AMD Processor

AMD's APU13

We learned a lot about AMD's plans from the company's APU Developer Summit '13. The three mobile processor designs to expect in 2014 are: Mullins (with two to four Puma-based cores, a GCN-based engine, a security-oriented co-processor, and a roughly 2 W thermal design limit), Beema (also two to four Puma-based cores, a GCN-based engine, a security-oriented co-processor, and a 10-25 W thermal design), and of course Kaveri (two to four Steamroller-based cores, a GCN-based engine, more HSA functionality, TrueAudio support, and a 15-35 W ceiling).

Mainstream gamers are going to be most interested in the desktop version of Kaveri, which will employ as many as 512 shaders. That number puts the APU on par with AMD's Radeon HD 7750, which a quick little discrete board operating at 800 MHz. Although Kaveri-based processors won't be able to benefit from GDDR5 memory, we'll be curious to see what the on-die graphics engine can do with DDR3 instead. More pressing, will it best Intel's Iris Pro 5200 solution, which is currently only really available in the mobile space?

Mullins and Beema are low-power processors also armed with GCN-based Compute Units. Surely AMD is counting on them to facilitate entry-level gaming in Windows 8.1-based tablets, but time will tell if these designs enjoy any more success than the company's efforts up until now. We hear that AMD will have some interesting form factor demonstrations at CES this coming January, so we'll keep you posted.

In other news, the Athlon II and Phenom II processors are gone from our favorite online shopping sites. We've seen certain models disappear temporarily before, but we also wouldn't be surprised if those old warhorses were put to pasture for good. If so, that's the end of an era...