AMD releases Llano A-series APUs

Nick Mertes 30 Jun, 2011 at 10:58pm ET Article published in Tech

Today AMD released the new A-series APUs (Accelerated Processing Unit) for the desktop. The new processors are the latest members of AMD’s Fusion family and combine the CPU and GPU onto a single package.

The CPU side is built from upgraded Phenom II cores with an increased L2 cache (1MB per core up from 512k). Similar to the Athlon II series of CPUs, the L3 cache has been eliminated. The memory controller has been updated to support DDR3-1866 speeds when two slots are occupied (DDR3-1600 with all four occupied) and a maximum of 32GB of RAM is supported.

The GPU side is built with up to 400 Radeon HD cores (shader units), provides full support for DirectX 11, and promises discrete-level graphics performance. Two displays can be connected with resolutions of up to 2560×1600 per display, depending on the connection type. If the built-in graphics aren’t quite enough, they can be paired with a Radeon HD 6400, HD 6500, or HD 6600 series graphics card for higher performance using CrossfireX.

	CPU				GPU
Model	Cores	Base	Turbo	L2 Cache	Model	Config	Frequency	TDP	Price
A8-3850	4	2.9GHz	N/A	4MB	HD 6650D	400:20:8	600MHz	100W	$135
A8-3800	4	2.4GHz	2.7GHz	4MB	HD 6650D	400:20:8	600MHz	65W	$TBA
A6-3650	4	2.6GHz	N/A	4MB	HD 6530D	320:16:8	443MHz	100W	$115
A6-3600	4	2.1GHz	2.4GHz	4MB	HD 6530D	320:16:8	443MHz	65W	$TBA

Pricing and availability have not yet been announced for the A8-3800 and A6-3600, although it is expected that pricing will be similar to their -50 counterparts. None of the APUs have shown up at retail yet, but it should happen very soon.

Early reports show the ability to actually play games without an additional discrete GPU and breaking records for a non-discrete graphics solution (AMD requests that the GPU on Llano not be referred to as an IGP due to bad connotations).

Of course, what good is a processor without a motherboard? All the major players have Socket FM1 boards to fit just about any system requirement for size and budget. Gigabyte, MSI, Asus, and Biostar all currently have motherboards listed on Newegg though the matching APUs have yet to appear as of publishing time.

We have the AMD A8-3850 APU and a Gigabyte A75M-UD2H set up and undergoing testing right now and will let you know how it stacks up soon.

Comments

1 Jul 2011 ~ 9:34am Tim If it can't play Starcraft 2 on all Ultra video settings with a decent frame rate, then it is not good enough for me.
1 Jul 2011 ~ 10:29am mertesn

Tim wrote:

If it can't play Starcraft 2 on all Ultra video settings with a decent frame rate, then it is not good enough for me.

Can you do that on your current hardware, Tim?

Besides, there's nothing saying you can't add a modern GPU to the system.
1 Jul 2011 ~ 11:52am Cliff_Forster This is not only exciting because of what it represents today, but more for where the tech is headed.

How long until we can take a single chip and plug it into a mobo that supports high bandwidth DDR5??

Calling Thrax..... How long until graphics cards are forgotten tech?
1 Jul 2011 ~ 1:38pm Thrax

Cliff_Forster wrote:

Calling Thrax..... How long until graphics cards are forgotten tech?

Never. Literally never for users like us. Mom and dad? Your Sims-playing little sister? Not too long, now. But for as long as there are enthusiasts like us, there will never be enough room for all the transistors that make us happy.

There's also the small matter of GPU transistor advancements more or less matching that of the CPU, which means any die shrink that makes room for more GPU will be matched on the GPU side with a more powerful graphics card. In other words, the chasm between $100+ GPUs and IGP will remain, but performance will continue to improve on both sides.

All that said, I am seriously excited about Llano for my home theatre PC. Because AMD has finally migrated PCI Express lanes onto the processor, the need for a large northbridge has been obviated. In sweeps the Hudson FCH with its native SATA6/USB3/etc/etc, and the era of a two-chip AMD platform has finally begun. This will allow motherboard manufacturers to develop serious mITX solutions, whereas older designs based on the AMD 800 Series had compromises--SODIMM slots or no PCIe--because that fat northbridge was just taking up too much room.

My personal HTPC is an mITX Core i3, a Radeon HD 6670 and 8GB of RAM. Because the decode/post-processing performance of Llano's on-die GPU is so high, easily on par with anything in the 6000 Series (which continues to lead the pack in video decode quality/performance!), I can eliminate the discrete GPU in favor of a Llano to reduce system power consumption, noise and size.

