What Is APU?
APU or Accelerated Processing Unit is a new term introduced by AMD together with their latest technology called AMD Fusion. Wikipedia has a great explanation of what an APU is:
An APU integrates a CPU and a GPU on the same die thus improving data transfer rates between these components while reducing power consumption. APUs can also include video processing and other application-specific accelerators.
If that isn’t clear enough for you, watch AMD’s video below that explains how an APU works and what’s its difference compared to a CPU and GPU.
Brazos, Zacate, And Ontario
On CES 2011, we have seen quite a number of newly announced netbooks and mini laptops that run on AMD Fusion technology — not all of them are the same. You will notice different name like Brazos, Zacate, Ontario, and even Bobcate being used to describe different models of AMD Fusion mini laptop, and it can be confusing if you do not understand these terms.
AMD Fusion is the general marketing name that refers to the company’s brand new technology that integrates CPU and a GPU on the same die called APU.
Under the AMD Fusion technology, there are several different platform where each targets a different market segment. “Brazos” is one of the platform targeting the netbook/ultraportable and notebook markets. Other platform include “Lynx” and “Sabine” which target the desktop and mainstream laptop market respectively.
Zacate and Ontario are 2 of the APUs that fall under the Brazos platform. Both APUs are built from the same die. Zacate and Ontario are physically identical, they just run at different clock speeds. Both are available in single and dual core versions, and the CPU cores are based on AMD’s first truly low power client architecture, codenamed Bobcat (equivalent to Intel’s Atom).
Performance
Now that we have a basic understanding for AMD Fusion technology and its platform, let’s take a look at their performance.
Dutch site Hardware.info compared the C-50 (Ontario) to Intel’s Atom N550 netbook processor, the primary competition to one of AMD’s low-power entries. The results are as below:
In two of the four benchmarks the testers used, the Fusion chip smoked the Atom: It nearly doubled the N550’s PCMark Vantage – Gaming score (1,380 to 697) and destroyed it by more than tenfold in 3DMark06 (1,769 to 153). The site didn’t (or couldn’t) run the PCMark Vantage – TV and Movies test for the dual-core Atom, whereas the dual-core Fusion processor scored 1,046. The only test that the Intel chip won was Cinebench 10 (1,466 to 1,271).
How about battery life? There’s no battery life comparison in Hardware.info’s test, but technology sites like Engadget and LaptopMag has tested the HP Pavilion dm1z which run on Zacate E-350, and the results indicate that it gets more than 6 hours of battery life under regular usage. AMD claims that the Ontario will give 10 hours plus of battery life. This is about the same as most Intel Atom powered netbooks!
AMD Fusion Powered Netbook / Mini Laptop
Besides performance and battery life, another advantage of the AMD Fusion powered laptops is its low price. For example, the upcoming Acer Aspire One D522
To find out more AMD Fusion netbooks / mini laptops that are currently available on the market, Amazon has a special section that features them all — check them out here
