14 DAY TRIAL // By now, end-users will have likely become more than familiar with AMD's plans for the processor and graphics market. Advanced Micro Devices, ever since its acquisition of ATI, has been working on a way to merge the capabilities of the CPU and GPU into a single die. Intel already offers something along these lines in the form of its Core processors. What AMD seeks, however, is to actually create a high-grade CPU with an integrated graphics that actually supports DirectX 11.
Because of the above, Fusion is, right now, the main point of interest when it comes to AMD upcoming releases. Nevertheless, the fact remains that the Sunnyvale, California-based outfit has much more in store than just the Fusion APUs. It is the Bulldozer and Bobcat architectures that should once again light the fire of competitiveness on the high-end front. Not much is known about either of the two, however, and this is exactly why a certain, very recent announcement is bound to draw attention.
In short, AMD will offer details on the two architectures at the Hot Chips conference, held at the Stanford University. Jose Renau, co-chair of Hot Chips and an assistant professor for computer engineering at the University of California at Santa Cruz, even went as far as saying that the Bobcat and Bulldozer will be a radical architectural change and that AMD even depends on their success.
“This is a radical architecture change," Renau said "Since AMD has been in trouble these could be do-or-die chips for them. In the same way the move from the AMD K5 to the K6 was a big change, so the move from the Opteron to the Bulldozer is a huge change."
The Hot Chips conference will take place between August 22 and 24 and will see other companies, such as Microsoft and ARM, elaborating on projects of their own as well.