Download the Tom's Hardware App from the App Store
The reference for current tech news
Yes No
Ads

AMD Announces Low-power G-Series APUs

by - source: Tom's Hardware US

The miserly AMD APUs.

AMD today announced the immediate availability of two new solutions for those looking for extreme low power with x86 "Bobcat" CPU cores and DirectX 11-capable graphics.

The two new embedded G-Series APUs T40R and T40E have thermal design power (TDP) ratings of 5.5 and 6.4 watts, respectively, which is up to a 39 percent power savings compared to earlier versions. The very low power consumption and small 361mm² package is ideal for compact, fanless embedded systems like digital signage, kiosks, mobile industrial devices and many of the new emerging industry-standard small form factors.

"We have seen many of our embedded customers deploy fanless systems even with our 15W TDP processors in the past. Today we take the ground-breaking AMD Fusion APU well below 7W TDP and shatter the accepted traditional threshold for across-the-board fanless enablement," said Buddy Broeker, director, Embedded Solutions, AMD. "System designers can now unleash their creativity without being constrained by heat or size issues."

A fanless solution is crucial for many small embedded systems where the added cost for an active cooling system can be prohibitive or for environments where silent operation is a key requirement. Additionally, many embedded products are deployed in harsh environmental conditions where the presence of a fan represents a potential failure point for the system.

You likely won't be running these at home in your own personal rig, but there's now a better chance that you'll run into AMD's new Fusion chips out the real world without even knowing it.

Share:
24
Comments
X
Submit

Comments
Add your comment
tntom 05/24/2011 3:35 PM
Hide
-8+

I hope it proves to be a strong market for AMD. No where is my Bulldozer.

Aravind Aarumugam 05/24/2011 3:43 PM
Hide
--3+

Can't it run on phones?

Vearo 05/24/2011 4:00 PM
Show
MxM 05/24/2011 4:14 PM
Hide
-11+

"You likely won't be running these at home in your own personal rig, but there's now a better chance that you'll run into AMD's new Fusion chips out the real world"

My home is not real enough?

Marco925 05/24/2011 4:26 PM
Hide
-5+

ooh exciting, i wanna see some benchmarks

AMD_pitbull 05/24/2011 4:37 PM
Hide
-9+

Kudos to AMD for their progressions this year. I have a good feeling you'll be seeing some fun competition coming out soon with AMD and Intel. Nvidia? Well, not sure where they'll be standing soon, as AMD's Fusion is looking like a better deal for the console markets, as well as (stated in the article) the "real world." Maybe they'll pick up VIA to grab an X86 license and jump into the fray with the big boys. Not like Intel isn't trying to do that with Radeon and Nvidia and failing terribly, so, why not jump the other way round? I'd love to see a good three-way battle going on both fronts. Prices for decent hardware would see a nice decrease (probably only 10-20%, but, that adds up fast) and performance would increase quicker. One faltering wouldn't mean less competition for that round of releases, it would just mean they get to progress that much more to keep up. Anyways, enough wishful thinking for now. BD comes out soon, and I have a feeling our wait will not be in vein :)

Anonymous 05/24/2011 4:54 PM
Hide
-5+

Do these APUs have the same 1080p decoding and audio bitstreaming capabilities as the E-350? If so, then they might be an excellent choice for a media streamer. Imagine XBMC on a cheap set-top box that only uses 5-7 watts.

dread_cthulhu 05/24/2011 5:01 PM
Show
shadow187 05/24/2011 5:01 PM
Hide
-3+

Aravind Aarumugam wrote :

Can't it run on phones?



Phones require sub-watt operation, don't they?

BulkZerker 05/24/2011 7:02 PM
Hide
-2+

Perfect for a NAS / Streaming box.

Haserath 05/24/2011 7:21 PM
Hide
-2+

shadow187 :
Phones require sub-watt operation, don't they?


