AMD begins shipping Fusion APUs

No sooner that we find out about one new AMD product, we find yet another.

According to PCWorld, AMD has started shipping the new Fusion chips to manufacturers already.

Purported to be the next big thing in portables, the Fusion chips integrate a CPU and GPU in one, an APU, hoping to give an improved all-round performance compared to competing integrated systems. Currently, the intel GPUs are outperformed by all but the slowest AMD integrated solutions, and as most netbooks ship with an Atom/Intel combo, this restricts netbooks to all but the most basic tasks. AMD hopes to tackle this, with their all-in-one chip.

The two APUs, Zacate and Ontario, could well could be the components that turn netbooks into viable desktop replacements.

This data looks extremely promising, though I am curious why the E-240 is only single core, but I am sure that all will become clear in time.

Allegedly capable of hardware-accelerated 1080p playback, as well as a 10 Hr battery life, the containing laptops may just steal the show at CES next year. The support of DDR3 at up to 1066Mhz is also a step forward for the ultra-mobile platform, hopefully bringing with it the power savings of lower-voltage ram.

They are also reported as having Dx11 capability, with a reviewer at [H]ard|OCP able to even run Crysis at HD resolutions.

Only time will tell whether or not these chips can take over the portable ecosystem, but I foresee a strong place in the market with these little beauties.