AMD announces Conesus netbook platform, ATI Stream brand, Fusion processor delay

We already got word of AMD's new 45nm Shanghai Opterons this morning, but it looks like that was only just the beginning of a deluge of news out of the slightly troubled company today, which includes the expected announcement of its netbook platform, the introduction of its new ATI Stream brand, and word of a delay to its much-vaunted Fusion platform. On the netbook front, AMD is hoping that its "Conesus" processor will prove to be a formidable competitor to Intel's Atom, with it apparently existing only in a 45nm, dual-core version that includes 1MB of cache and support for DDR2 RAM. Look for it to roll out in the first half of 2009. Coming ahead of that is AMD's new ATI Stream brand, which encompasses a number of the company's different stream and GPU computing initiatives and attempts to make them more attractive to both consumer and enterprise markets. To that end, AMD will be adding Stream support to its next Catalyst update (due in December), which will apparently let folks easily run stream applications that make use of your graphics card's GPU for some added computing power. It's not all high-fives around AMD, however, as the company has also let out word that its Fusion platform based around the dual CPU / GPU "Shrike" processor will be delayed until sometime in 2011, a full year later than originally planned. As if that wasn't enough, it's also shaken up the rest of its processor roadmap a bit, although it's entirely possible that it'll fluctuate a bit further before things really settle down. Hit up the links below to break all that down piece by piece.

Read - Extreme Tech, "AMD Answers Atom with 'Conesus,' Roadmap Update"
Read - PC Perspective, "ATI Stream Computing: From the desktop to the datacenter"
Read - HotHardware, "AMD ATI Stream Computing Update"
Read - TG Daily, "AMD delays Fusion processor to 2011"

[varun @ Nov 13th 2008 4:14PM]

Only the ExtremeTech article talks about the netbook processor - and it has virtually no details.

I can't be the only to see if this is going toe-to-toe with Atom or Nano - or if it's going for the middle ground. Anyone else hear anything about TDP?

[JohnTitor @ Nov 13th 2008 4:35PM]

25W
its gonna be more like a Nano performance competitor than a low power high battery life Atom competitor

[Matt @ Nov 13th 2008 4:43PM]

To clarify: the entire Yukon platform is sub 25W TDP, which is CPU plus chipset.

[tekd @ Nov 14th 2008 12:18AM]

Wow, 25W TDP is pretty terrible...intel's chipsets use more power than their Atom CPUs but even then the mobile chipsets weigh in at 6W TDP so the combined is still very low. And I know there's at least one third party vendor which tweaks intel chipsets for even lower power use that'll take that down another couple of watts (although far as I can tell they just sample through a bunch of intel mobile chips then more or less undervolt the the best ones).
Well, either way hopefully it'll end up doing better than their current netbook attempts have been (that is, canceled).

[Matt @ Nov 14th 2008 10:57AM]

Atom platforms operate between 10-20 watts. That’s what you need to be comparing the Yukon

[Matt @ Nov 14th 2008 11:03AM]

sorry, my full message was cut off...I was saying that the 20w Atom is what you need to be comparing the Yukon

[Matt @ Nov 14th 2008 11:13AM]

note to self...the less than symbol cuts off your comment...anyway, what I've been laboring to say is that the Atom platforms don't have the same full functionality of Yukon. You're gonna have to make some trade-offs but 5-10w for a lot more functionality doesn't sound all that bad.

[dreamer @ Nov 13th 2008 4:15PM]

man i hate the cougar ad!

[Jeff @ Nov 13th 2008 5:10PM]

Was it any better than Paris' ugly face?

[Ignatius @ Nov 13th 2008 5:45PM]

Man, I love Ad Block Plus!

[schmitty338 @ Nov 13th 2008 4:17PM]

Awwww....I was really hoping for, nigh, expecting, some more immediate releases, it all sounds good, but unless they can hold-out that long as a company and a brand, these maybe be too little too late for AMD.

I really hope they give Intel some excellent competition when they DO get released, though.

[Thi mam(kris120890) @ Nov 13th 2008 4:20PM]

It doesn't say which hardware will support ATI Stream. Is this ati's version of cuda but looks like more companies are going to support it.
As for fusion I couldn't care to for a couple of years any way. But the Atom competitor could be pretty important and bring down prices of netbooks to their original £300 price as long as amd go competitive.

[matt @ Nov 13th 2008 6:27PM]

There are few netbooks above £300, most of the EEE's, wind alikes and ones are much less, starting from £180 for a One.

[Angus Hedger @ Nov 13th 2008 4:28PM]

Comeon ATI, I went intel this round because of the C2Q's rocking, lets see some ass kicking!

I hope my next build can be AMD again =[

[Pfanne @ Nov 13th 2008 4:53PM]

want fusion processors!
NOW!

[EK @ Nov 13th 2008 6:26PM]

I really hope AMD just turns over and dies. That company and all it's nerds following! Makes me mad! I prefer INTEL. For 11+ years they have never steered me wrong in any system I have bought or built. The same with windows. Why are there so many cults that follow operating ystems and different processors, stick with what works GEEZ! If you didn't go around overclocking or messing around in Windows there would be no problems. But, alas, those who complain are the ones who mess up their own stuff their own selves! I pitty the fool! Oh yeah one more thing............
INTEL FOR LIFE.......AMD DIE ALREADY HAHAHAA LOL
now rank me down if it makes you feel better nerds and geeks!

[matt @ Nov 13th 2008 6:28PM]

Oh look, a troll. Lets poke it with a stick and see what it does.

Damn, looks like a one shot one.

[matt @ Nov 13th 2008 6:32PM]

Also, typing IN MASSIVE CAPS just make you look like a bit of a twunt.

[Alex @ Nov 13th 2008 8:03PM]

...dude, chill out, competence is good to keep intel developing new stuff

[RX3115 @ Nov 14th 2008 1:45PM]

Die Troll

[Elora HRanma @ Nov 13th 2008 7:34PM]

One more delay? I can hardly remember when was the first time I heard about those CPU+GPU AMD chipsets, but I recall it being announced for around 2009. Putting those two together must be quite a brain job. What's holding you, AMD? Heat dissipation? Memory bandwidth? Sarah Connor?
If they don't figure it out fast, Intel is going to eat the whole market the Fusion was originally designed for. Back in the day I thought it would revolutionize the portable world, but now...

[tom @ Nov 13th 2008 9:32PM]

None of the above, graphical processing focuses on floating point operation and multi-chip processing is common place. On the other hand, CPU focuses on single thread processing. It has only been recently since some application/OS uses multi-threading.

Putting these two processing behavior together isn't as simple as gluing a CPU and GPU together

[socritic @ Nov 13th 2008 11:38PM]

Someone needs to tell
the folks at AMD
that the naming scheme sucks!
Conesus? Shrike?
come on

[ed. @ Nov 14th 2008 12:21AM]

lol calm down, they're just code names. The names are different when they're released