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AMD Demos Llano Fusion APU, Radeon 6800 Series
MojoKid writes "At a press event for the impending launch of AMD's new Radeon HD 6870 and HD 6850 series graphics cards, the company took the opportunity to provide an early look at the first, fully functional samples of their upcoming 'Llano' processor, or APU (Applications Processer Unit). For those unfamiliar with Llano, it's 32nm 'Fusion' product that integrates CPU, GPU, and Northbridge functions on a single die. The chip is a low-power derivative of the company's current Phenom II architecture fused with a GPU that will target a wide range of operating environments at speeds of 3GHz or higher. Test systems showed the integrated GPU had no trouble running Alien vs. Predator at a moderate resolution with DirectX 11 features enabled. In terms of the Radeon 6800 series, board shots have been unveiled today, as well as scenes from AMD's upcoming tech demo, Mecha Warrior, showcasing the new graphics technology and advanced effects from the open source Bullet Physics library."
I've got no idea how fast an "Alien vs. Predator" video game needs the graphics system to be, since I stopped caring once any modern hardware could play Nethack or Solitaire.
AvP is a relatively modern game. Came out in the last year or so. It isn't mind-shatteringly amazing, but it looks pretty decent.
Traditionally, integrated graphics have done a lousy job with serious gaming on PCs. Basically any FPS has required a discrete 3D card.
If Joe Sixpack can go out and buy an off-the-shelf machine at Best Buy and play a game on it without having to upgrade the hardware, it'll be a huge step in the right direction.
But this chip doesn't look like it'll be replacing 3D cards for serious gamers anytime soon.
Can the hardware play 1080p video without needing a noisy fan? How low power is "low-power"?
It's a desktop chip, so I can't imagine it'll do anything without a fan. Although the integrated graphics means that you wouldn't need a separate graphics card with its own fan. So it should be at least a little quieter.
"Work is the curse of the drinking classes." -Oscar Wilde
What I suspect AMD has done was add tesselation units to the chip. This will be evident when running the Heaven Benchmark with Tesselation enabled. Keep in mind that Tesselation is one of the key changes between DX10.1 and DX11 and as you stated, this is future looking. Sure the chip may be a bit slower currently but I suspect that when running something that depends heavily on tesselation, there wont be any slowdowns.
The reason I'm aware of this is my Radeon 5650. It's a DX11 card with 512 onboard and when running the Heaven Test, there's lots of improvement when tesselation is on even though the card struggles and drops to between 4-12 frames. With tesselation off, the card easily handles the test at a playable rate of 45-60 frames.
Mod me up/Mod me down: I wont frown as I've no crown
I doubt it. Switching to AMD (especially for only part of their line) seems like it would have a lot of ancillary costs such as the R&D help I know Intel has given Apple. Apple stuck by Intel for years through their abysmal "GPUs" (I've got one, along with an nVidia, in my MacBook Pro). Intel's latest round of integrated GPUs is actually supposed to be pretty good, to the point that on lower end computers (like MacBooks) it may not be necessary to include even a low-end GPU.
Also, don't forget the right now AMD has the Phenom, which is a good chip, and Intel has their current Core line, which is an amazing line of chips. To go to AMD means sacrificing performance/watt on the CPU side.
Two years ago maybe it would have mattered. Today? Too little too late.
Being a former NeXT and Apple Engineer I can tell you unequivocally your thought is Bull Shit. Intel gave NeXT practically zero information for the NeXTStep Port to Intel. Apple designs around Intel Specs and Intel helps as another OEM. No special treatment.