Those of you interested in the technical aspects of Kaveri can refer back to our prior analysis of AMD's desktop parts. Backed-up by an array of enhancements that include better branch prediction, an improved scheduler and heterogeneous Uniform Memory Access (hUMA), the APU as we know it today is laying the groundwork for the forward-looking Heterogeneous System Architecture (HSA). That all changed at the turn of the year with the introduction of 'Kaveri' - a 28nm revision that led the way on both fronts by debuting AMD's new Steamroller CPU cores and pairing them with up-to-date GCN (Graphics Core Next) graphics. The resulting chips had their strengths, however it always felt as though the APU was playing catch-up. 2012 heralded the arrival of 'Trinity' and the amalgamation of much-maligned Piledriver CPU cores with Radeon HD 6000 graphics, while last year's 'Richland' offered little more than increased operating frequencies. There's no questioning AMD's vision - graphics are now an integral component of nearly every consumer CPU - yet the chip manufacturer's Accelerated Processing Unit (APU) hasn't always managed to leverage its best available technologies.įlick through the history books and you'll recall that 2011's 'Llano' brought together AMD's K10 CPU and ageing Radeon HD 5000-series graphics alongside a somewhat-inelegant Fusion Controller Hub. Since that momentous deal in 2006, the much-vaunted 'Fusion' of CPU and GPU has promised to deliver "a new class of accelerated processor that combines more compute capabilities than any processor in the history of computing".
It's hard to believe that the best part of a decade has passed since AMD sent tremors through the industry with its multi-billion-dollar acquisition of ATI Technologies.