AMD AM1 Platform Aimed at Budget Computing Under $400
AMD is introducing the new AM1 platform. This platform is built to address a low-budget, sub $400 computer market segment.
The APUs that go into the AM1 systems are SoCs (System on a Chip), and the majority will come as an APU and motherboard combo. This is to be known as a "System in a Socket." On the motherboards themselves, users might read the socket name FS1b, but the Kabini APU, together with a motherboard with an FS1b socket, will be known as the AM1 platform.
The Kabini APUs carry most of the computing hardware, including up to four "Jaguar" CPU cores, the GCN cores, as well as the memory controller (which can address up to 16 GB of DDR3-1600 memory) and all the remaining chipset parts. They have support for up to two SATA3 ports, two USB 3.0 ports, eight USB 2.0 ports, DisplayPort, HDMI, and VGA ports. These chips will be marketed under the Athlon and Sempron names.
Despite that the APUs will come in motherboards, the platform will still be upgradeable. The APUs can simply be removed and replaced with another, more powerful unit that fits in the same socket.
The APU+ motherboard AM1 combinations will have starting prices of about $60. As of this writing, the company has not yet announced specific models or configurations.
I know but they gotta try man! I fully understand the financial problems and risks of making a high end CPU but to be a good competitor, you gotta stretch across all sectors of the market. If only AMD took a grand old Phenom chip, dissected it, and figured out where they went wrong.... I dont want to have to resort to Intel to get better performance, as fanboyish as that sounds, I guess I am a fanboy of AMD. I just want them back in their golden days. Intel's making these 5 percent increases because there's no competition, so they dont have to bring anything big. If AMD stepped up to the plate and brought a gigantic turkey, it'd make Intel have to cook a bigger one that has to be delicious.
AMD's processors may not perform as good as Intel's but "fake multi cores?" No..., the way AMD meant for it to work was, they paired two cores into a module to reduce latency between the two cores, but the latency was instead increased from one module to another. It was a mere fluke that was mis-interpretted and wrongly sought into, but it's not a fake multi core. It's still very real.
No matter how fast Intel's cores are, there's no replacing a Quad Core with a dual core, that's out of the story for me. Even though AMD's falling over its shoe laces, I'm gonna stick with them til the end. After my Pentium T4500 died, that was it for Intel for me, that processor lasted 3 months and it caught fire somehow. On the other hand, I've been doing some light gaming on my AMD E-450 for over a year. And I'm about finished with investing in my AMD based build with an Athlon II X4 760k and R9 270.
Intel is still pretty far behind AMD on at least one front: integrated graphics. GT3e is Intel's best, chips with it cost $400-600 but their graphics performance is barely on par with ~$120 AMD APUs or 750k + bargain-bin GPU.
AMD would likely be in a much better position if TSMC and GloFo were not so many years behind Intel with their 14-22nm process.
It'll be quicker per clock but it wont be able to handle as many processes. No matter how fast it is, that CPU usage will still shoot up when you open a couple of things.
When I say high end, I'm not talkin 7 GHz, 20 core processors. I'm talkin speed efficient with good TDP processors, processors that are really strong, and not just on the frequency front. After the Piledriver architecture released, AMD died (not that they didn't die at Bulldozer cause they did), they stopped making fast CPUs and started on these all in one solutions and stuff. Makes me cringe having to resort to a Pentium or Celeron for budget reasons.
No it's not.
With the number of light PC users switching to 7-10" tablets, smartphones, AiOs and transformables with ~$40 SoCs, we are pretty much there already. The main things tablets tend to be missing are external connectivity (mainly USB2/3 host ports), a little more RAM for more flexible multi-tasking and fully fledged desktop-style productivity apps for use with a mouse and keyboard instead of over-sized touch-oriented UI.