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I’m un-aware where Fusion actually sits within the hardware community but AMD has an interesting future ahead of them. Apparently The Director of Sales and Marketing at AMD ATi stated that the next-generation architecture of their C.P.U will change dramatically.

AMD are currently behind in the Processing race with Intel. I imagine Intel is already heading onto the 32nm fabrication running 8 core processors the Nehlem if I remember correctly. Currently AMD are not making a stand within the market and I imagine this is the next step.

AMD Fusion is the name for their future architecture which has arisen due to the merge between AMD and ATi. The processor code named ‘bulldozer/ bobcat’ will combine general computer processing as well as 3D geometry/ Physics processing. At first glance this is what I though Intel intended for their Larrabee product but I was mistaken. The design is actually ingenious! I mentioned in a previous post the basis of computer architecture and how the ideal design should be used viewed collision of the top players the post also covers my initial thought of Larrabee!
AMD are moving to a modular core design which is called M-Space. The next generation architecture is designed so cores can be combined to increase performance for single threaded tasks and then revert back into multi-core mode obviously for multi threaded software such as gaming environments. The architecture is so unique that the k8 architecture used for the majority of AMD processors will be obsolete.

AMD seem to be on the right track here with their intended architecture. Will they be able to get the fund needed to research and develop their product? Are AMD already in the process of building these processors to take Intel within the first quarters of 2009? It’s along wait but save up for the new-year, I’ve got a good feeling about up-coming products!

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Cray has decided to develop its future HPC around Intel’s silicon. This has become a problem for AMD. Cray did in fact have fabrications from AMD which included XT3, XT4 and XT5. Unfortunately for AMD the organisation was hoping that Cray would strike a 5 year deal with the company securing their current status in the market. Cray have now made a 5 year deal with Intel for HPC which is a massive blow for AMD.

Crays development has been centred round building custom interconnects supporting multiple AMD chips through hypertransport (AMD interconnect). Intel has a rival technology called quickpath possible for their new Larrabee and Nehalem products.

Cray are hoping to combine their efforts. Cray will be using Intels Quickpath along with their own high-bandwidth memory subsystems. They are hoping this will give them a significant leap forward in high performance computational tasks. The result? an exaflop! One quadrillion operations a second, I’ve only heard of TeraFlops!

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ATI are about to fight back with their latest editions of their graphics cards the 4800 series. The products are based on the RV770 Chip process. The 4870, 4850HD and 4850PRO all use GDDR3. The graphics cards are built on a 55nmand have 480 stream processors.

The 4870 is built with high-end GDDR5 memory something that Nvidia Lacks. The processing clock will run at 850 GPU and 1050 Mhz Memory clock. The slower card will spec at 650/850 Mhz.

They may be released in May, but don’t count on it!

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