AMD's Fusion Ready for Windows 8, Android and Consumer Electronics

AMD's Fusion Ready to Tackle Consumer Electronics

Not to be left out from the big headliners of the CES show, AMD held its own demonstrations in its meeting rooms. It goes without saying that the Radeon HD 7970 was showcased in CrossFireX configuration and running multi-screen 3D gaming, but that's not the the highlight for us. However, seeing AMD's Fusion based products handling Windows 8 and Android 4.0 was more gratifying.

Two tablets were on display, one is an Acer Iconia Tab W500P that runs an AMD Ontario C-50 (1GHz) Fusion processor, while the other is a MSI WindPad 110W running an almost identically configured APU, except that it's using a Z-01 chip which uses the core code Desna and has a lower TDP profile of 5.9 watts instead of 9 watts. Overall user experience on both tablets was smooth and encouraging. No details or design wins were shared at this point of time, but we're glad to know AMD's ready and busy qualifying these operating systems with its vendors to run well on its APUs. After all, with the explosion of tablets and the coming of Windows 8, AMD's APUs are prime candidates to power the newer range of tablets.

Lastly, we were treated to an example of how AMD’s G-series embedded line of APUs power consumer electronics gadgets. Shown at AMD’s meeting room was the Haier K58M3000P TV that featured an embedded AMD G-series T48N APU (1.4GHz dual-core with 500MHz DX 11 GPU) to power OTT (over-the-top) features and deliver the TV’s internet experience.

You’re not going to see an AMD Fusion powered sticker on these consumer electronics devices, so this example shown by AMD gave us an idea just how ready the Fusion APU is for mass market penetration. How many products and brands would actually end up using the APU is a tough question as it’s a complicated situation of balancing existing deals, partnerships and what kind of services are required to be run on the device. Perhaps we’ll get a better picture of this landscape later this year.