AMD Trinity: Going Mobile with a New APU (Comment Thread)

[SKYMTL]

Originally Posted by Jebusman

You know, that battery life comment is funny, considering in real life, general usage, non-benchmark situations, that SB i5 matches power consumption with the A10. Kind of makes the 2nd point moot if I'm getting comparable battery life.

So let me get this straight here. The TWO (maybe 3) things AMD has going for them right now, is that their laptops can play games on settings "slightly" higher than "Low" (without discrete graphics), and you'll get better battery life during gaming due to the Trinity's more efficient yet powerful IGP. Oh yeah, and maybe price depending.

Like I said, the only thing that is going to determine how great Trinity actually is, is the price. Until I see a HWC review that says otherwise, every single review I've found (with maybe one outlier), has Trinity pegged as a "Good, not amazing" architecture. Depending on the price, that could go from "Good" to "Sweet jesus everyone buy 70 of these"

You are actually referring to TDP, which isn't necessarily power consumption per se but rather the maximum thermal value at which a given architecture will operate. On the mobile platform in particular, the real determining factor for battery life is HOW LONG a given architecture will need to operate at or close to its TDP to deliver sufficient performance.

Let's take a step back and look at this for a moment. Let's say for argument's sake that one 45W processor performs a bit better but does so by remaining closer to its TDP most of the time. Another 45W processor may not offer as much benchmarkable performance but to an end user, delivers exactly the same perceptible experience and yet it remains at a lower TDP level most of the time. That first processor will have shorter battery life and a higher heat signature than the second one. Thus, you can't automatically assume that a present TDP value will translate directly into power consumption.

While I have yet to test Trinity, what I can tell you is its dynamic GPU power gating, SIMD partitioning and real time power management features could actually give it a leg up on Intel's Ivy Bridge (which for all intents and purposes is NOT a particularly efficient architecture) regardless of its chosen 32nm node. At least from a battery consumption standpoint...

Now, onto the performance aspect. As I said in the article, 95% of notebooks don't need bucket loads of x86 performance. Not these days. Heck, I can slap a high performance SSD into a dual core netbook and in most tasks the little thing will "feel" just as fast as a high performance notebook that's been equipped with a spindle-based drive.

Will I be using my slim and light notebook for thread-intensive tasks like raytrace computing, gaming, etc? Heck no, and most of the typical compute-intensive tasks like encoding, file compression, Flash acceleration, Photoshop editing and HD video decoding can now be accelerated by a GPU anyways. Hence why I think Trinity is a step in the right direction: to balance out serial and parallel processing.

We've all been brought up on a constant diet of e-peen growing, marketing mumbo jumbo about more cores being better and faster speeds being needed. It is for this reason that mainstream notebook battery life really hasn't improved significantly over the last four or so years. Using the GPU to deliver performance when its needed in compute intensive tasks and a quartet of x86 processors for the rest of my needs strikes me as perfect. Personally I can't imagine buying a notebook with anything more than a four threaded processor anyways.

Trinity isn't about gaming, framerates or any other fringe activity. It is about delivering a balanced computing experienced where certain architectural elements (ie: the GPU) can be harnessed for increased performance in certain demanding tasks. If you want gaming, the upcoming Piledriver-based FX series or high end Ivy Bridge processors alongside a dedicated GPU is the ticket to satisfaction. Otherwise, for a balanced experience, Trinity seems to have what it takes. So does Ivy Bridge for that matter but why would I spend $200+ more just for an Intel badge and a processor that's a bit faster on paper? At least, that's what AMD is hoping you'll think.

The key word here is "experience". That can't be benchmarked, nor can it be accurately described. But what I do know is that charts, when taken alone, cannot show the benefits of AMD's APU architecture. Nor can they show the benefits of any CPU+GPU heterogeneous computing processor for that matter.

Will Trinity be a success? I certainly hope so but after years of people being fed the same crap about faster processors offering a better computing environment, AMD has a lot of marketing to do. I mean, how do you effectively market an experience?

/end rant

[Jebusman]

Originally Posted by SKYMTL

While I have yet to test Trinity...

First off, is this going to be any time soon?

Originally Posted by SKYMTL

why would I spend $200+ more just for an Intel badge and a processor that's a bit faster on paper? At least, that's what AMD is hoping you'll think.

If it actually turns out to be a $200+ difference in price, I'll gladly jump into the Land of Trinity.

[SKYMTL]

Originally Posted by Jebusman

First off, is this going to be any time soon?

I honestly don't know. I want a retail unit and it looks like the closest one (the HP Envy Sleekbook) will be available in mid-July.

[great_big_abyss]

Originally Posted by Jebusman

If it actually turns out to be a $200+ difference in price, I'll gladly jump into the Land of Trinity.

Why does it have to be a $200 difference? If Trinity offers similar performance and a comparable experience to mobile IB processors, but (hypothetically) an hour longer batter life, why do you want to pay $200 less for something that says AMD on it instead of Intel?

If anything, the Trinity equipped notebook could potentially be worth more since you can potentially do an hour's more 'work'. Might make a difference when you're stuck on a plane for 6 hours, or when you're in the passenger seat on a road trip.

[great_big_abyss]

Originally Posted by SKYMTL

I honestly don't know. I want a retail unit and it looks like the closest one (the HP Envy Sleekbook) will be available in mid-July.

Did you not receive one of the AMD badged 'whitebooks' that got sent to other review sites?

[stoanee]

I am looking for a laptop and it has to fit within a specific category, ie moderate use. I will buy something a "little" better than I need just so it doesn't suck, but my requirements are still the same, and I just want it to work. I will be choosing from this category based on perceived manufacturer quality and price. I also dislike hot running units so that and battery life will be a consideration. If AMD comes in $100-200 cheaper then that is what I will buy, If Intel comes in $100-200 cheaper then that is what I will buy. The only thing I will change is to pop in a ssd.

