt r u sure the game wasn't playing on VLC ? =P