It's awesome.
1 Jul 2011 ~ 3:23pm MAGIC Nice, cant wait for a decent mitx motherboard to come out.
1 Jul 2011 ~ 3:27pm Cliff_Forster I understand that thought. What I could see though, is a home enthusiast PC market that has parts that scale like a multi chip server board? I'm letting my imagination run wild, but imagine a point where you would have a motherboard with two, three or even four standard sockets all interlinked to the architecture in such a way that its doubling, tripping or quadrupling your performance. I can almost paint that vision in my head, how it would work without the need for clunky expansion cards. Maybe not in the immediate future, but I can see if becoming a reality.
1 Jul 2011 ~ 9:40pm Tim Why are expansion cards and video cards a bad thing? Don't you really enjoy assembling a new computer?

On the rare occassion that I get to build a new PC either for myself or someone else, I make a big deal about putting each piece in place and tightening the bolts down. It can take me a good hour or more to put the parts in because I make a major construction project out if it. But it is fun to do.
1 Jul 2011 ~ 10:20pm primesuspect <img src="http://sporkforge.com/prmimg/04e0/pcd40aa3350149e8i0006000000500010.png" height="380" width="640" alt="">
1 Jul 2011 ~ 10:56pm Thrax <i>* Image does not apply to Europe or Asia.</i>
2 Jul 2011 ~ 1:16am Canti 0.1% here
2 Jul 2011 ~ 1:22pm Cliff_Forster I agree Tim, from a certain perspective, if it ever came to that, I'd miss doing the card installs, but if you could leverage the same amount of power just by dropping in another chip and slapping a heatsink on it, you would have to admidt, it would just be a more elegant solution from a certain perspective.
2 Jul 2011 ~ 1:53pm Tim I like that graph! I'm definitely a 0.1 percenter!
2 Jul 2011 ~ 8:52pm fatcat I want a m-itx gaming motherboard.

To have a PC the size of a gamecube that can do the things my PC does now would be so badass

I like AMD and their APU direction
7 Jul 2011 ~ 8:05am Alex ah great now i want a pc inside a gamecube casing that can play gamecube games xD
7 Jul 2011 ~ 12:13pm SuperStrife Just wondering if anyone has any thoughts on how the APU will affect heat management in laptops. Currently if i'm not mistaken the usual deal for a good laptop is to either make it large with a full speed chipset, or to make it smaller and thinner and clock down the chips used.
If i'm not mistaken, using an APU decreases the power draw (as compared to 2 chips), therefore for the same amount of heat/power you should be able to run more things faster.
In short I'm saying this is good for desktops, but potentially game changing for laptops.
7 Jul 2011 ~ 12:21pm Thrax That's exactly right.

AMD A8/A6/A4 eliminates the northbridge, and eliminates the need for discrete GPUs in every class of notebook except for dedicated "gaming" notebooks that will always have discrete GPUs. It also dramatically raises the GPU performance bar for notebooks that don't have discrete GPUs.

Intel has already eliminated the northbridge last year with Westmere, but their IGP still blows, and Llano's doesn't. So really, not only does Llano dramatically reduce platform power draw (1 less chip on the chipset, no discrete GPU circuitry), it also saves on BOM cost by reducing the size of the internals and the number of required components--that's savings for you and me.
7 Jul 2011 ~ 12:22pm mertesn

SuperStrife wrote:

Just wondering if anyone has any thoughts on how the APU will affect heat management in laptops. Currently if i'm not mistaken the usual deal for a good laptop is to either make it large with a full speed chipset, or to make it smaller and thinner and clock down the chips used.
If i'm not mistaken, using an APU decreases the power draw (as compared to 2 chips), therefore for the same amount of heat/power you should be able to run more things faster.
In short I'm saying this is good for desktops, but potentially game changing for laptops.

Indeed it is game changing. The GPU-side configuration is identical to the A8-3850 with the exception of speed: 444MHz vs 600MHz for the desktop. Considering that most laptops using this APU will have a max resolution of 1600x900 this shouldn't be a problem. I'd wager that power and heat won't really be an issue either. I have the A8-3850 on the review bench right now. It should be finished very soon - power and heat are the last remaining tests. Sabine (the mobile version) has a 45W max TDP, so I'd expect it to use less than half of the test CPU. Heat shouldn't be an issue either.