I'll bet there are many people, when there a similar units that fit within their "performance envelope", that will shop based on price. I love the fact that the manufactures are sweating the details in terms of efficiency. I predict AMD Trinity will do just fine.

[sswilson]

Much is going to depend on how they're marketed and built... My current HP laptop is a quad core AMD, but the crap HDD they put into it makes it feel like something I might have bought second hand back in the turn of the century. If they market it solely as an overall budget platform, then the experience is not going to be a good one.

As far as... "why would it have to be $200 cheaper?" goes.... because AMD has a long way to go to regain my trust.

[SKYMTL]

Originally Posted by great_big_abyss

Did you not receive one of the AMD badged 'whitebooks' that got sent to other review sites?

AMD didn't really support us on this one. We had a 45 minute briefing last Thursday night (launch was this Tuesday) covering very generalized aspects. The rest was cobbled together from our knowledge of the Llano architecture and how it likely translated into Trinity.

If I hadn't emailed them, we would have likely received zero info. No idea where the ball was dropped but I am actually happy we didn't get a "genericbook" since from my conversations with HP, it isn't in any way representative of final performance.

[terrybear]

Originally Posted by SKYMTL

You are actually referring to TDP, which isn't necessarily power consumption per se but rather the maximum thermal value at which a given architecture will operate. On the mobile platform in particular, the real determining factor for battery life is HOW LONG a given architecture will need to operate at or close to its TDP to deliver sufficient performance.

Let's take a step back and look at this for a moment. Let's say for argument's sake that one 45W processor performs a bit better but does so by remaining closer to its TDP most of the time. Another 45W processor may not offer as much benchmarkable performance but to an end user, delivers exactly the same perceptible experience and yet it remains at a lower TDP level most of the time. That first processor will have shorter battery life and a higher heat signature than the second one. Thus, you can't automatically assume that a present TDP value will translate directly into power consumption.

While I have yet to test Trinity, what I can tell you is its dynamic GPU power gating, SIMD partitioning and real time power management features could actually give it a leg up on Intel's Ivy Bridge (which for all intents and purposes is NOT a particularly efficient architecture) regardless of its chosen 32nm node. At least from a battery consumption standpoint...

Now, onto the performance aspect. As I said in the article, 95% of notebooks don't need bucket loads of x86 performance. Not these days. Heck, I can slap a high performance SSD into a dual core netbook and in most tasks the little thing will "feel" just as fast as a high performance notebook that's been equipped with a spindle-based drive.

Will I be using my slim and light notebook for thread-intensive tasks like raytrace computing, gaming, etc? Heck no, and most of the typical compute-intensive tasks like encoding, file compression, Flash acceleration, Photoshop editing and HD video decoding can now be accelerated by a GPU anyways. Hence why I think Trinity is a step in the right direction: to balance out serial and parallel processing.

We've all been brought up on a constant diet of e-peen growing, marketing mumbo jumbo about more cores being better and faster speeds being needed. It is for this reason that mainstream notebook battery life really hasn't improved significantly over the last four or so years. Using the GPU to deliver performance when its needed in compute intensive tasks and a quartet of x86 processors for the rest of my needs strikes me as perfect. Personally I can't imagine buying a notebook with anything more than a four threaded processor anyways.

Trinity isn't about gaming, framerates or any other fringe activity. It is about delivering a balanced computing experienced where certain architectural elements (ie: the GPU) can be harnessed for increased performance in certain demanding tasks. If you want gaming, the upcoming Piledriver-based FX series or high end Ivy Bridge processors alongside a dedicated GPU is the ticket to satisfaction. Otherwise, for a balanced experience, Trinity seems to have what it takes. So does Ivy Bridge for that matter but why would I spend $200+ more just for an Intel badge and a processor that's a bit faster on paper? At least, that's what AMD is hoping you'll think.

The key word here is "experience". That can't be benchmarked, nor can it be accurately described. But what I do know is that charts, when taken alone, cannot show the benefits of AMD's APU architecture. Nor can they show the benefits of any CPU+GPU heterogeneous computing processor for that matter.

Will Trinity be a success? I certainly hope so but after years of people being fed the same crap about faster processors offering a better computing environment, AMD has a lot of marketing to do. I mean, how do you effectively market an experience?

/end rant

ALL great points Sky !! In the bolded part I'd like to add thats alot of the reason why amd hasnt had much sucess over the years.

They've lacked that mass marketing efford to drive the point home that "amd" is ment to be in a pc .... where has "intel" has pounded it into a consumers head that when one talks about a computer n such "intel" is usualy brought up as to it needing to be in said device. And because of this marketing that intel's done it causes peaple to do the e-penile / be "sheep" & buy anything that says "intel" on it.

Amd NEEDS to re-educate the consumer into buying what they should to do what they need. Trinity is EXACTLY what MOST consumers NEED in most instances of a mobile or desktop.

Now, IF i go by what I read @ legitreviews Diablo III Gaming Benchmarks on Ivy Bridge & Trinity Laptops - Diablo III Laptop Benchmarking - Legit Reviews earlier today in a diablo III Trinity (AMD reference design wA10-4600M Trinity APU and AMD Radeon HD 7660G graphics) vs Ib (ASUS N56V with the Intel Core i7-3920XM Ivy Bridge Processor and Intel HD Graphics 4000) notebook preformance comparision. It paints the Trinity platform as not much of a slouch averaging 40+% more preformance in the game at 2 diffrent resolutions/detail levels vs the suposivly "superior" ib solution.

I further look forward to your investigation into the preformance of trinity vs ib on matching platforms sky.

[SKYMTL]

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