Yeah, the iphone 4 has a 5.25watt-hour battery and lasts at least 6 hours surfing the web. So with the entire 'system' on it draws less than 1 watt most of the time.

uniquegamer 05/24/2011 7:58 PM
Hide
-2+

AMD A series quadcore APU and FX series octacore CPU price has been revealed . A series APU costs ranges from $110 to $170 and FX series CPU is $320 (same as i7-2600k)

alidan 05/24/2011 8:26 PM
Hide
-0+

Josh G :
Do these APUs have the same 1080p decoding and audio bitstreaming capabilities as the E-350? If so, then they might be an excellent choice for a media streamer. Imagine XBMC on a cheap set-top box that only uses 5-7 watts.



id love a pc to stream video, problem is that i used xbox and ps3 to do it currently, and both refuse to play everything i throw at it... hell even the majority of it.

for this to work good for a streaming box it has to play every format, from ones are popular, to the un popular and run the shells that the videos get put in to too, like mkv.

alextheblue 05/25/2011 2:45 AM
Hide
-0+

alidan :
id love a pc to stream video, problem is that i used xbox and ps3 to do it currently, and both refuse to play everything i throw at it... hell even the majority of it. for this to work good for a streaming box it has to play every format, from ones are popular, to the un popular and run the shells that the videos get put in to too, like mkv.

These aren't really intended to be on the decoding side. They'd be great for feeding the video over the network (or other NAS purposes), firewall/routing, etc. But they may not have the punch to handle all HD videos.

Just build a cheap low-power box and run a full-blown OS (Win7 or a Linux distro), and put a good media frontend on it. Even an E-350 should be able to do it, provided that the player you're using has support for hardware acceleration via the APU's GPU.

Heck, if you wait for Llano, not only will there be fairly low-power variants (not as low as E-350 but still pretty low), but it'll have more than enough horsepower to handle ANY video you through at it.

schmich 05/25/2011 5:50 AM
Hide
-0+

tntom :
I hope it proves to be a strong market for AMD. No where is my Bulldozer.


Yes, next month?

Anonymous 05/25/2011 10:14 AM
Hide
-1+

can it run Crysis1?

virtualban 05/25/2011 10:48 AM
Hide
-1+

f34rtfrds :
can it run Crysis1?


I hope you don't get thumbed down. It's Tom's Hardware meme the Crysis joke, even if some don't like it.

srgess 05/25/2011 12:06 PM
Hide
-1+

I dont get why they are making low power cpu with direct 11 capable i mean only game worth playing dx11 is that game recommend at least gtx 480+ of power if you want a good visual experience. Those kind of cpu are interesting in low power use like laptop or nas.

hannibal 05/25/2011 8:21 PM
Hide
-0+

DX11 allows some nice graphic trics allso outside of gaming environment. Because there are so few DX11 capable systems out, most DX11 "hype" is around games, because so many gamers allready have DX11 card. But the rest of the computer world live somewhere dx8-dx9 level many years to come.

So small embedded DX11 platform can actually be guite nice and usefull compared to other alternatives that are on the market.

ProDigit10 05/26/2011 1:31 AM
Hide
-0+

Their 7W TDP design probably is only half as powerful as their last design, or 30% less powerful when having a die shrink.

eddieroolz 05/26/2011 3:33 AM
Hide
-0+

I see a lot of E-350 equipped laptops at stores now - good for AMD.

fir_ser 05/26/2011 5:34 AM
Hide
-0+

Good for AMD

fir_ser 05/26/2011 5:35 AM
Hide
-0+

Can't wait for new AMD products on June.

vaughn2k 05/26/2011 6:29 AM
Hide
-0+

srgess :
I dont get why they are making low power cpu with direct 11 capable i mean only game worth playing dx11 is that game recommend at least gtx 480+ of power if you want a good visual experience. Those kind of cpu are interesting in low power use like laptop or nas.


DX11 does not only focus on graphics, but also enhances multi-threading functions, and improved multi-media. So I guess the reason why it has, evnethough you do not use it for games, right?

Ads

Best offers

Newsletters


OK
Ads