CPU/Mobo AMD Fusion Zacate/Ontario Revealed, now shipping to vendors

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With Sandy Bridge knocking on doors, AMD is feeling the threat, the current gen processor offers only price/performance advantage however they lag behind Intel on clock to clock. The over hyped "fusion" from AMD is finally seeing the daylight as AMD has shed light on the upcoming first iteration of the Fusion chips. Aimed at ultra low power ultra portables these chips will fight against Intel Atom and ULV series of processor.

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The first two Bobcat-based designs are accelerated processing units, or APUs for short—essentially microprocessors sharing die space with graphics processing components. AMD code-names those two APUs Zacate and Ontario, having tailored the former for an 18W thermal envelope and the latter for a 9W TDP. Despite the different code names, both parts are actually based on the exact same silicon. They occupy 75 mm² of die area and fit onto 19 x 19-mm, 413-ball BGA packages just like the one pictured above. Both are manufactured using TSMC's 40-nm fab process.

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AMD will let loose this week and allow hardware sites to post the benchamarks that they tested.

Performance impressions
The question on everyone's lips must now be: how does Brazos fare against the competition from Intel? Some folks might also be wondering how it compares to Nile, its most direct predecessor. As I said earlier, AMD has slapped a momentary embargo on benchmark numbers obtained last week, but it doesn't mind us discussing performance in more general terms, without raw numbers.

So, that's exactly what I'm going to do.

Let's first tackle the elephant in the room. Yes, Zacate gives Intel's Atom processors a whupping—even the dual-core N550. In the CPU performance tests we ran, the AMD E-350 test rig didn't stray too far from either our Nile-based Toshiba Satellite T235D notebook or Zotac's Zbox HD-ND22, which contains a Celeron SU2300. AMD did have the test rig set up with a 128GB Crucial RealSSD C300, so applications loaded quicker than they would have on a real consumer ultraportable, but the E-350 system still felt pleasantly snappy in web surfing and other, non-storage-bound tasks. That tracks pretty well with AMD's goal of delivering "good enough" CPU performance.

What about the graphics side of things? I won't spoil the numbers here, but I will say that, when AMD talks of Brazos beating Nile's graphics performance by up to 50%, it's not singling out a best-case scenario. I wouldn't recommend making a Brazos laptop your primary gaming rig, of course—integrated graphics are what they are—but I think it's fair to say this platform sets a new high-water mark for mobile AMD IGPs. And thanks to UVD3, high-definition video playback isn't a problem. All of a sudden, the future of Atom-based netbooks with next-gen Nvidia Ion graphics is looking grim. Very grim.

Source: A closer look at AMD's Brazos platform - The Tech Report - Page 1
Click to expand...

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Other related News : Previewing AMD's Brazos, Part 1: More Details on Zacate/Ontario and Fusion - AnandTech :: Your Source for Hardware Analysis and News
AMD's Low Power Fusion APU: Zacate Unveiled - HotHardware
Introduction - A Sneak Peek at AMD's First Fusion APU | [H]ard|OCP
PC Perspective - AMD Brazos and Zacate Architecture Preview- Bobcat ExploredView attachment 12429

--- Updated Post - Automerged ---

AMD has started shipping Brazos platform :D Expected design win is around 100+

AMD begins shipping Brazos, announces Bulldozer-based APUs - The Tech Report

Below AMD demonstration of all the Fusion APU's along with LIano and finally the first public demo of Bulldozer

 
Yep, waiting for some benchmarks to get out . Acc to Techreport these are pretty good and if Zacate fetches 6+ hrs of batter then it will be pretty good.

Even I am waiting for my first portable PC update :P

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AMD showed some of the upcoming products based on Brazos platform in the above slides.
 
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