They say two heads are better than one, but in processors with integrated graphics -- think Intel's Sandy Bridge or AMD's APUs -- the GPU and CPU actually do very little communicating. For the most part, the GPU does its thing while the CPU knocks about on something else. There has to be something better! And as it turns out, there is: a group of researchers from North Carolina State University recently coaxed CPUs and GPUs on integrated processors into helping each other out, and they report a performance boost of over 20 percent as a result.
Coming up with new and hip brand names isn’t an easy task, that is unless you take the easy road and just stuck “I” in front of everything. For those most part these days marketing departments are finding all the reasonably catchy buzz words have been snatched up, and much to the surprise of AMD, so was Fusion. 
While AMD’s Bobcat-based Fusion APUs have been pretty successful in the ultra-portable notebook market, the chipmaker’s lone tablet-optimized Z01 “Desna” APU has found few takers. But even that wasn’t enough to stop Taiwan-based company BungBungame from building a business tablet around the Z01, which combines two 1GHz Bobcat cores and a Radeon HD 6250 graphics core on the same die. Hit the jump for more.
From a manufacturing standpoint, it's been nothing short of a challenging year for AMD. Poor yields affected AMD's 32nm Llano Fusion APUs (Accelerated Processing Units), which ended up delaying its release. Looking ahead, it appears AMD's next generation Trinity APUs will enjoy a smoother rollout and won't be hit by the same yield issues that plagued Llano.
Originally scheduled for sometime during the third quarter, the launch of Intel’s next-generation “Cedar Trail” Atom chips was pushed back to November owing to driver issues and the chip maker’s failure to secure WHQL certification for them. We have almost come to the end of the month and there is no sign of the Cedar Trail-M platform yet. But not everyone is clueless.
Do your remember the company that recently launched an application for running Android apps on Windows? Yes, we’re talking about BlueStacks and its App Player for Windows that launched in alpha on October 11. Although not everyone seems to appreciate the ability to run Android apps on Windows, BlueStacks is having no trouble in finding those that do.
Zotac's quickly building a reputation as the witch doctor of computers. The company isn't shrinking heads, it's shrinking PCs. Zotac's latest creation is the A75-ITX WiFi platform, a mini-PC built around AMD's A75 chipset with support for socket FM1 accelerated processing units (APUs) and utilizing the mini-ITX form factor. Despite it's small size, the A75-ITX WiFi comes wielding a very big spec sheet.
Small. Simple. Smart. Those are the three goals MSI set out to achieve with its new Wind Box DC100, which the company is describing as a fashionable mini PC with an eco-chic design. Tear open the DC100 and you'll find the latest AMD Brazos platform running the show with an E-450 dual-core processor clocked at 1.65GHz and Radeon HD 6320 discrete class graphics.
So what if summer is over, the weather is still good for fishing, and AMD is hoping to reel in entry-level system builders working on a tight budget. The bait? A pair of new Fusion-powered A-series accelerated processing units (APUs), the A4-3300 and A4-3400. With the introduction of the A4-3300, the cost of entry for a desktop APU is now just $70, or at least that's where AMD wants it to be at.
AMD today rolled out its E45M1-Pro micro-ATX motherboard built around AMD's Fusion-powered "Zacate" platform. Browsing through Asus' product pages, it's the only board we could find to come embedded with AMD's dual-core E-450 APU (accelerated processing unit), AMD's fastest Zacate APU to date with a 1.65GHz clockspeed and integrated Radeon HD 6320 graphics.Connect with MaximumPC
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