AMD Fusion details leaked: 40/32 nm, dual-core CPU, RV800 graphics

[shadow2get]

Taipei (Taiwan) – AMD pushed Fusion as one of the main reasons to justify its acquisition of ATI. Since then, AMD’s finances have changed colors and are now deep in the red, the top management has changed, and Fusion still isn’t anything AMD wants to discuss in detail. But there are always “industry sources” and these sources have told us that Fusion is likely to be introduced as a half-node chip.

It appears that AMD’s engineers in Dresden, Markham and Sunnyvale have been making lots of trips to little island of Formosa lately - the home of contract manufacturer TSMC, which will be producing Fusion CPUs. Our sources indicated that both companies are quite busy laying out the productions scenarios of AMD’s first CPU+GPU chip.

The first Fusion processor is code-named Shrike, which will, if our sources are right, consist of a dual-core Phenom CPU and an ATI RV800 GPU core. This news is actually a big surprise, as Shrike was originally rumored to debut as a combination of a dual-core Kuma CPU and a RV710-based graphics unit. A few more quarters of development time gave AMD time to continue working on a low-end RV800-based core to be integrated with Fusion. RV800 chips will be DirectX 10.1 compliant and are expected to deliver a bit more than just a 55 nm-40 nm dieshrink.

While Shrike will debut as a 40 nm chip, the processor is scheduled to transition to 32 nm at the beginning of 2010 - not much later than Intel will introduce 32 nm - and serve as a stop-gap before the next-gen core, code-named "Bulldozer" arrives. The Bulldozer-based chip, code-named “Falcon”, will debut with TSMC's 32nm SOI process, instead of the originally planned 45 nm.

As Fusion is shaping up right, we should expect the chip be become the first half-node CPU (between 45 and 32 nm) in a very long time.

Source

[rockthegod]

Interesting... very interesting.... Intel also unveiled details of its upcoming "Larrabee" architecture earlier today.... seems like fully-programmable graphics and GPU+CPU combos will rule the future...

Well, it is important to keep in mind that this is first and foremost NOT a GPU. It's a CPU. A many-core CPU that is optimized for data-parallel processing. What's the difference? Well, there is very little fixed function hardware, and the hardware is targeted to run general purpose code as easily as possible. The bottom lines is that Intel can make this very wide many-core CPU look like a GPU by implementing software libraries to handle DirectX and OpenGL.

It's not quite emulating a GPU as it is directly implementing functionality on a data-parallel CPU that would normally be done on dedicated hardware. And developers will not be limited to just DirectX and OpenGL: this hardware can take pure software renderers and run them as if the hardware was designed specifically for that code.

Read more about it here: http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets...oc.aspx?i=3367

[desiibond]

This could well be a huge blow to nVidia in chipset business. They will be out of chipset business once Larrabee and Fusion come out.

Now, rumors of nVidia closing chipset business makes sense

[MetalheadGautham]

Low end RV800 ? Isn't it better to buy a motherboard like 780G which has low end graphics ? I thought the fusion will have a mid range graphics core and three CPU cores.

[gxsaurav]

Fully programable indeed but the performance depends on Intel's X86 compiler. Real world performance is yet to be seen.

everyone is trying to make a GPU which can also run general purpose code, makes sense Y Microsoft is keen to launch DirectX 11 with there own GPGPU API to run on Nvidia, AMD & intel architecture.

Now just bring it quickly, my GPU is only using 50% of it potential, make my GPU act like a CPU & performance will be tremendious

[dOm1naTOr]

@gx_saurav
play Crysis...3650[or even 4850] will find it hard to pull up the zipper
just jokin

yup, it wud be grt, if GPU can perform general purpose tasks, and CPU can help a hand on 3D rendering with GPU.
those days are not too far...when we can shoot a n real likeHD movie at home using fraps

[nvidia]

Awesome.. AMD will surely kick Intel's a$$ this time.
Btw, when is Larrabee going to come out?

[rockthegod]

Originally Posted by nvidia

Awesome.. AMD will surely kick Intel's a$$ this time.
Btw, when is Larrabee going to come out?

As per Anandtech, it will start shipping aroung Q4 2009-Q1 2010. But Nehalem is yet to debut publicly, which might be soon enuf !!!! Intel's got its road map planned out .....

And I sincerely hope M$ makes creation of DX 11 worthwhile for all of us. DX 10 had a lot of exciting and interesting promises but got its butt kicked in real-world scenario... hence its comparatively a much shorter lifetime than what DX 9 njoyed !!!! Hope DX 11 will make up for all the shortcomings of DX 10 and make the life of PC gamers and developers better... !!!!

[NIGHTMARE]

thanks

[desiibond]

Originally Posted by rockthegod

As per Anandtech, it will start shipping aroung Q4 2009-Q1 2010. But Nehalem is yet to debut publicly, which might be soon enuf !!!! Intel's got its road map planned out .....

And I sincerely hope M$ makes creation of DX 11 worthwhile for all of us. DX 10 had a lot of exciting and interesting promises but got its butt kicked in real-world scenario... hence its comparatively a much shorter lifetime than what DX 9 njoyed !!!! Hope DX 11 will make up for all the shortcomings of DX 10 and make the life of PC gamers and developers better... !!!!

Intel's Nehalem, in my opinion was started only after seeing AMD's vision. Because that they have far more resources, they were able to release ahead of AMD.

But it will be AMD that is going to write the script. Once bulldozer comes out, it will make Intel gasping for air.

AMD's roadmap looks more stable than Intel's, the latter looks to be in a hurry to have head start over AMD.

And to tackle AMD+ATI, Intel seriously need a GPU and that's why they designed Larrabee.

[The Conqueror]

WOW

[comp@ddict]

Hey Everyone, well finally all AMD fans have the best thing to cheer for cause right now, the AMD graphics cards rulezzzzz

But in the processor market, unless AMD does some magic with it's new 45nm processors, they will still lag behind Intel.

[IronManForever]

Great!! But for another 5 years, descrete graphics will rule for Xtreme gaming. However, Fusion/Larrabee maybe useful in areas where graphics intensive apps arent used.
GPGPU maybe a good promise, but a GraphicsProcessing-CPU? No sir, not for now.

[nvidia]

Originally Posted by IronManForever

GPGPU maybe a good promise, but a GraphicsProcessing-CPU? No sir, not for now.

Why not? They're a lot more powerful than CPUs and if GPGPUs come out, then it will be good for everyone i guess.. Who doesn't want some extra power in their machines?

[veiga2412]

Originally Posted by desiibond

Intel's Nehalem, in my opinion was started only after seeing AMD's vision.

AMD's roadmap looks more stable than Intel's, the latter looks to be in a hurry to have head start over AMD.

Here here! I love how AMD has re-designed the architecture from scratch. Their engineers really do seem to have they're eyes firmly fixed on the ball..

Originally Posted by comp@ddict

Hey Everyone, well finally all AMD fans have the best thing to cheer for cause right now, the AMD graphics cards rulezzzzz

But in the processor market, unless AMD does some magic with it's new 45nm processors, they will still lag behind Intel.

AMD sales are only lagging because of the general public is going by the stale information about AMD's [now] non-existent heating issues.

[From an ex-Intel (now-AMD) Fan ]