Report: AMD Quad-core Llano APUs Coming in Q3

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Marcus Yam served as Tom's Hardware News Director during 2008-2014. He entered tech media in the late 90s and fondly remembers the days when an overclocked Celeron 300A and Voodoo2 SLI comprised a gaming rig with the ultimate street cred.
  • Ragnar-Kon
    More interested in Bulldozer to be honest... BUT I think these APUs could eventually be the way to go for lower power applications that still need some power, such as laptops.
    Reply
  • bunz_of_steel
    My thots as well Ragnar-Kon :). This would be fine for laptop and ideal for HTPC. I would like to see the option to be able to use the on board video with an additional Radeon HD similtaneously.
    Reply
  • joytech22
    Good thing this isn't about bulldozer, because if it's delayed beyond Q2 I make the switch to sandy.

    Strange how I just realized Sandy is a sexy name, while Bulldozer is rough as guts.

    HA.
    Reply
  • masterofevil22
    I would love a netbook based on this technology.
    Reply
  • reprotected
    AMD, you were too slow, I'm going for Sandy Bridge now. Planning before April 2010. Unless you can give me a future refund for buying the LGA 1155 motherboard and the processor, no matter how fast your new processors will be, GG.
    Reply
  • 4745454b
    I just want to know what improvements they've made to the cores. I know about the doubling up, etc, but how much did they increase IPC? Actually doubling most of a core but having them use some parts could actually slow dowe IPC if the shared resources are used at the same time. And unless they increased IPC by a lot, I don't see BD beating SB, or possibly even coming close.

    This is awesome for low power things, but I don't really care about those.
    Reply
  • Bunz_of_Steel: why would you up for a Llano APU for an HTPC, when the Zacate already handles 1080p Video smoothly, with lower power requirements and is available now?
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  • amdfangirl
    Llano sounds like a much better laptop chip than what I've got now. I'll upgrade then, in Q3.
    Reply
  • sykozis
    WinnickBunz_of_Steel: why would you up for a Llano APU for an HTPC, when the Zacate already handles 1080p Video smoothly, with lower power requirements and is available now?A Llano APU, though using more power, will provide more performance....which will allow you to use it for other tasks. An A8-3550 provides 400 Stream Processors and 4 physical cores while would allow for better multi-tasking....like running a media server and HTPC simultaneously, which Zacate would struggle with. Also, the extra 320 Stream Processors would improve encoding performance.
    Reply
  • dgriffs
    Will they be putting these processors in gaming laptops? I was thinking about getting one to fit my needs and the best cpu in my price range is the i7-2630qm.
    Reply