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Just before the opening of CES, which we'll be covering throughout the week, AMD decided to unveil its Radeon HD 6000M range. Some models have however been available for some time already as a big part of the new range actually corresponds to a renaming of the Mobility Radeon HD 5000s. Note that AMD has altered its nomenclature slightly to include the suffix ‘M’ to signify mobile models, just as NVIDIA does.
This new Radeon HD 6000M range includes most of the models in the previous Radeon range, to which models based on three new GPUs have been added: Barts, Turks et Caicos. Only these three new GPUs support DisplayPort 1.2, but the whole range supports HDMI 1.4a. HDMI 1.4a is simply a software update of HDMI 1.3a and has therefore been activated across the whole Radeon HD 5000 and 6000 range.
AMD still hasn’t given the exact specs of each model and is only talking about the series as a whole. Here’s the information currently available:
  At the top of the range, the Mobility Radeon HD 5870 and 5850 have been renamed as the Radeon HD 6870 and 6850M. Next, AMD has introduced the Radeon HD 6900Ms based on Barts, which also equips the desktop Radeon HD 6800s. Cut down versions of the GPU (192 vec5 units = 960 ‘cores’) with lower clocks are used in both the Radeon HD 6970M and the Radeon HD 6950M. Although the difference in processing power is relatively low between the Radeon HD 6800Ms and 6900Ms, the 6900Ms have almost twice the memory bandwidth thanks to a 256-bit bus.   Further down the range, AMD has renamed the Mobility Radeon HD 5600 and 5700 as Radeon HD 6500Ms and and introduced a new GPU: Turks. Turks is used in the Radeon HD 6600Ms and is a very slight development of Redwood with 96 vec5 processing units in the place of 80.   Finally, at the bottom of the range, the Mobility Radeon HD 5400s have been renamed as Radeon HD 6300Ms and Caicos, another new GPU, makes its appearance in the Radeon HD 6400Ms. To elaborate Caicos, AMD used Cedar as its starting point and then doubled the size of the blocks of processing units. While all the Radeons are equipped with blocks of 16 vec5 units, AMD had to introduce blocks of 8 vec5 units for Cedar so as to have both at its disposal, which is more efficient and allows for the inclusion of more texturing units, as they’re limited to a maximum of four per block. Caicos therefore adopts a similar structure to all the other Radeon GPUs, with 16 vec5 processing units. It therefore has more processing power than Cedar, but there’s no advance in texturing power. We will be making the most of our meetings with AMD to try and obtain more details on these new mobile GPUs. Note that NVIDIA isn’t going to be left behind and is soon likely to be announcing a new range. In absolute terms we always find it regrettable to see so many renamed graphics solutions, which are moreover pushed upwards in comparison with similar desktop models. It’s not easy for the end user to make sense of it all. |
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Although Intel has just launched its new 32nm Sandy Bridge four core CPUs on Socket LGA 1155, its 32nm six core LGA 1366 CPUs are still the brand’s highest end products, even though they are based on the previous generation architecture. Before the arrival of a new Socket in the second half of the year designed for the forthcoming six and eight core Sandy Bridge CPUs, Socket LGA 1366 still has some life in it.
 ECS is indeed referencing a new model, the 990X, on the CPU compatibility page for its X58B-A3 SLI motherboard. Clocked at 3.46 GHz, against 3.33 GHz for the 980X, its TDP is 5w higher at 135w. Like all Extreme Edition CPUs, it's likely to be priced at a prohibitive $999. More than a new CPU at this price, LGA 1366 users are looking for a price cut on the Core i7-970, currently the “cheapest” of the six-cores at $885. |
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AMD launches its first Fusion APUs. These new products are based on a 75mm² die with up to two CPU cores using the new Bobcat architecture and 80 GPU cores (16 vec5 units to be exact, as on the Radeon HD 5450) DirectX 11 and with UVD3. Two ranges are being launched, the E-Series (codename Zacate), designed for laptops and small format desktop PCs as well as the C-Series (codename Ontario), designed for Netbooks and other Tablet PC type formats:
-E-350: 18w, 2 CPU cores at 1.6 GHz, 80 GPU cores at 500 MHz
- E-240: 18w, 1 CPU core at 1.5 GHz, 80 GPU cores at 500 MHz
- C-50: 9w, 2 CPU cores at 1 GHz, 80 GPU cores at 280 MHz
- C-30: 9w, 1 CPU core at 1.2 GHz, 80 GPU cores at 280 MHz
 In terms of performance, the CPU part of the E-350 gives more than the Atoms, especially monothreads, but is a long way down on standard processors. The graphics part is however more convincing as it gives you around 2/3 of the power of an HD 5450, which is pretty good when you look at the reduced TDP. In the end the pricing, announced as aggressive, will be decisive. We’ll have to wait for the second quarter for Lliano, a 32nm APU designed for desktops which will combine up to 4 K10 cores and a higher performance GPU. AMD says that Acer, Asus, Dell, Fujitsu, HP, Lenovo, MSI, Samsung, Sony and Toshiba should soon be announcing products that include the new Fusion APUs. |
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 AMD has launched some new CPUs today, the Phenom II X4 975 and X4 840. The X4 975 is based on the Deneb core, like its predecessors. With a TDP of 125 watts, it is clocked at 3.6 GHz and we have already included it in the test of the most recent Core i5s and i7s. It is officially priced at $195, which is $10 more than the Phenom II X4 970 at 3.5 GHz.
The Phenom II X4 840 is based on the Propus core, in other words the core that has been reserved for the Athlon II X4s up till now! Clocked at 3.2 GHz for a TDP of 95w, it should have been named as the “Athlon II X4 650”, but apparently that didn’t suit AMD and they’ve opted to complicate their naming structure, which must have seemed too straightforward up until now! It's priced at $102, while even the Athlon II X4 645 at 3.1 GHz was $112 up until now. Although we can’t say we approve of the change in naming structure, the gain in the price / performance ratio is positive!
At the last minute, AMD also added the Phenom II X6 1065T to the release of these two CPUs. Clocked at 2.9 GHz, it’s positioned between the 1055T and 1075T which are only priced at a difference of €20. It is therefore of very limited interest. |
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Today Micron announced its RealSSD C400. Like the C300, the C400 is based on Intel/Micron MLC Flash, but is engraved at 25nm instead of 34nm. We still have the SATA 6 Gbps interface and Marvell controller, but the maximum capacity is up from 256 to 512 GB, with the entry-level model at 64 GB.
 Because of the 25nm NAND, energy consumption has been revised downwards with 3w announced in load, against 3.9w for the C300. In terms of speeds, Crucial has announced that the C400 can reach reads of 415 MB/s and writes of 260 MB/s, against 355 MB/s and 215 MB/s on the previous generation. These figures vary depending on capacity, notably when it comes to writes, and you should check this carefully on the 64 GB and 128 GB versions. When will they become available? Micron has announced that mass production should begin in February, with priority deliveries going to its subsidiary, Crucial. We ought to see them in the shops sometime in March/April. |
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