Fusion Powered

AMD's acquisition of ATI is bearing fruit in the form of plans for a an integrated CPU/GPU chipset that AMD is calling "Fusion." After years of discrete GPUs, either in the form of integrated graphics processors (IGPs) or slot-based graphics cards, why is AMD betting the market will willingly change direction now? I can see two reasons: performance-per-watt and simplicity.

Putting the CPU cores and GPU on the same chipset should allow better throughput between the CPUs and GPU, and should lower energy consumption in many computing scenarios. Now, AMD has been careful not to say that Fusion will be a high-end graphics solution—that end of the market consists of gamers and 3D professionals, and I'm guessing they will still be served by slot-based graphics cards. But for everyone else, the benefits of a simple—not to mention compact—solution may prove worthwhile. Better everyday graphics performance for the rest of us, in lower-power devices like laptops, phones and PDAs may be a smart strategy for AMD to adopt. But the devil's in the details, as they say, and we're not likely to see the first platforms based on this technology until late 2008. A lot can happen between now and then.

Posted by Kevin Carlson at 01:30 PM  Permalink