AMD Accelerated Processing Unit in 2011

Anandtech.com reports that in 2011, AMD will be coming out with an Accelerated Processing Unit (APU). What is an APU exactly? Try four CPU cores married to a single GPU. The four CPU cores will be based on the existing Phenom II microarchitecture. The one GPU will be a DirectX 11 class GPU. The APU will be manufactured on a 32nm process at GlobalFoundaries, and is scheduled to arrive in 2011. The code name for the APU is Llano.

Intel is also coming our with their own version of the APU, with the code name Sandy Bridge. Sandy Bridge will use a new microarchitecture for the CPU, and an updated integrated graphics core. Sandy Bridge will be manufactured on a 32nm process, and is due in early 2011.

If one was to handicap this race, then it would be expected that Intel will have a faster CPU with Sandy Bridge. Historically, Intel’s graphics have not always been the best. Thus one could expect that AMD will have a better integrated GPU than Intel.

About the Author: Paul Adams

Paul Adams manages an award-winning team for a federal high performance computing facility where he has worked for 15 years. He loves getting his hands on the latest visualization and computer hardware, astronomy, aerospace engineering, working with the poor, and ringing cowbells.

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