In a surprise announcement at Computex in Taiwan, AMD unveiled its plans to produce a Bulldozer-based APU, codenamed Trinity. The company also launched its Z series chips, aimed at Windows tablets, and announced the official branding for its Llano APUs. (“APU” is AMD-speak for a processor that combines CPU and GPU cores on a single die.)
Not much was revealed about the 32nm Trinity chip apart from the codename, the fact that it combines Bulldozer cores with a GPU, and the fact that the GPU supports DX11. This would definitely pose a big challenge to the Intel Sandy bridge which has a weaker GPU.
AMD also launched it’s Z series APUs targeting tablets. The Bobcat-based Z series parts will have a 6W TDP, which is much higher than Intel’s Moorestown (which is in the 1W range, depending on what you’re doing), and certainly not even close to being in the same league as the sub-1W ARM competition. With the higher power draw, the Z series would most likely see itself on netbooks rather than on a tablet.
AMD announced the official VISION branding for Llano today, dubbing it the A series of APUs. The three tiers in the Llano family are A4, A6, and A8, which means that the recently leaked slides showing these codenames were legit. As was shown in the leaked presentation, AMD will be aiming Llano squarely at Intel’s current Sandy Bridge lineup.
For a preview of the benchmark performance of the A series LIano against the Intel Sandy bridge, please click here.