Advanced Micro Devices is to start shipments of its first family of performance-mainstream accelerated processing units for the desktop, codenamed ‘Llano’, in July.
The world’s second largest supplier of microprocessors, which also competes with NVidia in the PC microprocessor and graphics business, is competing head on with Intel’s Sandy Bridge, claiming its new Fusion technology is faster, delivers superior power management and is cheaper for manufacturers to purchase.
AMD’s initial line up will include five A-series models comprising four quad-core microprocessors with 100W or 65W TDP and one dual-core with 65W power consumption, according to X-bit labs.
11 Fusion-based systems are due altogether.
Later during the third quarter the company plans to release a dual-core low-end offering based on Llano design.
And in the fourth quarter, the company is projected to refresh the A-series family with new A8, A6 and A4 models.
According to reports, it is estimated that about 61 percent of AMD’s value comes from notebook and desktop processors.
A comparison with AMD’s main rival Intel’s Sandy Bridge shows Llano maintaining longer battery life, and higher performance in multi-tasking where heavy video or graphics are used.
Intel maintains, however, that a more powerful CPU and less emphasis on graphics processing is the future, while AMD believes systems will be required to handle more graphic intensive tasks.
AMD says its integrated graphics cores with up to 400 stream processors will offer performance that will by far exceed that Intel’s Core i-series Sandy Bridge microprocessors and hopes the move will attract the attention of multimedia enthusiasts to its Lynx desktop platform.
AMD has suffered a significant market decline in notebook processors since it peaked in 2007.
While desktop sales aren’t showing much growth, notebook sales are expected to increase despite the threat from tablets.
In Australia, manufacturers including Acer, MSI, Sony, HP, Dell, Lenovo, Asus and Toshiba are set to launch Fusion-based systems.
In terms of market share, Intel commands the lionshare of global microprocessor revenue ending 2010 with 81.0 percent market share, up a scant 0.4 percentage points from the previous year.
Meanwhile AMD ended the year with 11.4 percent share, down 0.8 points from the previous year, keeping it in second place.
