The magnifying glass highlights part of the die, though the rest isn't fully obscured

Apr 25, 2014 07:34 GMT  ·  By

For a while now, we've known that AMD will release the Beema and Mullins accelerated processing units this month. Now, the company is confirming those thoughts, albeit in a pretty roundabout way.

April 29 will be a big day for the technology industry, because it's when NVIDIA and Advanced Micro Devices will unveil some new products.

Well, “unveil” isn't the best term, but it works for us. NVIDIA has already launched the GeForce GTX Titan Z dual-GPU graphics card, sure enough, but sales will only start on April 29.

Similarly, AMD is preparing to unleash the Beema and Mullins accelerated processing units, though it made sure to never shout that outright.

Now, AMD has begun its #AMDReveal teaser routine, as it sometimes does when a big product unveiling is nearing.

The Sunnyvale, California-based corporation didn't actually say this is about the Beema, or what other chip is the subject of the leak. Still, it's not that hard to assume.

The “leak” consists of a shadowed render of an APU die shot, with a magnifying glass highlighting part of it.

As always, AMD kept silent about the capabilities of the chips, but fortunately, we have a previous leak to draw on.

So, as far as we know, the Beema would have 2-4 Puma cores and a TDP (thermal design power) of 10-25W.

Given the way APUs assign more die space to GPUs these days, and what we can see in the teaser, the orange sections are two of those four cores, with the other two right below. The rest of the die is divided between the graphics core next (GCN) GPU cores and the I/O + memory and storage controller.

Of course, if this turns out not to be Beema, it could be a mobile Kabini of some sort, or a socketed desktop variant for HTPCs. The odds of this being something completely new and unexpected exist as well, but they are infinitesimal.

And it can't be the Mullins because that one will have a smaller, much more compact die. Sure, it still has, or will have, 2-4 Puma cores, but it can't have everything in the pictures above and below but still stay at 2W power consumption.

Over the next few days, AMD will release new pictures, with more and more of the chip highlighted. Whether any technical details accompany those visual revelations is anyone's guess. Mine is a pretty solid “no.” We're likely going to wait until April 29 for that.

AMD Beema teaser
AMD Beema teaser

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AMD Beema teaser
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