AMD Next-Gen Kaveri APU Shipments Slip To 2014 138
MojoKid writes "The story around AMD's upcoming Kaveri continues to evolve, but it's increasingly clear that AMD's 3rd generation APU won't be available for retail purchase this year. If you recall, AMD initially promised that Kaveri would be available during 2013 and even published roadmaps earlier in May that show the chip shipping in the beginning of the fourth quarter. What the company is saying now is that while Kaveri will ship to manufacturers in late 2013, it won't actually hit shelves until 2014. The reason Kaveri was late taping out, according to sources, was that AMD kept the chip back to put some additional polish on its performance. Unlike Piledriver, which we knew would be a minor tweak to the core Bulldozer architecture, Steamroller, Kaveri's core architecture, is the first serious overhaul to that hardware. That means it's AMD's first chance to really fix things. Piledriver delivered improved clock speeds and power consumption, but CPU efficiency barely budged compared to 'Dozer. Steamroller needs to deliver on that front."
AMD APUs have the highest performance per dollar. (Score:5, Interesting)
The AMD APUs really are a great melding of price vs performance. Sure Intel has faster CPUs, but they're also more than twice as much! The highest end APU is $150, and the highest i7 is $340. The i7 will have higher CPU performance, but most games aren't CPU bound, they're GPU bound. The AMD APUs have decent GPUs. They won't replace your high end GPU if you're playing Battlefield at 1080p, but if you're a mid-level gamer they perform great. Plus you can always add a decent GPU for $150 and you're still less than that 4700 i7!
Intel have 30 people working on Intel graphics (Score:4, Interesting)
The AMD APUs really are a great melding of price vs performance....
Even though I loath the 70% gross margin that Intel insists on. They have http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=MTI5MTI [phoronix.com] 20-30 people working on Linux Drivers vs 5 from AMD. There is more than one way to measure bang for buck. That said when I buy a separate graphics card it will be AMD.