AMD Fusion might aim at the mainstream laptops next

After spending some really productive time with the netbooks and ultraportables – the AMD Fusion APU has just jumped from the netbook to full-size notebook form-factors.  Already released by their first laptop vendors Toshiba and Lenovo, the new AMD Fusion Llano platform (A series) provides a high end graphics. Both of them are entry level laptops with a low price.

The laptops

The introduction of the A series Fusion is really going to affect the market a lot as the price of the laptops are low compared to existing models. Toshiba has introduced three models a week earlier with a 14inch model costing around $550 and another high end laptop L775D-S7226 with a 17.3inch display supporting a resolution of 1600 x 900 pixels costing around only $600. Lenovo also introduced its first A Series (Llano) processor notebooks one 14inch and the other 15.6 inches with a starting range of $550.

Fusion A-series

Fusion processors can be termed as Gaming processor and great graphic capabilities. Compared to Intel core processors they are expected to provide a lot better graphics without any stand-alone graphics card because the APU conceals a Radeon chip itself. The quad core A-6 processor will be able to play most of the games with moderate details, while the slightly higher end A8 processor will be perfect for the PC gamers. Their performance with a graphics card will be worth a wonderful experience.

The energy consumption of the Fusion processor is also very low. As with this processor a graphics card will be an option the battery life will definitely extend up to 4-5 hours.

With the entire above plus points a few disadvantages may also be faced with these processors. They have a clock speed of 2.4 GHz and large part of it used to fuel the high end graphics. So it uses a technology called OpenCL for heavy demands of processing power. Applications requiring heavy processing may feel to be slower than the core Intel processors.

Roadmap

By the mid of next year AMD is planning to launch another new processor called bulldozer. Its cores are expected to be even more powerful though a lot more energy efficient. Current AMD processors have two types of core – low power Bobcat cores (Fusion E Series) and moderately powerful Llano cores (A Series). Bulldozer would replace the Llano cores with the Bobcat cores leading to further reduction of their power consumption to tablet levels. Llano chips consume maximum of 35watts while Bobcat- base Fusion chips consume just 9 watts which is further expected to go below 5watts. AMD may have future plans with this processor to conquer the tablet world too.

Well the future world is definitely going to change with these processors and the price won’t be a problem for the users while planning for a new laptop.

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